Israel punishes Haaretz for articles ‘damaging’ the state of Israel | Israel-Palestine Conflicts News

The Haaretz newspaper called this decision ‘another step in Netanyahu’s campaign to destroy Israeli democracy’.

Israel has approved a decision to cut ties with the Israeli news agency Haaretz and ban government-funded organizations from contacting or placing advertisements with the newspaper.

The government said its decision was caused by “a number of articles that harmed the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self-defense, and in particular the comments made in London by Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken who supported terrorism and called for sanctions against the government,” Haaretz reported on Sunday.

A left-wing media source added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the decision, which did not appear in the government’s weekly cabinet meeting.

In response to this decision, Haaretz said “it is an opportunistic decision to boycott Haaretz, which was passed in today’s government meeting without official review… [and] another step in Netanyahu’s quest to destroy Israeli democracy”.

“Like his friends [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, too [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, Netanyahu are trying to silence a serious, independent press. “Haaretz will not be disappointed and will not turn into a government paper that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader,” said the source.

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy told Al Jazeera that the government’s sanctions on the area “send a very bad message, politically and morally”.

“Many are watching it [Haaretz] as the only newspaper in Israel because, especially [in] in this war, almost all media outlets were completely involved in the government and military narrative,” and did not show Israelis what was happening in Gaza, he said.

The government’s dispute with the organization escalated last month at a conference in London, where publisher Schocken said Netanyahu’s government was not interested in “imposing a brutal apartheid regime on the Palestinian people”.

“It costs both sides to protect the settlements while fighting Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls ‘terrorists’,” he added.

Following the Israeli community’s outcry over these remarks, Schocken said that his reference to the Palestinian freedom fighters does not mean Hamas.

However, Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi, who suggested that the newspaper be approved, has started a new campaign against Haaretz, calling for a boycott of the newspaper.

Last year, Karhi approached the Israeli Cabinet Secretary with a decision to stop all subscriptions to Haaretz by state employees, including the military.

Israel has clamped down on the media as the war continues, and has killed dozens of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Rifi, Samir Abudaqa, and Hamza Dahdouh.

Many other Al Jazeera journalists have been threatened by Israel, and the network has been forced to close its offices in Israel and the West Bank.