Palestinian Authority Suspends Al Jazeera TV in West Bank, Citing Incitement
bbc.com
bbc.com
Being impartial is probably the best way to sow division these days no matter the homeland.
If you're Palestine, who are you hoping to receive more favorable coverage from than Qatar?
Qatar's goal is very aligned with Hamas. Global Jihad. Qatar is dressing it up with western appeal but its goals are very clear. The Palestinian authority understands that armed conflict has never worked for them. Palestinians were used as a pawn for surrounding powers who manipulated them into conflict with Israel. Qatar is still playing that game and it goes against the interests of the Palestinian people.
I will be plain, as a Westerner who has watched Al Jazeera on and off for many years, and who tries to follow Middle Eastern investment in the West with some scepticism as to eventual goals, I don't see Qatar as anywhere near the level of concern that you do. Can you give background reading, I'm genuinely curious.
Qatar has been a hideout to Hamas leadership and has passed money to Hamas for decades. It plays both ends and keeps relationships with the west to appear civil. Its English broadcasts even hired well known US journalists to give them credibility, but when you see the translation of Arabic broadcasts the stories are problematic. It's Pravda run by a Muslim theocracy, some stuff is more subtle but you can't trust anything you read/see there.
There's a lot of stuff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c...
Playing Iran vs saudi arabia is also the reason why Qatar "passed money to Hamas", when asked by Israel (or rather, Likud). The funds they passed are originally from Israel.
Imho it is likely to be viewed as an unjust behavior and a treason from Israel by Qatari. With the Assad clan out, Iran and Saudi Arabia only have the Yemen left for their proxy war, and Qatar in the middle absolutely need Al jazzeira to be credible on the international scene. I'm pretty sure they only report on things already reported on by Haaretz (which are the only middle east news i truly trust atm) or international medias.
The official justification was that an uprising would have had costs for israeli companies who use Gazaoui labor, but i bet keeping the Hamas freaks as opponents was also in the balance.
> Playing Iran vs saudi arabia is also the reason why Qatar "passed money to Hamas", when asked by Israel (or rather, Likud). The funds they passed are originally from Israel.
Some money was indeed passed by Israel, but a lot of the payments for families of Suicide bombers etc. was not part of that specific deal. Giving refuge to Hamas leadership is not part of that either.
> I'm pretty sure they only report on things already reported on by Haaretz (which are the only middle east news i truly trust atm) or international medias.
I used to read Haaretz but now I only read specific posts my spouse shares with me.
Haaretz is a bubble. They pick narratives that fit specific world views. That makes it harder to understand why some things are happening. When I read more centrist news it gives me better sense of both sides on the matter and the comments there help me gauge public sentiment more accurately. Unfortunately, none is good and I still need a filter to "read between the lines".
I'd argue that any Israeli news source is better than Al Jazeera but I'm obviously pretty biased on the matter and even I don't blindly trust Israeli media.
Don’t get me wrong it clearly has a very distinct ideological leaning but comparing their English edition to Google translate of their Hebrew one shows that their ideals very much take a backseat to subscriber fees.
I think Al Jazeera, in this very case, has a point, the PA army indeed fought Hamas in refugee camps, and those raids have caused deaths. I'm, very, very partial to Fatah, especially the post-2014 iteration, but hiding those raids is imho a very bad political move and will cause a Streisand effect.
Also, sadly, whatever Fatah do against Hamas, it will never move Israeli opinion about Palestinians.
In the 15th century... Sure. But since we still have monarchies today it's not quite the same as the UK.
> I think Al Jazeera, in this very case, has a point
They often do. My complaint isn't that they invent stories as a form of lying. They create a narrative and then cherry pick facts that fit with the narrative while hiding or misdirecting when inconvenient reality gets in the way. You can see more moderate western versions of this in Fox news or people like John Oliver.
> hiding those raids is imho a very bad political move and will cause a Streisand effect.
I don't think they hide the deaths. It's a matter of how they are reported. This is a powder-keg and Al Jazeera has repeatedly reported misinformation in an inflammatory way with complete disregard to the outcome.
> Also, sadly, whatever Fatah do against Hamas, it will never move Israeli opinion about Palestinians.
I disagree.
Israelis were very much for the Oslo accords and wanted them to work. Fatah didn't do enough to stop Hamas and then missed the two opportunities to get a Palestinian state.
Opinions swing both ways. Right now the global anti-Israel sentiment and the ongoing hostage situation has helped the Israeli right-wing control the conversation. But things change and can also change to worse.
E.g. if Hamas is successful in starting another Intifada the west bank will be completely screwed. This is what Ben Gvir and Smotrich are trying to trigger. They want another Intifada so they can use that as an excuse for ethnic cleansing. Fatah is doing the smart thing here. Sadly, if they'd had the political courage to do that in the late 90's we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
Just a point: we don't have absolute monarchies in Europe since like 1830, they are all parliamentary nowadays, or at least republican. The UK has practically never been an absolute monarchy, jumping almost directly from feudalism to parliamentarism. I'll stand on what Qatar and Oman are as political system, and those are absolute monarchies (the 'absolute' here is important), and I wish monarchists understood that.
For example, in English, there's a country called Israel. In Arabic there isn't. It's called "the occupation". In English there are only ever Muslim civilian victims (e.g. patients in hospitals, little girls in their home). In Arabic muslims destroyed X civilian targets and they brag that they can do that, but there aren't muslims victims anymore, only "martyrs". The little girl doesn't get mentioned anymore, I can only assume she's one of the martyrs now. In English, there are only attacks on muslims (and Sudan doesn't get talked about much). In Arabic there's only battles and always some sort of victory.
E.g. in Arabic their current "victory" articles. God (ie. "allah") has apparently destroyed the IDF, reconquered a Syrian mosque, enabled "Al-Houthi" to attack 22 Israeli and US targets (all civilian targets I might add, in Arabic they brag about the targets being civilian), and allah has "harvested legal victories" against Israel and the US at the UN:
https://www.aljazeera.net/opinions/2025/1/2/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%...
https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2025/1/2/%d8%a8%d8%b9%d8%af-1...
https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2025/1/3/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d...
https://www.aljazeera.net/opinions/2025/1/2/6-%D9%85%D8%AD%D...
There are no comments enabled on the original article, so it's not outrage there.
The article does reference Palestinian journalists criticising this action, as well as the Israeli ban, so as a balanced article it's hard to find the outrage you're picking out or failing to pick out there.
Who exactly are you angry at, here?