Israel to boycott Al Jazeera

After publicly complaining about Al Jazeera's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli government announced today that it is officially boycotting the Qatar-based station.

The Israeli government was particularly incensed by Al Jazeera's coverage of its recent military crackdown in Gaza, an especially deadly operation that killed more than 100 Palestinians, including two dozen under the age of 18.

Majali Wahabi, Israel's deputy foreign minister, told Israel's Army Radio today that Al Jazeera's reports "are untrustworthy and they hurt us and they arouse people to terrorist activities."

An anonymous Israeli official went farther by telling Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper Web site that Al Jazeera was "operating with full coordination from Hamas."

Israeli officials began unofficially shunning Al Jazeera during the Gaza operation by saying they had no time to appear on the station.

After Israel pulled out of Gaza, Israeli government officials summoned Al Jazeera's local staff for an emphatic dressing-down.

Last week, in a meeting with diplomats, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni publicly castigated the news channel.

"When depicting Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera abuses the situation on the ground by telling lies," Livni told the diplomats. "Unfortunately, during these attacks, civilians were killed. I am not trying to change facts. But, of course, when it comes to Al Jazeera, everything is exaggerated."

Israeli officials complained that Al Jazeera gave extensive coverage to Israeli military strikes in Gaza and scant coverage of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel.

In response to the declared boycott, Walid al-Umari, Al Jazeera's top correspondent covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip, called on Israeli officials to offer specific examples of lies or incitement reported by the station.

"A state that respects the freedom of expression or claims that it is democratic should not limit the movement of press teams," al-Umari said in statement.

For starters, the Israeli government is expected to shun all requests to appear on Al Jazeera's main Arabic station and its new English language station.

It's not clear yet how else Israel plans to respond, though it is also likely to bar Al Jazeera reporters from attending press briefings with Israeli officials.

Al Jazeera got unlikely support from Raanan Gissin, the often-combative former spokesperson for former-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Gissin told Yedioth Ahronoth's Web site that "the solution is not to boycott."

"It is advisable that we accept that it is impossible to reach a billion Muslims by passing along an opposing message via Hebrew-language Israeli television – they don't watch the daily Israeli news round-up," Gissin said. "We must enunciate our opinion in every way and take advantage of every stage."

This is hardly the first time that Israel has sought to punish the international media for its coverage.

The Israeli government has had a long-simmering feud with the BBC.

Last year, during Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah, Miri Eisin, who was then preparing to become the new spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, called the BBC "the only international English-speaking news outlet that is downright hostile to Israel on every level."

In 2003, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon imposed a boycott on the BBC in response to the news station's report on Israel and WMDs.

The BBC eventually responded to Israeli complaints of bias by asking an independent panel to investigate.

Two years, ago the panel concluded that the BBC unintentionally created an "incomplete" and "misleading" picture of the conflict.

Comments

[Andy]

I'll bet that hurts their feelings

[Brian]

About time.

I believe Israel should order all foreign journalists out of the country.

And then occasionally let in a few who will see it in their interest to report favourably so they can continue to have their near exclusive access to Israel.

It works with Iran and how they get favourable press. I believe it could work with Israel as well.

[Sophia]

I think this article put it perfectly when it said "A state that respects the freedom of expression or claims that it is democratic should not limit the movement of press teams." It is a fact, not a lie, that the Israeli raid covered killed over a hundred Palestinians, including children. On the other hand, in the entire year, sixteen Israelis were killed by rockets from Palestine. Any unbiased newspaper would give the raid more attention--unfortunately, none did, save Al-Jazeera. And how does Israel respond? A boycott. A government can't call itself a democracy if it accept people spreading their opinions, yet this government calls itself a democracy and yet can't accept people spreading the truth.