The New York-based global media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned a decision by the Palestinian Authority to suspend Al Jazeera’s operations in the West Bank and called for it to be reversed “immediately”.
“Governments resort to censoring news outlets when they have something to hide,” said CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg in a statement.
“The Palestinian Authority should reverse its decision to suspend Al Jazeera’s operations and allow journalists to report freely without fear of reprisal.”
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Ginsburg also strongly condemned the PA decision in a separate interview with Al Jazeera, calling for an immediate reversal of the “temporary” ban.
She described the move as “really disturbing”, but said it was not a surprise given the PA’s track record on press freedom.
Listen to Ginsberg’s full comments here.
The Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported yesterday that the PA had suspended Al Jazeera on grounds of “inciting material”.
The ban comes after the authority criticised Al Jazeera’s coverage last week of a standoff between Palestinian security forces and militant fighters in Jenin camp, located in the West Bank, according to reports.
Israel raided Al Jazeera’s Ramallah offices in September and ordered its closure for 45 days, accusing the broadcaster’s West Bank operations of “incitement to and support of terrorism”.
Israel banned Al Jazeera’s Israel operations in May, citing national security concerns.
Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Al Jazeera. Video: Al Jazeera
In a statement, the Al Jazeera network has condemned the PA closure of its offices in the occupied West Bank, calling the move “consistent” with the Israeli occupation’s “practices against its crews”.
The network “considers the Palestinian Authority’s decision an attempt to dissuade it from covering the escalating events taking place in the occupied territories”, the statement said.
It added the move “comes in the wake of an ongoing campaign of incitement and intimidation by parties sponsored by the Palestinian Authority against our journalists”.
The network further called the ban “an attempt to hide the truth about events in the occupied territories”, particularly in Jenin.
Palestinian Authority suspends Al Jazeera operations in the West Bank https://t.co/dHclCfcPXU
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 1, 2025
Political pressure ‘from Israel’
Political pressure from Israeli authorities on the PA is likely behind the temporary ban decision, said the network’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.
“There is no doubt pressure by the Israeli authorities to ban Al Jazeera like it was banned in Israel,” Bishara said.
“The PA is foolishly and short-sightedly trying to prove its credentials to Israeli authorities . . . because they want a role in Gaza and the only way they can do that is by appeasing the Israeli occupation.”
Bishara said the suspension would fail to curtail the channel’s coverage of events in Palestine, just as it had failed to achieve the same goal in Israel.
“This is not going to stop us, this is not going to shut us up,” he said. “We question power and that’s what we do, we question the PA and every other authority in the world.”
Al Jazeera Media Network condemns the incitement campaign initiated by Fatah in the West Bank against Al Jazeera and its journalists.https://t.co/ypxgeGxnj3
— Al Jazeera PR (@AlJazeera) December 24, 2024
‘Dangerous path’, says Barghouti
Also condemning the PA ban, Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the opposition Palestinian National Initiative, said the ban was “a big mistake” and “should be reversed as soon as possible”.
“I think this is a wrong decision, especially in the light of the fact that Al Jazeera . . . has been at the avant garde in exposing the crimes against the Palestinian people, and continues to do so — especially the genocide that is taking place in Gaza,” said Barghouti, who had previously served as Palestinian minister of information.
“This is an issue of freedom of expression, an issue of freedom of press, an issue of freedom of media,” he told Al Jazeera.
He added that the Palestinian Authority was taking a “dangerous path” that underlines the lack of unified Palestinian leadership.
“At the end of the day, the Israeli occupation is targeting everybody, including Fatah and Hamas and everybody else,” he said.
“So our approach should be an approach of unity, encouraging freedom of expression, because at the end of the day, freedom of expression will only support the struggle against the occupation.”
Palestinian ban follows Israeli ban, killing of journalists
The PA’s temporary ban on Al Jazeera comes months after the network was banned from operating by the Israeli government.
Israel, which has sought to disrupt Al Jazeera’s coverage multiple times throughout its 18-year history, ordered the closure of Al Jazeera’s offices and a ban on its broadcasting in Israel in May.
A month earlier, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that allowed Israel to temporarily shut down foreign media outlets deemed to be security threats.
Al Jazeera condemned the move as a “criminal act” and has stood by its coverage, particularly of Israeli operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
In September, Israeli authorities shut down Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a move decried by Amnesty International’s MENA director as a “shameless attack on the right to freedom of expression and a crushing blow for press freedom”.
Several Al Jazeera journalists and their families have been killed while reporting in the occupied Palestinian territories in recent years, including Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned correspondent fatally shot by Israel while reporting in Jenin in May 2022.
Amid the war in Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, cameraman Ahmed al-Louh, and journalist Hamza Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh.
Pacific Media Watch and news agencies.
