Walid Omary

"We're told nothing [about the management of the war and the hostage-cease-fire negotiations.] They don't share information with us. Most of what I know is from Al Jazeera, because I speak Arabic." Columnists Actual . Favourites . Archive Aa Aa Aa - A + "We're told nothing [about the management of the........ © Haaretz visit website

Opinion | The Netanyahu government's decision to ban Al Jazeera and its disregard for press freedom are not surprising. It is futile, dangerous and anti-democratic.

When Al Jazeera first hit the airwaves in 1996, most Arabs had never seen the face of an Israeli on Arab TV. In fact, the media in the Arab world was classic propaganda - narratives constructed by autocratic Arab regimes to ensure carefully crafted information designed to shape and control the public opinion of their populations and to parrot a single permitted state narrative.