Al Jazeera controversies and criticism crowed the station's Beirut bureau chief, hailing Kuntar as a "pan-Arab hero." On 13 March 2008, Israel announced a "boycott" of the Arabic broadcaster al-Jazeera, accusing it of bias particularly during coverage of the conflict in the Gaza Strip and of slanted coverage favoring Hamas. Ministers will refuse to do interviews and according to some reports, will deny visa applications from its staff. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Majali Wahbe accused the Qatari-owned station of prioritizing/focusing exclusively on Palestinian suffering, and ignoring Israeli suffering. "We have seen that Al-Jazeera has become part of Hamas ... taking sides and cooperating with people
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism motives", as the report was just one of "hundreds of hours of diverse coverage". Some critics have alleged that Al Jazeera has censored criticism of the United States under U.S. pressure. Al Jazeera English's former director, Wadah Khanfar resigned in September 2011 following Wikileaks documents that asserted that he had close ties to the U.S. and agreed to remove content if the United States objected. Some of Al Jazeera's competitors have claimed that Al Jazeera is pro-American. RT, a Russian network sometimes criticized for an alleged Anti-Western bias, asserted that the Wikileaks documents concerning Wadah Khanfar (see above) prove that