Blue Pencil

Candid talk of censorship

An Israeli civilian, employed by the Defense Ministry, stood before an audience of high school students in Tel Aviv and casually described how he and his colleagues oversee the work of foreign correspondents reporting from Israel. "We hear all their phone calls, check every story they send, and even garble their telex cable transmissions when they move stories that can harm us," the bureaucrat explained. The admission was extraordinary. Although Israel regularly censors reports by domestic and foreign journalists on a broad range of subjects, on the ground that it is necessary to do so to protect national security, officials have persistently refused to acknowledge that the military employs an extensive surveillance network to enforce its authority.

The censor addressing students in Tel Aviv had no idea that Nurit Dovrat, a reporter for the daily Ma'ariv (circ. 200,000) was taking notes of his remarks. When her story about the speech appeared last week, after the name of the talkative censor and some of his other remarks had been deleted by a more prudent Israeli censor, the news set off a clatter of protest.

To foreign journalists based in Jerusalem, the story came less as a surprise than as a confirmation of long-held suspicions. Correspondents often swap stories of intrusions into their telephone calls. They have also noted peculiar mechanical disruptions in the wire transmission of stories that they did not submit to prior censorship because, they contended, the stories did not breach matters of national security.

Though Israel's censors have suppressed or delayed some breaking news, particularly during wars or incidents of terrorism, journalists have generally viewed the censorship apparatus as an irritation that could be circumvented if necessary. Reporters send material out in packages or via couriers; sometimes they simply leave the country to file sensitive stories.

Israeli officials initially professed shock and incredulity at the censor's published admissions. Said Uri Porath, a spokesman for Prime Minister Menachem Begin: "If they are listening to phone calls, it is the first time I have heard about it." Mort Dolinsky, head of the Government Press Office, said, "I have never heard of this listening to phone calls and garbling of telexes. I do not think it works that way."

A day later, however, Dolinsky reversed himself. He said that every accredited foreign reporter must sign a little-noted, routine document requiring him to submit in writing, in advance, the intended content of all telephone calls involving national security. If that rule is violated, the document states, "the censor will have to interfere by cutting off the call to prevent the transmission of forbidden news items."

Israel's policy of censoring stories and international telephone communications is all but unique among democracies. Even in Moscow and Peking, foreign correspondents do not have to submit stories in advance for clearance. In many repressive countries, the disruption of reporters' telephone calls and telex transmissions occurs mainly in war zones or during revolutions. Among the nations that have disrupted correspondents' communications at least occasionally in the past few years: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Burma, Iran, Kampuchea, Poland, the Sudan and the Soviet Union.

On the surface, Israel's policies of censorship and intrusive enforcement could appear to put the country in the same category as a rigid dictatorship. But, as all journalists who have been there know, working in Israel is nothing like covering Afghanistan. Governments that truly want to discourage journalists from reporting the news simply ban visits by foreign correspondents, as the Burmese do, or restrict their travel, as the Soviets do, or stall endlessly when reporters seek to conduct interviews, as the Ethiopians do.

Israel, by contrast, is an open society. Officials are unusually accessible, and ordinary citizens freely join in a constant national self-examination. The domestic Israeli press is among the world's liveliest and least restricted. In the name of protecting national security interests, unfortunately, Israel's military censors have adopted methods that do not enhance their nation's image. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.