Israel jails journalists for Gaza invasion report
We read:
"An Israeli court has jailed two journalists for two months for reporting troop movements in Israel in the hour before Israeli forces entered the Gaza Strip at the start of an invasion in January. The two men, both Palestinian residents of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, were convicted on Sunday of breaching military censorship regulations in their reports on troop movements for Iranian media from the Israeli side of Gaza’s border on Jan. 3. Journalists working in Israel are, in principle, not legally allowed to report any military or security developments without first clearing their report with the military censor.”
Source
They would have been shot as traitors in an earlier era. Military censorship has the very important aim of saving lives among the troops
6 comments:
Too bad that's not done (being shot not jailed) to the maggotts of the US media. These cretins would glady sacrifice the military of their own country for a story. In fact, Peter Arent, an Australian-born, US resident working for CNN during the first Gulf War publicly stated, "i'm not an American, i'm a journalist", when asked why he was so "friendly" with Saddam Hussien. CNN was flooded by demands from the public that the traitor be fired. He eventually was "quietly reassigned", to oblivion.
Ok - firstly this was being done in Israel - presumably they have very different guaranteed freedoms (ie they do not have the equivalent to the First Amendment). However, it sounds like if anyone is being Tongue Tied here its the jailed journalists.
Secondly, Jon it sounds like you support the punishment of journalists for reporting truth. Although its not clear from the story it appears these reports were based on first-hand observations of open troop movements. Nowadays that type of information is being communicated instantly to the world electronically by any ordinary person in the street.
So - are we for freedom of expression today or against it JJR?
Some restrictions on speech have always been accepted -- libel etc
I see military censorship in the same light
Considering those Philistines not only leaked information on Israeli troop movements, but to Israel's arch-enemy Iran, the Israelis could have, with great justice, executed those Philistines with pig-blood soaked bullets as enemy spies.
I guess they will have to wait two months to get their accolades from the Iranians.
The sad thing the U.S. media has been doing this since 2003!
Surely this is a perfect example of a law restricting the freedom of speech AND of the press.
That said - I think it can certainly be justified, but where do we draw the line?
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