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SvennoJ 5 days ago
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Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Al Jazeera

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said that the temporary ban was a result of Al Jazeera broadcasting “inciting material” and “interference” in Palestine’s internal affairs. The PA has been angered by Al Jazeera’s coverage of clashes between PA security forces and local resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Here’s the full statement that was issued on the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of Al Jazeera:

The competent ministerial committee made up of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Communications has decided to temporarily stop the broadcast and freeze all the work of its journalists, employees, crews and channels affiliated with it, until its legal status is rectified. This is due to Al Jazeera’s violation of the laws and regulations in force in Palestine.

This decision came after Al Jazeera insisted on broadcasting inciteful materials and reports characterised by being misleading, inciting sedition, and interference in Palestinian internal affairs.


Palestinian Authority’s Al Jazeera ban comes amid increased raids

The decision came after, quote, Al Jazeera insisted on broadcasting “incitement materials” that the Palestinian Authority say were misleading.

However, it’s important to note that the Palestinian Authority previously banned Al Jazeera from reporting in Jenin back on December 24 and that is because of the coverage of the Palestinian Authority raids on resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank.

We’re used to the Israeli military conducting raids on armed Palestinians fighting in the West Bank, but the Palestinian Authority has stepped up those raids in the last four weeks.

Because journalists have been reporting on that, the Palestinian Authority decided to take this measure.

But it’s important to note that the Palestinian Authority is not so popular among the people that it is supposed to govern. And these crackdowns in places like Jenin have killed several Palestinians, including just a few days ago killing one Palestinian woman who was a journalist, as she was walking in Jenin.


Political pressure behind Palestinian Authority’s decision to suspend Al Jazeera broadcast

Political pressure from Israeli authorities on the PA is likely behind the decision to temporarily ban Al Jazeera’s broadcasting, the network’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara has said.

“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 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.”