Award-winning correspondent Robert Fisk speaks out on the continuing conflict in the Middle East. From Israel and Palestine to the US involvement in Iraq, Fisk argues the media has failed to fulfill its duty as watchdog. (Published on December 1, 2013)
More from Robert Fisk en YouTube: http://xurl.es/zm6b8
Middle East reporting guide urges journalists to use neutral terms
Nov 8, 2013
The International Press Institute (IPI) has stepped into controversy by publishing a guidebook for journalists who cover the Middle East’s central conflict.
The book, Use With Care: A Reporter’s Glossary of Loaded Language in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, is aimed at finding neutral descriptive terms to balance media coverage.
It is intended to serve as a guide to journalists covering the region as well as the Middle East peace process.
Six anonymous Israeli and Palestinian media veterans spent a year helping to compile the guide on behalf of the IPI, the Vienna-based press freedom body.
But it has already come in for criticism. Anshel Pfeffer, writing in the Israeli paper, Haaretz, dubbed it «the useless reporter’s glossary». And a pro-Palestinian website, while calling it «a bold attempt» to create a politically correct lexicon, was unimpressed.
According to a Daily Beast article on the glossary, it comprises some 150 terms ranging from “terrorist” to “martyr» with explanations of why the words are considered sensitive to Israeli and/or Palestinian audiences… MORE
BBC published in 2006 a list of “key terms” used in Israel-Palestinian conflict in order to improve the impartiality of the network’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS: KEY TERMS
ASSASSINATIONS
The BBC’s responsibility is to remain impartial and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments.Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgements.
If an event falls within the dictionary definition of assassination, then we can use the term but the word “killed” or “killing” may be perfectly adequate.
Plain simple language is preferable to more complex or emotive language. If we have more precise details of exactly why or how the killing took place, we should communicate that in an equally straightforward way. The phrase “targeted killing” is sometimes used by Israel and should be attributed.
BARRIER
BBC journalists should try to avoid using terminology favoured by one side or another in any dispute.The BBC uses the terms “barrier”, “separation barrier” or “West Bank barrier” as acceptable generic descriptions to avoid the political connotations of “security fence” (preferred by the Israeli government) or “apartheid wall” (preferred by the Palestinians).
The United Nations also uses the term “barrier”.
Of course, a reporter standing in front of a concrete section of the barrier might choose to say “this wall” or use a more exact description in the light of what he or she is looking at.
BORDER
Be careful with this word. Do you mean boundary? See Green Line.“CYCLE OF VIOLENCE”
It is better to avoid clich�s wherever possible. This one does nothing to explain any of the underlying causes of the conflict and may indeed obscure them.EAST JERUSALEM
Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it in 1981 but its claim to the area is not recognised internationally. Instead, under international law, East Jerusalem is considered to be occupied territory.For example, the Foreign Office says it “regards the status of Jerusalem as still to be determined in permanent status negotiations between the parties. Pending agreement, we recognise de facto Israeli control of West Jerusalem but consider East Jerusalem to be occupied territory. We recognise no sovereignty over the city”.
We should seek out words that factually describe the reality on the ground and which are not politically loaded.
Avoid saying East Jerusalem “is part” of Israel or suggesting anything like it. Avoid the phrase “Arab East Jerusalem”, too, unless you also have space to explain that Israel has annexed the area and claims it as part of its capital. East Jerusalem is sometimes referred as Arab East Jerusalem, partly because it was under Jordanian control between 1949 and 1967.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state of Palestine.
The BBC should say East Jerusalem is “occupied” if it is relevant to the context of the story.
For example: “Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain. Under international law the area is considered to be occupied territory.”
FENCE
See Barrier.GAZA STRIP
In 2005, Israel completed the withdrawal of all its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip. It retains control of the airspace, seafront and all vehicle access – including deliveries of food and other goods.All movement in and out of the Gaza Strip is controlled by Israeli authorities, except, officially, the pedestrian-only crossing between Gaza and Egypt which is meant to be controlled by Palestinians and Egyptians with the presence of EU monitors.
The situation is, however, fluid – Israel has been able to force its closure since the capture of Corporal Shalit in 2006.
Under international law, Israel is still the occupying power in Gaza, although it no longer has a permanent military presence there.
We need to be careful with our language so as not to give the impression that the BBC is favouring one side’s position. In BBC programmes it is more accurate to talk about an “end to Israel’s permanent military presence” rather than the end of occupation.
GREEN LINE
The Green Line marks the boundary between Israel and the West Bank. It is properly referred to as the 1949 Armistice Line – the ceasefire line of 1949.The exact borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state are subject to negotiation between the two parties. The Palestinians want a complete end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and use the phrase to mean a return to the pre-4th June 1967 borders.
In describing the situation on the ground take care to use the most precise and accurate terminology.
The Green Line is a dividing line or a boundary. If you call it a border you may inadvertently imply that it has internationally recognised status, which it does not currently have.
To that end, we can call the Green Line “the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank.”
INTIFADA
The usual guidelines about paying due regard to the context in which words are used should be carefully considered if we are referring to the causes of the uprising.Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgements. So, for example, it is preferable to say that “Sharon’s visit and Palestinian frustration at the failure of the peace process sparked the (second) intifada or uprising” rather than it “led” to it or “started” it.
JERUSALEM
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive and complex issues of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its status is dependent on a final agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.Between 1949 and 1967, the city was divided into Israeli controlled West Jerusalem, and Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem. Israel currently claims sovereignty over the entire city, and claims it as its capital, after capturing East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war.
That claim is not recognised internationally and East Jerusalem is considered to be occupied territory.
See East Jerusalem.
JEWISH
Be careful over whether you mean “Israeli” or “Jewish”: the latter might imply that the story is about race or religion, rather than the actions of the state or its citizens.“MIDDLE EAST EXPERT”
Some “experts” may have a history of sympathising with one cause or another even if they have no overt affiliation.It is preferable, where time and space allow, to provide a lengthier indication of the contributor’s views on past issues so that the audience might calibrate his or her statements for themselves.
In all reporting we should avoid generalisations, bland descriptions and loose phrases which in fact tell us little about a contributor or event. The phrase “Middle East expert” implies the BBC thinks this person’s views have weight and independence. If we can defend that judgement – that’s fine. If not it may be better to avoid the phrase.
Overall, we should seek a precise description – for example, what job does this person hold? Who employs them? Where do they stand in the debate?
Foreign journalist taking a nap on the job. Photo by Itzik Ben-Malki HAARETZ. Nov 7, 2013/ 12:43 AM
The useless reporter’s glossary to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The language used by journalists covering the conflict is as visceral and bloody as the conflict itself. No handbook is going to change that fact
By Anshel Pfeffer (Nov 7, 2013/ 12:43 AM)
A few weeks after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, a senior Israel Defense Forces field commander complained about the way some Israeli news organizations covered the fighting. «If I get my hands on S. [a television reporter who will remain nameless] I’ll tear him to pieces. What does he mean by reporting about ‘the Israeli forces,’ while we’re the ones defending his sorry ass. Who does he think he is? The United Nations?»
The officer, I will add here, is not a rabid right-wing ideologist but a normally mild-mannered and well-educated man, greatly in demand by foreign correspondents for his critical analyses and intelligent briefings. He was angry at the way an Israeli journalist referred to the Israeli army, using a neutral term instead of the familiar Tzahal (IDF). The journalist didn’t reflect the feeling among the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis, regardless of their political stance, that it is their army, and that for all its faults its predominant role is to defend the nation. But this is a particular Israeli feeling.
Therefore, I was intrigued this week to discover in «Use With Care,» the «Reporter’s Glossary of Loaded Language in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,» a just-published handbook by the International Press Institute, that the self-appointed arbiters of acceptable language admonish journalists who use the term «Israel Occupation Forces,» or IOF. They recommend that «It is more accurate and neutral to refer to the official name, IDF, or alternatively to the Israeli Army or Israeli forces.»
On the face of it, the attempt by IPI, an admirable organization devoted to defending freedom of the press around the world, to tone down the incendiary way the conflict is reported is a worthwhile exercise. But you have to ask yourselves whether this is at all possible and can it achieve anything. George Orwell wrote in his essay «Politics and the English Language» that «Our civilization is decadent, and our language – so the argument runs – must inevitably share in the general collapse.» In exactly the same way, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is sectarian, bloody and visceral, and much of the language used to report on it is such.
Use With Care is written in English and proposes equivalent Hebrew and Arabic expressions and alternatives to the problematic terms. Who will use it? Will it be an Israeli media outlet in the hands of right-wing publishers or those who feel that to attract readers or viewers they have to pander to the lowest populist denominator? Or the Palestinian press that is part of a society that sees a national struggle of independence the only way to ending decades of oppression and occupation? Does anyone really believe that journalists on either side will be convinced of the need to adopt more impartial and neutral terms of reference?
Using neutral vocabulary, as Haaretz, for example, tries to do in much of its coverage, is in itself a conscious political decision. Suggesting that Israeli journalists eschew mention of Judea and Samaria in favor of «West Bank» or that Palestinian writers and broadcasters drop the «occupied» before «Jerusalem» implies that either side relinquish its claim on these places. This is not neutrality. Israelis who support a two-state solution and oppose the settlements do not call the West Bank Judea and Samaria. They have already made that political decision. Likewise, Palestinians who don’t refer to Jerusalem as occupied are accepting it remaining under Israeli rule. It is not about journalism, and Israelis and Palestinians cannot be neutrals, whatever their profession.
I have no idea what state the IPI’s finances are from, but I would advise them against wasting money on printing editions in Hebrew and Arabic if they don’t want piles of the glossary raising dust and being used as doorstops and coffee-cup coasters in newsrooms throughout the region. It would be wonderful if incitement ceased from those newsrooms, but that isn’t going to happen because of a book politely asking them to do so.
Perhaps the glossary is aimed at international correspondents. But these already have a pretty well-regulated terminology, designed to reflect no partiality with either side and are continuously monitored by style editors and ombudsmen. You could perhaps imagine a freelance reporter arriving in the region with no previous knowledge of the linguistic minefield of the conflict finding some use for this booklet, but that person would probably last about 10 minutes in our cutthroat business.
Even if international news organizations adhered to the guidelines of this sanitized and bloodless lexicon, their only reason would be to avoid being harassed and harangued by tendentious groups such as CAMERA and Honest Reporting and their pro-Palestinian equivalents, and to minimize the bother of having to respond to hundreds of complaints from a tiny proportion of the readers or viewers whose only interest is in being offended. Journalists who spend their days worrying about such concerns to the extent that they need a «reporter’s glossary» have forgotten the reason they went into journalism to begin with.
Six anonymous Israeli and Palestinian journalists compiled the glossary and suggested the alternative usages. They decided to withhold their names «as a result of the current political situation in Israel and Palestine.» I think it more likely they did so because they knew they would be laughingstocks if they put their names to yet another useless product of the conflict-resolution industry that has done so little to reduce hardship for Israelis and Palestinians.
But while the glossary is ultimately a futile exercise, some of the assumptions underlying it are actually harmful. These can best be summarized in one sentence from the foreword by IPI executive director Alison Bethel McKenzie: «How this conflict is covered is important, almost as important as what is covered.» While the first part of that sentence is uncontestable, the second beggars belief. Every journalist should believe that he or she is performing a vital and valuable role in society, but in no way is the manner in which the conflict is being covered «almost as important.» This is a ridiculous and frankly immoral concept that could only have been written in the warm offices of an NGO in Vienna. How could one equate the technicalities and sensitivities of how we ply our trade with the thousands of deaths, the untold misery and deep injustice suffered on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This breathtaking lack of proportion and unbearable smugness ruins decent journalism to a much greater extent than the most controversial language.
Hopefully one day, after a peaceful resolution of the conflict, will come decades of education for both nations in which a new generation learns to coexist. Only then will a new generation of journalists be capable of using peaceful and balanced language.
Meanwhile, coverage from both sides will continue to bloodily reflect the bloody times we live through. We’re journalists, not the United Nations.
Using politically correct language to discuss Israel-Palestine
October 30, 2013
It is encouraging to hear about this new reporters’ guidebook – one that makes the bold attempt to help journalists be more objective in their reporting of Israel-Palestine. It is encouraging at least because it recognises that the words we use are often laden with values and judgements of the kind that journalists are generally keen to avoid. Even so, to suggest that a mere substitutions of sensitive terms will in some way improve media coverage in the Middle East is patently absurd.
Certainly using the term ‘Security Fence’ rather than ‘Apartheid Wall’ to describe the barrier that separates Israel from the West Bank shows clearly which side the writer is on. Even so, the construction and deconstruction of political narratives is far more complex than any simple change in vocabulary.
To write in any detail about the suffering of the Palestinian people is in itself an act that subverts the dominant narrative. And even if writers were able to discuss the violence with clinical objectivity, this would not suggest impartiality by any means! Evil scientists have performed monstrous experiments on living beings, and that fact that they can describe their results in purely scientific terms actually reinforces the horror of their acts!
What we need is not ‘objective’ reporting (whatever that is) but reporting where the agenda is not concealed. For me personally, my sympathies are with the Palestinians, and I say that unashamedly. For me to refer to the ‘Apartheid Wall’ as anything else would be dishonest!
A new reporter’s guidebook released on October 23 aims to balance media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a field that often spirals into semantic mudslinging at the cost of clear news coverage.
The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) published Use With Care: A Reporter’s Glossary of Loaded Language in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict after a year of joint work between six anonymous Israeli and Palestinian media veterans. The two sides worked on separate content submissions, which IPI then combined through several months of back-and-forth editing.
The glossary comprises some 150 terms ranging from “terrorist” to “martyr.” Each word or expression is presented in English, Arabic and Hebrew, with an explanation of why it might be sensitive to Israeli and/or Palestinian audiences. Most entries include a suggested alternative term.
For example, the guide explains why “Apartheid wall” and “security wall/fence” are respectively offensive to Israelis and Palestinians, recommending that journalists use “separation barrier” instead. Many of the entries also address unnecessary adjectives, asking that reporters drop the modifiers from terms like “innocent civilians” and “peaceful demonstration.”
Instead of “Judea and Samaria,” “eternal capital of the Palestinian people” or “united capital of Israel,” the guide recommends geographically specific terms like the West Bank, East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. “Israel” is recommended over both “Zionist entity” and “Jewish state.” The former is tendentious because it is perceived to deny Israeli statehood, the guide says, while the latter ignores Arab history predating the State of Israel and implies that non-Jewish Israelis are not fully part of the state.
Other terms are less obvious. “Middle East expert” is problematic, the guide says, because ideologues and activists are often referred to as experts without disclosure of their partisan views.
“This tactic is used to magnify and repeat the views that certain journalist or media wish to promote. It is dishonest and is partly to blame for the fact that audience stereotypes and viewpoints are repeatedly reinforced instead of being challenged,” the guide says. “It creates an echo-chamber effect, in which pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian readers, viewers, and listeners believe that only their frame of reference is reasonable and enlightened, while the other side is hateful, prejudiced, and extreme.”
read the rest of this article here
New Guidebook Tells Reporters How Not to Write About Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) published Use With Care: A Reporter’s Glossary of Loaded Language in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict after a year of joint work between six anonymous Israeli and Palestinian media veterans. The two sides worked on separate content submissions, which IPI then combined through several months of back-and-forth editing.
The glossary comprises some 150 terms ranging from “terrorist” to “martyr.” Each word or expression is presented in English, Arabic and Hebrew, with an explanation of why it might be sensitive to Israeli and/or Palestinian audiences. Most entries include a suggested alternative term.
For example, the guide explains why “Apartheid wall” and “security wall/fence” are respectively offensive to Israelis and Palestinians, recommending that journalists use “separation barrier” instead. Many of the entries also address unnecessary adjectives, asking that reporters drop the modifiers from terms like “innocent civilians” and “peaceful demonstration.
Instead of “Judea and Samaria,” “eternal capital of the Palestinian people” or “united capital of Israel,” the guide recommends geographically specific terms like the West Bank, East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. “Israel” is recommended over both “Zionist entity” and “Jewish state.” The former is tendentious because it is perceived to deny Israeli statehood, the guide says, while the latter ignores Arab history predating the State of Israel and implies that non-Jewish Israelis are not fully part of the state.
Other terms are less obvious. “Middle East expert” is problematic, the guide says, because ideologues and activists are often referred to as experts without disclosure of their partisan views.
«This tactic is used to magnify and repeat the views that certain journalist or media wish to promote. It is dishonest and is partly to blame for the fact that audience stereotypes and viewpoints are repeatedly reinforced instead of being challenged,” the guide says. “It creates an echo-chamber effect, in which pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian readers, viewers, and listeners believe that only their frame of reference is reasonable and enlightened, while the other side is hateful, prejudiced, and extreme.”
Journalists should avoid this effect by identifying each interviewee’s job, employer and basic views, the guide says.
IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie writes in her foreword that Israeli and Palestinian journalists’ personal backgrounds often create ethical obligations in conflict with their professionalism. The guide aims not to erase those ethical convictions, but to “expose potential linguistic pitfalls” that can cause some audiences to “simply shut down and stop listening,” the authors explain.
Editor Naomi Hunt said in an email that the glossary idea started during a broader IPI project on Israeli-Palestinian dialogue last year. One Israeli in an IPI forum said journalists needed to be aware of their terminology and how it would be received by the “other side,” Hunt said, which sparked the idea of a shared reporter’s guide.
Many terms were controversial in the editing process, Hunt said, most of all “terrorist” and “occupation,” both of which are presented in the book with long explanations and no alternative.
«For both of these terms there was a strong sense on one side that you must use these words and these words only… because they are a totally accurate representation of reality,” Hunt said. “On the other side, of course, there was a sense that these words are loaded and that they are used to delegitimize, respectively, what some consider acts of resistance and Israel’s presence in the West Bank.”
Hunt’s solution was simply to “include explanations of all points of view and leave it be.” “Nakba,” for example, is presented as the Palestinian term for “the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the establishment of Israel,” as well as “the most traumatic collective memory for Palestinians.” Israelis refer to the same incident as the end of the 1948 “War of Independence,” the guide says without endorsing either phrase.
“Something that one person finds totally innocuous may turn out to be incredibly sensitive to someone else,” Hunt said. “The important thing is to be aware.”
The project was funded by a grant from the Foreign Ministry of Norway. Hard copies will be distributed to newsrooms in Israel and Palestine over the next few weeks. A PDF version is also immediately available by online request.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Crisis of Zionism, was published by Times Books in April 2012.
O. Próximo: cuidado con las palabras Por Luis Oz vía @elmundo_orbyt http://mun.do/HKvYLY
IPI Use With Care
Loosing the Propaganda War
By Hirsh Goodman Jan 31, 2014
JERUSALEM — ON Feb. 4, 1965, as a teenager, I left South Africa, the country of my birth, for a new home in a place I’d never been — Israel.
I loved South Africa, but I loathed the apartheid system. In Israel, I saw a fresh start for a people rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, a place of light and justice, as opposed to the darkness and oppression of apartheid South Africa.
Now, almost 50 years later, after decades of arguing that Israel is not an apartheid state and that it’s a calumny and a lie to say so, I sense that we may be well down the road to being seen as one. That’s because, in this day and age, brands are more powerful than truth and, inexplicably, blindly, Israel is letting itself be branded an apartheid state — and even encouraging it.
In apartheid South Africa, people disappeared in the night without the protection of any legal process and were never heard from again. There was no freedom of speech or expression and more “judicial” hangings were reportedly carried out there than in any other place on earth. There was no free press and, until January 1976, no public television.
Masses of black people were forcibly moved from tribal lands to arid Bantustans in the middle of nowhere. A “pass system” stipulated where blacks could live and work, splitting families and breaking down social structures, to provide cheap labor for the mines and white-owned businesses, and a plentiful pool of domestic servants for the white minority. Those found in violation were arrested, usually lashed, and sentenced to stints of hard labor for a few shillings per prisoner per day, payable to the prison service.
None of this even remotely exists in Israel or the occupied territories. But, increasingly, in the mind of the world it does. This is because of Israel’s own actions and a vigorous campaign by those who oppose its occupation of Palestinians’ land and, in some cases, Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. They understand that delegitimization is Israel’s soft belly and apartheid the buzzword to make it happen…MORE
Source: FOREIGN POLICY (Jan 29, 2014)
The Vocabulary of Sectarianism
• BY Aaron Y. Zelin, Phillip Smyth
• JANUARY 29, 2014 (FOREIGN POLICY)
The Independent
The slickness of Israel’s spokesmen is rooted in directions set down by the pollster Frank Luntz
By Patrick Cockburn, Sunday 27th, 2014
How about the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 and in the following years, and who are not allowed to go back to their homes? Here Dr Luntz has subtle advice for spokesmen, saying that «the right of return is a tough issue for Israelis to communicate effectively because much of Israeli language sounds like the ‘separate but equal’ words of the 1950s segregationists and the 1980s advocates of Apartheid. The fact is, Americans don’t like, don’t believe and don’t accept the concept of ‘separate but equal’.»
So how should spokesmen deal with what the booklet admits is a tough question? They should call it a «demand», on the grounds that Americans don’t like people who make demands. «Then say ‘Palestinians aren’t content with their own state. Now they’re demanding territory inside Israel’.» Other suggestions for an effective Israeli response include saying that the right of return might become part of a final settlement «at some point in the future».
…MORE
Related: Israel’s propaganda machine is finally starting to misfire
Jeremy Scahill blasts the US media coverage of the massacre in Gaza. HUFFPOST LIVE (July 23, 2014)
Example of Israeli propaganda
The images missing from the war with Hamas
In cooperating with the terrorist organization’s media blackout of its fighters, the international press is only telling half the story
There’s no shortage of images from the Gaza conflict.
We’ve seen rubble, dead Palestinian children, Israelis cowering during rocket attacks, Israeli military maneuvers and Israel Defense Forces footage of Hamas militants emerging from tunnels to attack Israeli soldiers.
What we haven’t seen are practically any images of Hamas fighters inside Gaza.
We know they’re there: Someone’s got to be launching those rockets into Israel (more than 2,800) and firing at invading Israeli troops. But so far, the only images we’ve seen (or even heard about) are the IDF’s videos of Hamas fighters using hospitals, ambulances, mosques and schools (and tunnels) to launch attacks against Israeli targets or to ferry arms around Gaza.
Why haven’t we seen journalists’ photographs of Hamas fighters inside Gaza?
We know Hamas doesn’t want the world to see images of Palestinian fighters launching rockets or using civilian havens, such as hospitals, as bases of operation. But if we’re able to see images from both sides of practically every other war — in Syria, in Ukraine, in Iraq — why is Gaza an exception?
If journalists are being threatened and intimidated when they try to document Hamas activity in Gaza, their news outlets should be out front saying so. They’re not.
On Tuesday, The New York Times published an account by photographer Sergey Ponomarev on what his days are like in Gaza. Here’s what Ponomarev said:
How can journalists be objective when writing about dead children? Powerful from @giles_fraser: http://gu.com/p/4vdhy/tw
How can journalists be objective when writing about dead children? |… 
El desgaste emocional que significa informar desde Gaza ⇉ http://bit.ly/1lkI7EB
When it comes to incitement, is Facebook biased against Israel? http://dlvr.it/DBNYVR #ArabIsraeliConflict
When it comes to incitement, is Facebook biased against Israel?
#Gaza «C’est du journalisme kamikaze de photographier ce conflit»: @TomCOEX, photo reporter, témoigne pour Libé http://u.afp.com/eag #AFP ()
Times Foreign Editor, Margaret Sullivan, Responds on Israeli Censorship
Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner reported Friday in The Times that detailed information about a kidnapped Israeli soldier would be subject to a rare instance of Israeli military censorship. The passage from the article reads as follows:
“After the initial publication of this article, the military’s censor informed The New York Times that further information related to Lieutenant Goldin would have to be submitted for prior review. Journalists for foreign news organizations must agree in writing to the military censorship system to work in Israel. This was the first censorship notification The Times had received in more than six years.”
Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post wrote on this subject earlier Friday afternoon.
I asked the foreign editor, Joseph Kahn, to respond about whether The Times would comply with the restriction. I also asked him whether it was possible that The Times would handle this as it has sometimes handled gag orders in Israeli courts. I wrote about that in a post a few months ago, noting that The Times sometimes “finds a way” to get the news out despite these restrictions, in some cases by writing a story from a location other than Israel.
Mr. Kahn responded as follows:
“This is not exactly like a gag order. It’s military censorship. But our policy is the same. Our accredited staff in Israel cannot legally publish stories on subjects the censors declare a matter of national security unless they are reviewed by censors and cleared. In this case, they have declared detailed reporting about the missing Israeli soldier a matter that the censors need to review. We do of course use our full international staff to cover important issues, and The Times as a whole is not subject to Israeli censorship. So our broader report is not necessarily impacted by a censorship order in Israel or any other country.”
Mr. Kahn also told me that The Times has not submitted articles for review prior to publication.
My take: My sense is that the restricted information is narrow, and that this instance is not entirely dissimilar to the American government holding back details on an American citizen, for example, a soldier, diplomat or spy caught up in hostile action, that could place that person in greater jeopardy.
Still, the very idea of censorship or gag orders by a foreign government is a disturbing one, not only for journalists but for all who value the free flow of information. It’s heartening to hear that The Times has not submitted any articles for review, and I hope that that will remain the case as this situation develops.
Updated, 1:50 p.m. | The Times article referenced in the post was written by Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner. Fares Akram, who was previously identified in the byline alongside Ms. Kershner, contributed reporting from Gaza.
An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth –A former AP correspondent explains how and why reporters get Israel so wrong, and why it matters By Matti Friedman
(In)discriminate language on Gaza, by Evgeny Finkel and Sarah Parkinson | changing words matter http://wapo.st/1AXttwS
(In)discriminate language on Gaza 
Israeli assaults on Palestinian journalists may be war crime, human rights group says http://bit.ly/20CReaq
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