Shuttering Al Jazeera is crucial and the decision is better late than never - opinion

Despite the hesitancy in Israel’s legal system regarding the removal of the hostile Al Jazeera TV channel from local cable and satellite, this crucial step has finally been taken. 

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is to be congratulated for his persistence and success in taking down the channel that supports Hamas, our enemy.

At the war’s outset, Al Jazeera journalists were caught on camera taking images of IDF assembly areas prior to entering the Strip. The “reporters” abandoned the area after intervention by the head of one of the Gaza border communities. Al Jazeera later broadcast the images they took.

An official propaganda channel

Reporters of the Al Jazeera network, which broadcasts to millions of viewers worldwide, have become spokespeople for Hamas terrorists on the enemy’s official propaganda channel. Al Jazeera had a good teacher: The Third Reich Radio.

During World War II, Germany’s radio, picked up throughout Europe, broadcast propaganda and coded messages to Nazi spies in various countries. Its English-language propaganda was aimed at destroying morale among British and American troops fighting Nazi Germany.

From 1941, for approximately four years, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was in charge of the Arabic section of the Nazi radio, broadcasting venomous propaganda against the Jews.

Berlin’s radio was not only engaged in propaganda, incitement, and the spread of hatred, but also in espionage through the recruitment of Arab spies living in Germany for Third Reich missions. Their networks were responsible, among other activities, for planting explosive devices in Iraq, Syria, and other places in the Middle East.

The mythical broadcaster Younes Bahri al-Juburi was an immigrant journalist of Iraqi origin who fled to Germany from his homeland after being sentenced to death for anti-British activities. 

He founded several radio stations, including Arab Radio of Berlin in 1939, the first Arab radio station on the European continent, broadcasting his famous catchphrase “This is Berlin, the neighborhood of Arabs” from Germany to the Arab world.

 Bahri recruited spies to pose as foreign correspondents sent to various countries on behalf of Arab Radio of Berlin.

It was the Jerusalem mufti himself who operated these spy networks. A perusal of his diary – a copy of which resides in the Jerusalem state archives – shows notes, plans, and instructions in the mufti’s handwriting, related to such activities in the Middle East. 

The Nazis also used Arab Radio of Berlin to transmit coded messages to senior Arab leaders.

IN OUR days, the purpose of the establishment of Qatari television was to spread propaganda in the service of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was established to support Islamic extremism and escalate the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Qatari TV broadcasts false reports about Israel’s desire to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque and the alleged genocide that Israel is committing against the “poor” Palestinians; and is responsible for mainstreaming the call for the destruction of Israel: “From the sea to the river, Palestine will be free.” 

Every minor conflict in Judea and Samaria is amplified and echoed on Qatari television, seeping into the subconscious of Muslims across the world and in Israel.

Al Jazeera not only fans the coals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but even provides the matches to light the fire. The clerics who appear frequently on the channel legitimize acts of terrorism and murder. 

It is incomprehensible that a country that loves life could allow such a hostile channel to broadcast on local cable and satellite channels, and I am at pains to understand how, in the name of freedom of expression and the god of ratings, Israeli platforms ever allowed it to broadcast. 

While freedom of speech is considered a sacred right, would any cable network in the democratic United States dare to legitimize a channel that trades in religious-based conflicts and broadcasts lies against its host country?

From my knowledge of the US and the supervision of the Federal Communications Authority (FCC), there is no chance that such a channel would have appeared on any platform. Furthermore, if any channel had broadcast inflammatory words, it would have been taken off the air and its owner would have been fined huge sums.

Only in Israel, in the name of democracy and freedom of speech, has such a channel been able to operate – and even after the outbreak of war, it still took half a year for the legal advisers to approve the removal of the channel.

Qatar, which supports the preservation of the murderous terrorist organization Hamas and fuels it with tens of millions of dollars, does not do so for the sake of heaven. 

It is a country that supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideology and aligns with the teachings of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Imam Hassan al-Banna, wishes to impose sharia law by force.

It has failed in Egypt and other Sunni countries and has been outlawed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. It is not interested in peace and advocates the path of terrorism to achieve its goal of destroying the State of Israel.

This is the same Muslim Brotherhood that murdered Anwar Sadat for daring to conclude a peace treaty with Israel. Today’s Egyptian leader, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, will not permit the Muslim Brotherhood to raise its head, imprisoning thousands for supporting the movement.

Awash in money, the Brotherhood promotes its ideology through its media networks and by buying up international companies and appointments in sports clubs and universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, implanting its ideology via Al Jazeera.

About a year ago, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and cooperating with Iran.

They imposed sanctions on Doha and sent Qatar a document with 13 demands, including the closure of the Al Jazeera television network. Doha rejected the demands.

The decision to close Al Jazeera in Israel is crucial.

If countries around the world do not awake from their slumber, in a few short years they will find themselves living among Muslim majorities influencing their politics and the election of politicians. The familiar European way of life, for instance, will become something completely different.

The author is CEO of Radios 100fm, honorary consul, vice dean of the consular staff, and vice president of the Ambassadors Club in Israel, as well as a former journalist at NBC.