Don’t hold your breath in anticipation of any mea culpas from all those who criticized Israel for banning the outlet.
It was described as a “dark day for democracy” when the Israeli government shut down the Qatar-based media outlet Al Jazeera’s operations inside the country in May of last year. That was how the Foreign Press Association described the move and the “extremely alarming precedent” it sets for international media outlets in Israel. “With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station,” the organization declared.
The FPA wasn’t alone. Human Rights Watch called the maneuver an “assault on freedom of the press.” The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner’s office agreed. It condemned the ban and has harped about it ever since. “To shut down a prominent international media outlet and one of the biggest in the region is a disproportionate, unnecessary and severe restriction of freedom of expression and obstructs the right to information of the Palestinian people and regional and global audiences,” a statement produced by media “experts” read. The New York Times cited Israel’s critics in discussing Israeli discomfort with the “major role” Al Jazeera played “in amplifying stories of the killing and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, highlighting worldwide outrage at Israel’s conduct.”
In a more reasoned take on Israel’s “shameful” ban,” the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple insisted that Israeli allegations against the media venue “require commensurate evidence.” Wemple’s plea has been answered.
“Israel has obtained a series of internal documents exchanged between Hamas operatives in Gaza and producers at the Qatari news network Al Jazeera,” the Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday. “The documents reveal Hamas’ attempt to alter its narrative surrounding the October 7 attack and the mass killings committed by its terrorists against Israeli civilians.”
The documents reveal that Al Jazeera’s soft-focus coverage of Hamas’s crimes and the hagiographical narratives it broadcast about its murderous leadership weren’t merely products of internal biases. Rather, it was allegedly the result of a collaborative process between the network’s journalists and Hamas terrorists — the price of Al Jazeera’s extraordinary access:
“The exclusive footage of Sinwar on the battlefield in Rafah, alongside rare recordings of Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, provides further evidence of the deep ties between Hamas and Al Jazeera,” the report states. It also references previous exposures of Al Jazeera journalists who were found to be members of Hamas’ military wing and the network’s privileged access to footage of Israeli hostages being released.
Indeed, Al Jazeera’s access to Hamas’s highest echelons comes so close to undermining ongoing Israeli military operations that it’s hard to imagine another nation that would tolerate such subversion.
“The broadcast also showcased what was described as the original operation order, allegedly signed by Mohammed Deif on October 5, 2023, detailing precise execution commands and setting ‘zero hour’ at 6:30 AM on October 7, 2023,” the Jerusalem Post’s dispatch continued. “[Senior Hamas operative Mahmoud] Al-Haddad further claimed that Hamas had obtained a classified document from Israel’s elite intelligence Unit 8200, allegedly through a cyber breach. The document, he said, was analyzed, translated, and integrated into the strategic planning of the attack.”
In much the same way that the UNRWA employees who facilitated or participated in the 10/7 attack hide behind their United Nations lanyards, Al Jazeera employees manipulate the world’s good government activists by retailing their credentials as journalists. This and other duplicitous outlets can count on the credulity that greets any claim implicating Israel in an act of malfeasance. They also know that the correction never generates even a fraction of the attention the accusation gets. So, don’t hold your breath in anticipation of any mea culpas from the Foreign Press Association.