History of Censorship in Israel

Description: Predominantly Jewish nation established in 1948 in the Middle East’s historical Palestine region

Significance: Israel’s existence has been opposed by its neighbors, and large numbers of non-Jewish Arab people live in this Jewish state and in territories occupied by it; national security problems have therefore led to censorship

From the end of World War I until 1948 most of the region that became modern Israel was ruled by the British as Palestine. In 1933 the British Mandate of Palestine passed the Press Ordinance, which provided for the licensing and regulation of the press. When Israel became independent, it retained the Press Ordinance. The Ministry of the Interior supervised the press and granted licenses, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Israel’s military, enforced censorship regulations. In 1953 cooperation between the Israeli military and the press was institutionalized with the formation of the Editors’ Committee. Under an agreement between this committee and the government, newspapers were allowed to exercise self-censorship. Only articles that touched directly on national security had to be submitted to the military censor.

The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was set up in 1965. This organization operated under the Ministry of Education and Culture and it controlled the nation’s radio and television networks. The IBA, however, is under its own board of directors and, for the most part, radio and television programming have suffered little government interference.

Censorship has been most strongly enforced in the Palestinian areas occupied by Israel. In a war waged in June, 1967, Israel seized territory from Egypt, Syria, and Jordan that more than doubled Israel’s size. This brought under Israeli occupation large numbers of Palestinians, Arab inhabitants of the region. In contrast to the Palestinian people living in pre-1967 Israel, those in the occupied territories did not hold the rights of citizens. Palestinian publications in the occupied territories did not enjoy the power of self-censorship exercised elsewhere. Editors of newspapers in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip had to submit all articles to the military censors each night. Newspapers that did not cooperate with these regulations could be summarily shut down. In 1987 discontent with Israeli rule erupted in the intifadeh, an uprising of Palestinians in the occupied territories. The government of Israel, suspecting Arab journalists of involvement in the uprising, began to shut down many Arab publications, and many Arab journalists were arrested.

In 1995 Israel allowed the establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in an attempt to achieve internal peace and peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Censorship by the new Palestinian National Authority, headed by Yasir Arafat, almost immediately became an issue. In January, 1996, Bassem Eid, a Palestinian critic of human rights violations, was detained for twenty-four hours by Palestinian security forces. In that same month, a Palestinian newspaper editor, Maher al-Alami, was held six days for refusing to publish a favorable article about Yasir Arafat. Al-Alami accused Arafat of violating press freedoms and claimed that the Palestinian media were being coerced into following Arafat’s instructions.

In the twenty-first century, Israel has continued to restrict information on the ongoing conflict with Palestine, among other things. There are officially forty-one issues that lead to a publication being legally required to be submitted to the military censors for approval, but many are now outdated and irrelevant, such as clandestine immigration from the Soviet Union. Local news outlets have sometimes been able to get around the military censors by quoting foreign news sources which are not subject to these restrictions—saying that foreign reports claim that an incident (such as Israel's 2007 attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor) occurred is not the same in the eyes of the censors as stating that it did occur. Israel's press is considered free by Freedom House, but Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index takes a more critical view, pointing out raids carried out against Palestinian media in 2012 and the killing of two Palestinian journalists in Operation "Pillar of Defence" the same year. Also in 2012, journalist Uri Blau was indicted for possession of state secrets, the first time in decades that this law was used against the press. Israel's press freedom situation improved somewhat in the following years, but military censorship remained in place. In 2015 chief military censor Sima Vaknin-Gill called for reforms including an elimination of the military censorship office altogether. Some, however, feel the proposed reforms would not go far enough, as it would still be possible to prevent the publication of politically inconvenient information using court gag orders.

Bibliography

Blau, Uri. "The Iron Dome of Censorship: How Free Is Israel's Media?" Mashable. Mashable, 9 July 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.

"Israel." Freedom House. Freedom House, 2015. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.

Reporters Without Borders. World Press Freedom Index 2014. Paris: Author, 2014. Print.

Rudoren, Jodi. "Military Censorship in Israel." New York Times. New York Times, 4 Aug. 2015. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.

Williams, Dan. "Israel's Secret-Keeper Seeks Censorship Reform." Reuters. Reuters, 30 July 2015. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.