The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office is reportedly looking into shutting down Al Jazeera’s office in Israel, due to their anti-Israel propaganda. And Al Jizz has responded by denying these accusations of bias.
Walid al-Omari, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, defended the network, telling Ynet on Tuesday, “We don’t incite against Israel or anyone else.”
“We convey the news. It’s not our fault if the news is ugly,” al-Omari added. “We convey everything that happens to our viewers and to our target audience. In Israel, we put on air people from the government and the opposition, the right and the left, and even settlers… Even the prime minister himself was on our channel when he was the head of the opposition in 2009.”
He said the fact Israel is considering closing down the network’s offices in the country is a form of incitement. “I don’t know why Israel needs to be dragged after everything that happens in the Arab world… Al Jazeera is a media body that operates lawfully and legally in Israel and in other country in the world,” al-Omari claimed.
Al Jazeera is expected to petition the Supreme Court against such a move.
al-Omari repeated similar claims of impartiality in an interview with Maariv:
“We are duly registered, follow the law, pay all our taxes and behave according to journalistic ethics. We have GPO certificates, we’ve been registered from our first day here, everything is transparent, everything is clear,” Al-Omri stated, noting, “We interview guests from across the political spectrum. When President Trump visited Israel, we broadcast live with simultaneous translation all of Netanyahu’s and Trump’s speeches. In 2009, in the middle of a war in Gaza, Netanyahu got on our air for 24 minutes as head of the opposition. We interview the IDF Spokesperson, ministers, Knesset members, journalists, commentators.”
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“We do not support anyone, we try to cover things properly,” Al-Omri answered. “Just because the situation is ugly, and the wars are ugly, it’s not our fault. We used to be accused of being Zionists because we interview Israelis. People also said that we work with the CIA. But why in Israel did they get up one morning and want to shut us down? Because the Arab countries closed us down, here they will also close?”
Anyone who follows Al Jizz knows they are anything but objective, and do not conform to journalistic ethics. I have written about many examples of their bias on here. But you really needn’t look past the About Us section on their website, which lists the different Al Jizz offices.
Note also the map of locations – they go out of their way to do the same thing, even though the map itself says Israel!
Nope, Al Jizz is nothing more than a propaganda outfit that has no business masquerading as a legitimate news outlet, let alone in Israel.
I truly hope they are shown the door.
