Al Jazeera controversies and criticism a week of the start of the rebellion in Libya against the Libyan Government, Al Jazeera started using the rebels' tricolor flag to mark its coverage. Qatar's emir appeared on Al Jazeera and urged that military intervention in Libya was necessary. Al Jazeera's journalists were criticized for not challenging the emir over his position. Although Al Jazeera reported on 22 February 2011 that Libya's government carried out airstrikes on Benghazi and Tripoli, observers concluded that the airstrikes did not take place. Saudi Arabia decided to ban Al-Jazeera and another Qatari website after Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani stated
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism the "American Journalism Review" noted that critics of Al Jazeera have "assailed what they see as anti-Semitic, anti-American bias in the channel's news content." An example cited from earlier years was a report in Al Jazeera that Jews had been informed in advance not to go to work on the day of the September 11 attacks, which was criticized by an October 2001 editorial in "The New York Times". An often-repeated example involves an on-air birthday party organized by Al Jazeera's Beirut bureau chief for a Lebanese militant convicted of killing four Israelis, including a four-year-old girl. Al Jazeera greeted