Israel plans to revoke the press credentials of Al-Jazeera Television Journalists, close their Jerusalem bureau and pull the Qatar-based station’s broadcasts from local cable and satellite providers, due to allegations of incitement to violence and support of terror organizations. Israeli communications minister Ayoub Kara, during a press conference, emphasized that the move seeks to thwart media outlets that do not serve freedom of speech to report information that endangers the lives of Israeli citizens and soldiers. “We have identified media outlets that do not serve freedom of speech but endanger the security of Israel’s citizens, and the main instrument has been Al Jazeera, which actually caused us to lose the best of our sons and actually incited,” Kara said, while adding, “I’m going to ask the Government Press Office, to demand that the press credentials of Al-Jazeera TV journalists working in Israel be revoked. Second, I turned to the cable and satellite companies which showed willingness to consider the blacking out of Al-Jazeera broadcasts in cable and satellite. I also turned to the minister of public security asking to activate his authority to shut down the offices of the network in Israel.”Minister Kara emphasized that Israel adheres to the international law of freedom of speech, pointing to the broad number of media outlets that report freely from the Jewish state; that said, when Israel must choose between freedom of speech and the security of Israel’s citizens, the minister declared that the latter will always receive precedence. “The security of our citizens and their wellbeing precedes freedom of speech, in times of terror, period. The freedom of speech is not the freedom of incitement. Democracy has boundaries as well. When it comes down to the question what precedes what, I have no doubt, I prefer citizens and soldiers alive in Israel,” Kara emphasized. The closure of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network in Israel does not appear imminent, however, and an Israeli official who declined to be named said a legal process was still required to implement most of the proposed steps.
