For those of you who haven’t been following the local news, the International and Serious Crimes Unit has decided to go after 3 Israeli journalists because, as part of their jobs as reporters, they entered enemy states. All 3 of these journalists hold dual citizenship with other countries and it was on these alternate passports that they went to cover events in countries we aren’t friendly with, such as Lebanon and Syria. It seems that they broke a law that neither they nor the Israeli media for whom they worked and who dispatched them, such as Channel 10, Yediot Acharanot, and so forth, were at all aware of. But why should they be? After all, dozens of Israeli journalists have gone to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and other unfriendly countries in the line of their work over the past 10 years and no one was ever prosecuted for doing so. Indeed, in the just the last 6 months, more than a dozen journalists have crossed those borders in exactly the same manner as the 3 under investigation.
Journalists are not supposed to “report” by passing on second, third, and fourth-hand information to the public. They are not supposed to engage in armchair reporting on events far afield from the comfort of their Tel Aviv or Jerusalem living rooms. They are supposed to investigate, to verify, to go to the source. Journalists are supposed to cover war and conflict and endangering their own lives is part of the job. It comes with the territory. But these three journalists under investigation were not throwing themselves into the middle of a combat zone, and they were not privy to nor reporting about top-secret information. In fact, their reports were pretty darn innocuous. Interesting, certainly, but not exactly a Watergate and deep throat expose. So why them and why now?
Why not the other 11 or 12 journalists who have done exactly the same thing in recent months? Why not the dozens who have done this before?
We have something called freedom of the press. It is something that is highly valued here. I have, over the months, put up numerous buttons decrying the draconian measures taken by our neighboring countries to suppress free speech, to curtail journalists’ ability to report. I put those buttons up and criticized those countries with a sense of superiority and pride that my government and my society would have none of that kind of thing here. We are a democracy and we value free speech and freedom of the press. Or so it seemed. What is happening now though seems to give the lie to that.
One of those under investigation is a journalist of integrity and a person of integrity. I also consider her to be a good and valued friend. And our government should get its head out of its a** and perhaps attend to some of the real problems we have here and leave these journalists alone to continue doing their jobs.
(BTW does anyone know why my screen goes blue and I get an error message about memory parity nearly every time I try to post something? I had a much better piece written and it gotten eaten twice that way.)
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt(BTW does anyone know why my screen goes blue and I get an error message about memory parity nearly every time I try to post something? I had a much better piece written and it gotten eaten twice that way.) [...]
I read a post by Treppenwitz about this recently. I think he would differ to you in the interpretation of what has happened.
Noa, Trepp and I definitely disagree on this. For one thing, unequal application of this “law” smacks of …something. If they are going to apply it then they need to open the same investigations against the other journalists who did the same thing. Also, did you know that quite literally 1,000s of dual-passport holding Israelis travel to places like Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and so forth every year for business? Why not go after these profitable business people if they are going to apply the law equally? The govt is fully aware that they go and without the little permission paper (which I’m sure they didn’t know about either) and yet they don’t go after them. Why?
Perhaps because when Lisa went to Lebanon there was a sense of “look what I can do.” There was very little reporting. It struck me as an in-your-face kind of thing. Israelis don’t seem to have a problem breaking laws, but they definitely do not like having their noses rubbed in it.
Fred, You couldn’t be more wrong about Lisa. The first time she went, it was to write a story about daily life in Beirut (the cafes, the nightlife, etc) for Time Out Tel Aviv, and to see a country that she’d heard so much about from others. When Channel 10 sent her for the second trip (which was for a grand total of two days), she took as much footage as she could while there, and then brought it back to their studio for editing. She wasn’t sent to file some hard-hitting scoop - she was sent to do a human interest story, which is exactly what she did.
I’m not sure why you think there was a sense of “look what I can do”. I also don’t know why, in this case, you mention that “Israelis don’t seem to have a problem breaking laws”, especially given that Lisa has stated that had she known that she would be breaking an Israeli law by making the trip that she never would have gone.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Especially for a journalist who is supposed to be in the know.
I saw Lisa’s reports, and I learned very little, other than “Beirut is a place where people live and do stuff, you know?”.
Watching the report I had a sense of “look at me, I’m under cover and they don’t know I’m from Israel, oooh.”
Just my own perspective, and so I can understand why the authorities would want to question her. I don’t know about the others who went to enemy countries, but I doubt if it was as in-your-face as Lisa’s visit was.
For fairness’ sake- The other side:
Mr. Trep - http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2007/12/since-you-asked.html
Mrs. Trep - http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2007/12/if-a-right-wing.html
Yaeli, while you and Trepp disagree about various aspects of this, I am fairly certain that he also finds the uneven application of the law troubling. I know I do.
There are a lot of things which are most perplexing about the situation. I for one, would interested to know how many journalists have applied for and been denied permission before assuming that one of the main goals of this law is the censure of the press. Also to know if a journalist is denied permission, is there a reasonable opportunity for appeal?
I guess I am just very uncomfortable with the assumptions being made by most people that the law has only negative aspects with no positive ones. If I ever get answers to any of my many questions, I may end up with those conclusions myself, but at the moment, I feel woefully ill-prepared to accept the idea that this law was conceived to censure the press and keep the Israeli public in the dark about the civilian aspects of our enemies’ lives. Further, I think that if censure were the main goal, there would be a lot of blank newsprint in place of the thousands of articles where the non-Israeli foreign press prints their stories which feature our enemies.
Zehava, I agree entirely that this whole situation is very perplexing. One of the things to note with this whole issue of journalists not being able to go to the source is that it can cause quite a lot of problems. Right now, there is a huge controversy in the U.S. about the reliance on Iraqi journalists for news reports from Iraq –there is a really good article in the NYTimes today about the fact that sectarian views, altered facts, and so forth are often found in these reports by editors but that many of them escape detection and get served up as “fact”to the public (see the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/business/media/17apee.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=d78cf9a33c1b97f7&ex=1355547600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss), which in turn colours the perception of what is happening there and so forth. And of course during the Lebanon War (II) there was the case of the faked photos covering newspapers across the globe. Then there is the case of the faked killing of Mohammed Al Dura, which has caused so much damage to Israel and cost so many lives –Israeli and non-Israeli. The only cameramen in place were Palestinian in that case –had there been Israeli or foreign cameramen on the scene as well, that hoax could never have been perpetrated on the world.
We face a very dangerous path when we prevent journalists from working independently and going “into the lion’s den” –too often, it leaves us with relying on news from the lion.
Yael: Again, I am not arguing the need to have unfettered access. I am asking if access is actually being denied — you know, if you go through the Ministry of Interior protocol. Are they denying travel sometimes, all of the time, almost never? To journalists they consider a threat to security?
I would also like to point out that just because a journalist may Israeli does not negate the possibility of an “agenda-driven” angle to what they write. As you have noticed, there are a few different opinions to be had in our small, fabulous country!
Zehava –I’m not sure that anyone has ever been denied because I’m not sure that anyone has ever applied. I work in Comm departments in 2 different universities and thus have a lot of colleagues who, in addition to lecturing and teaching workshops, are also journalists, cameramen, sound-technicians, editors, and so forth. Not a single one of them was aware of this requirement to get special permission until this story broke. Many of them or colleagues of theirs, through their work for FOX, CNN, and other international and foreign news agencies, as well as for local Israeli news outlets, have indeed traveled to report, film, and so forth in enemy countries but were wholly unaware of this requirement and so did so without ever applying. They didn’t know about it and the agencies for which they worked didn’t know about it. It seems to me that if the govt would like journalists and other media people to comply with the law, they should inform them that there is a law to comply with first. We have a situation where a law applies to an entire industry regarding an extremely common practice in that industry but the industry was not informed of it. It is sort of like passing a law that will affect about 30% of sales for businesses but failing to inform the businesses that there is such a law and suddenly prosecuting a couple of them when all of them have been doing it and none of them were aware that there was any problem with what they were doing.
Sadly, the business example you’ve given is too close to how our government seems to be operating these days…
As for knowing about the law, between having grown up during the Cold War in the US with knowledge of forbidden travel to Cuba, and knowing that private Israeli citizens can not venture into areas under Palestinian control — well, I guess I just always assumed that one would need to check with the authorities before traveling to an enemy state. I mean, even some allied countries require visa before allowing someone to enter!
As a total aside, Yael, — you are spelling my name incorrectly.
Heh Zehava we are talking about getting correct information from our government here, right? Ya know, the people who ping-pong you back and forth between departments and agencies each denying the others’ claims that they are the ones who should have information/forms/responsibility for whatever “should be a 2 second response but we’ll make it a 3 month one at which point we’ll tell you, you’ve passed the deadline and sorry no one can help now at either place” government? I’m trying to remember when it exactly it was that I actually got correct and accurate information from any of the government agencies I’ve had to go to for anything, at least the first time around, and…hrm, I’m not sure it has happened yet.
I’m still just agog over the fact that I wasn’t able to attend an extremely important meeting in Germany using my teudat ma’avar and didn’t find this out until I attempted to board the plane to said meeting. I went and got the Teudat Ma’avar specifically in order to fly to Germany and checked with the people who issued it, the very people who should know and should also issue the appropriate visa because it is something only needed if you are traveling on a Teudat Ma’avar and not necessary if you are traveling on an Israeli passport, and also checked and double-checked with a variety of other “travel-outside-the country” people in our lovely travel outside the country govt agency. Every one of them told me I didn’t need a visa or anything else. Nope, this is what you need and all you need. WRONG. Really, really wrong. The airline boarding agent knew I needed the visa but it seems our government agency that should have told me about it and issued it did not. When I went and screamed they check and said, oh sorry you’re right (duh) and offered to start the paperwork–yo it was a tad late for that.
[...] Yael K. of the Oleh Girl points out: [...]