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Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

theguardian.com

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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#961

Post by megous »

cornedor wrote: post #29
nkurz wrote: post #18

How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China? I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.

Not exactly the same, but rt.com is banned in the EU. However, I don't know how effective it is, since I can still visit it.

Maybe in theory, but there are no mechanisms or jurisdiction to enforce the ban in many countries. It's not like we have country wide firewall here. Blocks usually happen at ISP DNS server level, and that means very little these days.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#962

Post by megous »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #161
kelthuzad wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't classify murdering 30k+ civilians (15k+ children), dropping bombs on entire families, being caught[0] executing civilians with drones in plain view, having israeli holocaust scholars and survivors describing israel's actions as "textbook-case of genocide"[1][2], the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state, as "winning", but you do you. [0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a m…

Winning is based on war aims. Israel's were the return of captives and removal of Hamas. It is further along in those aims than it was in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks; that's fairly defined as winning. (Taken to the extreme, Nazi Germany was winning WWII in 1940.) > the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state Your other claims are true. This one is not.

With the amount of unexploded munitions they're leaving there, they're supplying the future resistance's rocket and IED systems for the next 75 years. Also creating enough orphans and resentment for another orphan army to replace the current one. Winning?

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#963

Post by trimethylpurine »

dunekid wrote: post #613
imchillyb wrote: post #443

Is it a good idea to allow governments the power to silence journalists so completely? I’d love to hear some perspective other than rabid politics.

No. There can be regulatory bodies, which ideally should be self governing the media instead of executive of the elected government, which regulate some of the media attributes. But a blanket ban on a media house, for criticism in the name of national security? No. That is the failure of the civilian leadership to provide the security to the nation. Admitting that you are naked should the norm, not blinding the popul…

I disagree. The temporary ban is due to the platforming of violence. It's the same ban that the US, UK, and EU have in place and for the same reasons. You can't give terror a voice or it gives terrorists an incentive to commit terror. If AJ wants to broadcast they need to stop airing interviews with terror groups.

Other broadcasters critical of Israel seem to have that part figured out.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#964

Post by throwaway220033 »

dataangel wrote: post #880

I don't agree with Israel censoring websites, but important to keep in mind Al Jazeera is run by Qatar which is a monarchy without real freedom of the press, it's not CNN. They have strong regional interests and an obvious desire to shape the narrative of the conflict. They're not humanitarians.

You can't even compare the reputation of CNN and Al Jazeera.

You can't also compare the interest of US and Israel in manipulating public with any other country in the planet. US & Israel plays the game dirtiest, does false flag attacks, kill children and mothers carrying white flags, bomb hospitals and families of journalists.

Qatar does not do any of these and do not need to manipulate you. US and Israel have to keep manipulating you, because as citizen, you need to be a part of the crime.

Just like in Nazi Germany.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#965

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

magic_hamster wrote: post #685
H8crilA wrote: post #60

I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of…

It's worth noting Qatar is the main benefactor of Al Jazeera, while also having funded Hamas for years, and hosting the Hamas leaders in their country. Al Jazeera in English is extremely different from al Jazeera in Arabic where journalism takes a back seat on any item somehow connected to Israel and especially Hamas. Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".

> having funded Hamas for years, hosting the Hamas leaders in their country

Qatar did both of those things at the request of the US and Israel. Qatar serves as an intermediary between the US/Israel and Hamas, just as it served as an intermediary for talks between the US and the Taliban.

> Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".

The motivation here is clearly to stop information about what is happening in Gaza from reaching the outside world. Al Jazeera is the only major international news agency with a significant presence on the ground there.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#966

Post by Gibbon1 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #951
Gibbon1 wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest avoiding reading anything by a guy that idolizes the Khmer Rouge.

That doesn’t sound like a thing Chomsky would do. I could imagine him saying that certain tactics were effective or certain aspects of their politics were notable, but I don’t see him as someone who idolizes anyone. Do you have a source for this? To me this sounds like a misunderstanding, but I’m open to being shown otherwise.

https://chomsky.info/19770625/

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#968

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway220033 wrote: post #964
dataangel wrote: post #880

I don't agree with Israel censoring websites, but important to keep in mind Al Jazeera is run by Qatar which is a monarchy without real freedom of the press, it's not CNN. They have strong regional interests and an obvious desire to shape the narrative of the conflict. They're not humanitarians.

You can't even compare the reputation of CNN and Al Jazeera. You can't also compare the interest of US and Israel in manipulating public with any other country in the planet. US & Israel plays the game dirtiest, does false flag attacks, kill children and mothers carrying white flags, bomb hospitals and families of journalists. Qatar does not do any of these and do not need to manipulate you. US and Israel have to kee…

[deleted]

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#969

Post by [deleted] »

afavour wrote: post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

[deleted]

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#970

Post by cutemonster »

easyThrowaway wrote: post #679
int_19h wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC something like 80% of Israeli citizens approve of the way Israel is fighting in Gaza, according to the polls.

it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza. Also, given the vilification we've seen of those expressing sympathy for a two-state solution or the general Palestinian population in the last 30 years, I'd be wary to take at face value any poll without being sure they were done with some sort of guarantee of anonymity. I'm pretty sure you'd get even more one-sided ap…

> it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza

I suspect that most don't know. I've sometimes seen articles in Times of Israel, and although they mention that lots of civilians are getting killed, they also write that this is Hamas health ministry counting, suggesting that the numbers would be made up.

Look here:

> At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed [...] the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says.

> The figures cannot be independently verified and include at least 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-run-healt...

So, Times of Israel writes as if information provided by IDF would be trustworthy (13 000 gunmen). But from what I've seen, when reading e.g. about the Lavender AI system and IDF's replies, then, the IDF generals and spokespeople lie a lot, and it's better to disregard anything they say.

Someone living in Israel, might be inclined to trust the IDF. However, looking at how many women have been killed, and realizing that a similar number of civilian men have been killed too -- then, more likely, 80%? 90%? of those "gunmen" were in fact civilians, but IDF happily counts each dead man as a terrorist.

And Times of Israel is not even a right wing newspaper. (Seems it's "centrist", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_Israel.)

(With that said, most Palestinians and AlJazeera readers don't know what Hamas did on October 7. Not all but most Israelis and Palestinians are blind to the bad things that happen to those in the other tribe, know only about the bad things that happened to themselves.)

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