One of the issues closest to my heart is a free press. Of course, I’m biased because it’s a subject I’m close to as I’ve been in the newspaper industry since 1989, but even without that experience, I know that a nation can’t be democratic without a free press.
Goons don’t appreciate a free press despite that it benefits them just as much as it benefits liberals. Donald Trump and his supporters don’t even know what legitimate news is and often call real reporting “fake news.” They claim that legitimate news outlets like CNN, The New York, Times, The Washington Post, etc, etc have a liberal agenda and lie, though they can never back up these claims. Even U.S. outlets that lied and said Trump won, or the 2020 election was stolen, or that Jan. 6 terrorists were merely tourists and protesters are still broadcasting.
The First Amendment guarantees our right to a free press and the Constitution protects Breitbart and Fox News just as much as it protects The New York Times and The Boston Globe. The Constitution doesn’t play favorites.
For a nation to be a full-fledged democracy, it has to have a free press. Today, Israel is more fascist than democratic because Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shut down a news outlet for publishing information he doesn’t like. Bibi’s cabinet has agreed to the closure while the war in Gaza is ongoing.
The Israeli government shut down Al Jazeera, a news a Qatari-based news outlet, branding it a “mouthpiece for Hamas.” Al Jazeera called claims it was a threat to Israeli security a “dangerous and ridiculous lie.”
Bibi didn’t just turn off the power to Al Jazeera in Israel. The government raided Al Jazeera’s office in Jerusalem and took communication equipment. The office is located inside a hotel. To double down on this fascist system banning a news outlet, other outlets like the BBC weren’t allowed inside the hotel to report on the raid.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) said Israel now joins “a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station,” a club that includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Maldives, Mauritius, Mauritania, and Bahrain. Al Jazeera is headquartered in Qatar. The FPA said the shutdown should be “a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press” and Netanyahu now has the power to target other foreign outlets that he considers to be “acting against the state.”
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a request to the country’s Supreme Court to issue an interim order to overturn the ban. The group said claims that the broadcaster was a propaganda tool for Hamas were “unfounded”, and that Sunday’s ban was less about security concerns and more to “serve a more politically motivated agenda, aimed at silencing critical voices and targeting Arab media.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna agreed with ACRI, saying, “The Israeli cabinet must allow Al Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.”
The United Nations Human Rights office also called upon the Israeli government to reverse the ban, posting on Twittter/X: “A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza.” Foreign journalists are banned from entering Gaza.
Last month, the Israeli parliament passed a law giving the government power to temporarily close foreign broadcasters considered a threat to national security during the war against Hamas.
An investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that at least 97 journalists and media workers were among the more than 35,000 killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7.
Vladimir Putin has also banned news outlets from operating in his nation and has created new laws making it illegal to report honestly on his illegal invasion of Ukraine. Benjamin Netanyahu is in a very exclusive club. Maybe if Trump, who has openly advocated to dismantle the First Amendment, wins or steals the 2024 presidential election, the United States will join that club too.
We’re supposed to support Israel in its war against Hamas, a terrorist group, but it’s hard to keep supporting the good guys when they keep acting like the bad guys.
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Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at Clay@claytoonz.com.
