Israeli Writer| About the arms of censorship and the henchmen of the media in Israel

The Israeli courts do not reject any request by the security establishment to issue orders prohibiting the publication of information or facts that involve harming “state security,” including, for example, the publication of information or facts such as these that appeared in foreign media...

Even Israeli bodies specialized in studying the media, such as the Seventh Eye website, acknowledge that Israel is the only country among the countries that consider themselves democratic, in which military censorship still plays a strict role in codifying (and sterilizing) all reports and news that are related to security and are published in the written, audio and visual media. It has tightened its grip in an unprecedented way during the current war against the Gaza Strip, which has been ongoing since October 7.

It is known that the Israeli military censorship was established with the establishment of Israel in 1948, as a continuation of the newspaper censorship authority established by the British Mandate in Palestine, based on the defense regulations for emergency hours from 1945. It is a unit affiliated with the Military Intelligence Division (Aman) in the Israeli army, headed by an officer He is a high-ranking person appointed by the Minister of Defense, but he is subject to the instructions of the security establishment.

During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the control of Israeli military censorship over security discourse was absolute. Many cases have emerged in which this oversight attempted to impose its powers on the elected members of the Knesset. It also exercised censorship on telephone calls, including those made by various media outlets, and on mail messages to and from abroad.

As technological means advanced, and more and more as the role of social media expanded, its authority eroded. Over the years, the list of topics that media outlets are required to pre-censor before making them public has also narrowed.

This unit is not considered the only arm for exercising state control over information related to security affairs. About two decades ago, the “Responsible for Security in the Security Institution” (D.S.D.E.) was authorized (the head of a directorate in the Ministry of Defense responsible for the security of the Ministry, and for the Israeli military industries and institutions in all matters related to dealing with the development and production of weapons of mass destruction, and defense centers, such as the Nuclear Research Center and the Israeli Institute for Biological Research, and military units active in these fields) exercising its oversight over the publication of “sensitive security issues related to national security.”

Likewise, Israeli courts do not reject any request by the security establishment to issue orders prohibiting the publication of information or facts that harm “state security,” including, for example, the publication of information or facts such as these that appeared in foreign media. In light of this, the courts also turned into another arm of military censorship.

But parallel to all of these arms, and perhaps above them, stands the arm of "self-censorship" to which the Israeli media itself is committed, as is evident from its performance in the current war, and all of them line up in times of war behind the slogan "No voice is louder than the voice of security." Security itself is another religion besides Judaism for most Israelis, as stated a short time ago by Israeli security affairs analyst, Yossi Melman, who has fought and continues to fight several battles against censorship.

This is not entirely new. Several years ago, the head of the Israeli military censorship, Sima Vaknin-Gil, praised her upon completing the duties of her position in 2015 after holding it for ten years, during which the second Israeli war on Lebanon (2006) and several wars against the Gaza Strip took place (starting in 2007), with Israeli journalists, especially the military, and with the Israeli media in general, and she said that she had a completely different opinion before taking up her position, but this opinion shifted 180 degrees, and she discovered that those who show greater responsibility are the journalists in particular, not those in charge of the information that must be kept confidential. Confidentiality. 

It has happened more than once that those responsible for confidential information were the ones who leaked it without paying attention to the harm this entailed in terms of state security, and the possibility of this information reaching “hostile parties”! In this context, Haaretz newspaper specifically singled out the praise.