US Secretary of State Tony Blinken asked Qatar’s prime minister to tone down the state-owned Al Jazeera’s rhetoric about the Gaza war, the Axios news site reports.
The request to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement” suggests that the US fears the Qatari network’s coverage of the war is inflaming tensions in the region.
The request was one of several Blinken made as part of a broader plea for Qatar to change its public posture toward Hamas, Axios says.
Speaking alongside Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani in Doha earlier this month, Blinken said “there can be no more business as usual with Hamas.”
Qatar has come under fire for hosting Hamas’s political leaders but has leveraged those relationships in negotiations to free the hostages in Gaza.
US officials have been pressed several times on whether they condemn Qatar for hosting Hamas officials and have carefully avoided doing so, instead expressing appreciation for Qatar’s role in releasing four of the 220-plus hostages abducted from Israel and held in Gaza.
It's not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we'll remove all ads from your page and you'll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
