For years, I have been calling on every possible platform to declare Al-Jazeera a hostile corporation and to ban its activities in Israel, just as Israel bans the activities of Hezbollah's Al-Manar, Iran's Al-Alam, and Hamas' Al-Aqsa. Why? Because Al-Jazeera is a bitter enemy of Israel, no less than these three channels.
Watching al-Jazeera, the footage and reports broadcast on it, listening to the presenters and commentators, proves how one-sided it is. In times of clashes between Israel and Hamas, al-Jazeera enlists the help of Hamas and fully cooperates with the organization. To give an example of this claim, I will describe here a case that happened during Operation Guardian of the Walls, on Friday morning, May 14.
At about 6 o'clock, I was called from the Al-Jazeera office in Ramallah to request a telephone interview, without video, at 7:30. This was strange to me since nowadays the media channels put up interviewees using video apps like Skype and Zoom, and that's what I offered them, but they insisted on just a phone call. It was strange to me, but I went with them and so it was. The interview lasted about 14 minutes, a long time by all accounts.
What did viewers see during the interview? Not the interviewer, not me, but a stationary view of Gaza City, a general feed in live video, the camera unmoving. In the background, the voices of the interviewer and myself were heard. What is the point of media television in presenting a general view of Gaza from a static video camera and hiding the speakers?
The answer is clear: Al-Jazeera has presented a general view of Gaza for three purposes:
1. Footage of Israeli missiles landing on Gaza to show live, again and again, how Israel is attacking areas inhabited by peaceful people. And if al-Jazeera succeeds in capturing live harm to the civilians, it will be proof that Israel is attacking citizens who are doing nothing against Israel.
2. Denying the Israeli claim that Hamas fighters launch missiles from civilian areas because the viewers do not see any launch. But here a question arises: If Hamas fighters fired missiles from the area the camera shows, Israel will have proof that they are launching them from a civilian environment. And the answer is that Hamas and al-Jazeera coordinated with each other. The channel filmed an area that Hamas refrained from firing from in the minutes the camera was aimed at it. They assume that Israel will attack in this area because there is Hamas infrastructure or missiles ready to be launched, but Hamas itself refrained from launching so that it would not be shown live.
3. Broadcasting of this urban landscape for long minutes is intended to prevent Israel from attacking targets in the filmed area so that the attack is not recorded live. They know that Israeli intelligence is following the channel, and warns against attacking the broadcast area. The footage was intended to protect Hamas's activities in the area.
Thus, al-Jazeera does not report on what is happening, but participates directly in Hamas' fighting, in full coordination with the organization's combat elements.