Shooting the messenger.........

Don't like what the newspaper publishes or the TV shows or the radio broadcasts? In dictatorships they simply shut 'em down. Not in democracies, right? Well, the country regularly touted as the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, has just shut down a radio station dedicated to promoting peace. Yes, you read that correctly!

"Israel has ordered the shutdown of a dovish Israeli-Palestinian radio station, officials and the station's operators said on Sunday.

The station and other critics said the move was politically motivated, and part of a broader assault on democracy by conservative forces in the government.

Some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have pushed forward a series of measures recently that critics say are aimed at stifling opponents.

Among the proposed legislation are attempts to block most foreign funding for dovish nonprofit groups, lowering the threshold for politicians to file libel suits against the media, and a push to shift control of Supreme Court appointments from an independent panel to parliament.

Conservative lawmaker Danny Danon boasted that he had helped close the "All for Peace" radio station. Danon, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, claimed the Communications Ministry shuttered the station at his request, after he claimed it "incited" against Israel.

"A radical leftist station that becomes an instrument of incitement must not be allowed to broadcast to the broader public," Danon said."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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