Al Jazeera was one of the few sources of 'on the ground' journalism in Gaza. It's quite chilling that western democracies have stood back from ensuring journal

Al Jazeera was one of the few sources of 'on the ground' journalism in Gaza. It's quite chilling that western democracies have stood back from ensuring journalistic freedom is upheld in the reporting up until now. To allow the removal of the last effective observational counterpoint to Israel's narrative points to the acceptance of despot power of Israel over the population of Gaza. Effectively it sanctions whatever Israel wants to do to that population without any oversight or reporting. Given what has been done in sight and the obvious desire of the Israeli government to attack Rafah, and the US's impotency to influence Israel it's clear this move is just to reduce the risk of ongoing exposure of children and other innocents being slaughtered on TV repeatably and without having to even pretend justification. We live in extraordinary times.