Israeli Communications Minister Ayoob Kara announced in a press conference on Aug. 6 that Israel was taking "several practical steps to block Al Jazeera's incitement against Israel." Kara said he had called on the Government Press Office and on cable and satellite companies to block the broadcasting of Al Jazeera in Israel and to revoke the media credentials of the network's journalists. But those agencies and companies have not yet shown any willingness to block the channel nor could they block the independent transmission of the channel to private satellite dishes, so these efforts might be fruitless. Israel's public objections against Al Jazeera show the deep rift in the region around the Qatar-based news network, whose more independent and often contentious coverage is one of the issues at the heart of the diplomatic scuffle between Qatar and a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states.