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America, Self-Proclaimed Bastion of Press Freedom, Calls for Censoring Coverage of Israel’s War on Gaza 

On October 25, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pressured Qatar’s Prime Minister to censor Al Jazeera’s coverage of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. As reported by Axios, Blinken called on the Prime Minister to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement.” Al Jazeera, which Qatar owns, is one of only a few major media outlets reporting directly from Gaza, giving voice to the Palestinian people and showing the world the horrors Israel is raining down on them.

A correspondent for Al Jazeera in the Gaza Strip told Democracy Now!: 

They say that Al Jazeera should lower its tone on its coverage on Gaza. Why are we getting these orders? Is Al Jazeera showing something that is not happening? Is Al Jazeera filming a targeting or a bombing or those thousands that are being brought to the hospitals or hundreds that are being kept under the rubble or civil defense crews that dig with their hands and with no resources? Is this not a reality? Is Al Jazeera saying that there is no water and there is no electricity in Gaza, and there is? 

"We Stand With Israel" = We Stand For Genocide

 

Blinken’s demand is murderous and criminal: if obeyed it would help enable Israel to carry out its genocidal war on Gaza “in the dark”—helping to cover up the horrors Israel unleashes. And on Saturday, October 28, the Israeli attacks cut off all communications within Gaza and from Gaza to the outside world, preventing most journalists from getting news from Gaza out. At least some of those communications were restored a day later.

Blinken’s push for censorship came on the heels of a new Israeli regulation calling for shutting down any media outlet deemed to be broadcasting “enemy propaganda.” Already some 22 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza.1 Israel has a sordid history of targeting journalists. In 2022, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American, was assassinated by an Israeli soldier. In 2021, Israel leveled a 12-story building in Gaza housing the offices of the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other media outlets.

The day the report on Blinken’s demand to censor Al Jazeera came out, Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Arabic Gaza bureau chief, learned that his entire family had been killed by an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. They had fled to the refugee camp when Israel ordered Palestinians in the north to leave their homes and go south. Wael al-Dahdouh learned of their murder while he was broadcasting on air. 

Wael al-Dahdouh, center, Al Jazeera reporter, mourns the death of his entire family, killed by Israeli air strike on Nuseirat refugee camp.

 

Wael al-Dahdouh, center, Al Jazeera’s Arabic Gaza bureau chief, mourns the death of his entire family, killed by an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp.    Photo: AP

Al Jazeera stated: “The network strongly condemns the indiscriminate targeting and killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, which has led to the loss of Wael al-Dahdouh’s family and countless others.”

graphic meme BA on the middle east

 

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FOOTNOTES:

1.  The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that at least 27 journalists have been killed in Israel and Palestine since October 7—four Israelis, one Lebanese and 22 Palestinians. Democracy Now!, October 27.  [back]

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