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Rabat. – The Arlington-based news website Axios has revealed a controversial US request to censor Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli aggression targeting civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
According to the website, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed American Jewish leaders that he had asked the Qatari Prime Minister “to tone down Al Jazeera’s rhetoric about the war in Gaza.”
Blinken reportedly conveyed his request to Qatar less than two weeks ago, Axios quoted three sources who attended the meeting as saying.
“Blinekn said he gave toning down Al Jazeera coverage of the war in Gaza as an example of steps the Qatari government can take to do this,” the news outlet said.
One of the sources stressed that Blinken made the request as he believes that Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Gaza war “is full of anti-jment.”
Al Jazeera has extensively covered the Israeli aggression against civilians throughout Gaza and the occupied West Bank, deploying dozens of its correspondents and war reporters to depict the alarming situation in the besieged and relentlessly shelled Palestinian territories.
This revelation of the US’s attempt to censor the media narrative about Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank stands in stark contrast with repeated pledges by Blinken and the State Department to uphold freedom of speech and expression.
Read also: UNICEF: Gaza’s Over 2,300 Child Deaths is a ‘Stain on Our Collective Conscience’
Earlier this year, Blinken held a conversation with the Washington Post’s journalist David Ignatus on the situation of press freedom and the urgent need to protect journalists.
“We’re trying to fight back and push back around the world to help journalists, who – in one way or another, are facing intimidation, coercion, persecution, prosecution, surveillance,” Blinken said.
If confirmed, Axios’s report about Blinken’s request will also contradict the annual report the US Secretary of State publishes annually on the importance of protecting freedom of expression and speech in the world.
For critics, however, the report comes to confirm Western government’s double standards on the Israel-Hamas conflict, notably their blind support for Israel’s “right to defend itself” and their indifference to the continued suffering and killing of defenseless Palestinians.
Indeed, the US government has over the past two weeks expressed unconditional and unequivocal support for Israel in total disregard for the UN’s repeated warnings of the ongoing “genocide” of Palestinians.
According to the latest figures, Israel’s attacks in Gaza have killed over 6,000 people, including 2,300 children.
