Israel is following Turkey’s lead in toughening media censorship in the country by cracking down on independent media outlets in the country. Israel’s military and domestic intelligence agency have been ordered to shut down Palestinian media and silence Palestinian journalists operating in the country. Electronicintifada.net reports: Before dawn on Friday, agents from the Shin Bet, accompanied by Israeli soldiers,raided the Ramallah offices of Palestine Today, confiscating the TV station’s equipment before ordering it closed until further notice. During the raid, the soldiers briefly detained two of the station’s journalists, Muhammad Amro and Shbeib Shbeib. A few miles away, soldiers arrested the director of the news station, Farouq Alayat, from his home in Birzeit. Elayyat is still in Israeli custody. Correspondent Ibrahim Jaradat was arrested on Sunday at an Israeli military checkpoint. Israeli occupation forces declared the channel to be an illegal organization that the army was closing on the basis of emergency laws introduced by Palestine’s British colonial rulers in 1945. The army said it had heard the station airing “inciting broadcasts” and the Shin Bet said that “incitement to terrorism serves the interests of terrorist organizations.” The army furthermore claimed the outlet was part of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian [...]