'Prisoner X' case strains Israelis' longtime acceptance of censorship
In the days after Israel partially acknowledged a report that it secretly jailed an Australian-Israeli main who later died in prison, there is doubt about the censorship powers that enabled the government to stifle the Israeli media until yesterday.
The decades-old sense that the Jewish state is under a constant existential threat has created tolerance of formal limits on press freedoms, but the sense among many Israelis is that in this case authorities have gone too far, and that such a blackout is not practical, let alone possible, with the advent of online journalism.
An investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation into the 2010 disappearance and death of 34-year-old Ben Zygier suggested the Australian joined the Mossad after immigrating to Israel, but that something must have gone wrong with his service. In the hours after the initial publication of the report, Israels Prime Minister's Office made the rare move of calling in the editors-in-chief of major domestic news outlets to encourage them to uphold a blackout on the Australian report.
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The prime ministers office was backed by a sweeping gag order from a court in force since the original arrest, but the move backfired as Israelis shared details of foreign accounts of the fate of so-called Prisoner X on social networks -- or simply browsed foreign news sites. The dissonance highlighted the seemingly outmoded application of censorship powers in the new media era, and suggested that Israels government had overstepped by keeping the case under wraps for years.
"I truly thought that this kind of thing doesnt happen here. Someone was arrested, interrogated, charged and then he killed himself, and then it was held secret with a gag order," said Michael Sfard, a prominent Israeli civil rights lawyer. "They tried to make Israel into Albania, a place where people shouldnt know what is known to the international community.
Israels history of military censorship is rooted in powers assumed by the British Mandatory authorities, which first declared a "state of emergency that has been kept in place, uninterrupted, since Israels establishment in 1948.
Israel is one of the only democracies to subject its press to a military censor office, but the practice had been relatively accepted as a necessity in its early years because of a sense the country was constantly under attack. That said, the militarys authority to strike out information was drastically scaled back by the Supreme Court in 1989. The ruling required the censor to show an objectively imminent and real threat to national security in disqualifying information for publication, rather than a vague reference to national security considerations.
Citing "foreign media sources" has been a common workaround for journalists when censorship is invoked or the government imposes an internal gag order on officials, and it has generally been tolerated by Israeli authorities. But when the government this week pressed Israeli websites to take down initial reports of the ABC television report and revived an antiquated practice of calling in editors to share state secrets in return for a blackout, their efforts only fanned the firestorm.
"[Mossad director Tamir] Pardo and his friend believe that if they only press harder, the door will remain closed," wrote Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz. "Meanwhile, on Facebook, on Instagram, and Twitter, everyone is sharing the information, forwarding links, expressing opinions, and cracking jokes.
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'Prisoner X' case strains Israelis' longtime acceptance of censorship