How successful is the Israeli military censorship of the media?

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Military censorship is defined as the set of laws that are imposed to prohibit the publication of certain press and media material to the media, in which the authorities believe that publication may cause psychological, military or legal harm to the State that imposes such censorship or its citizens. Israel is considered one of the most countries around the world to apply this type of censorship to the media due to the ongoing state of war with some countries in the region and the non-Palestinian organizations such as the Palestinian factions, whose technological capabilities have greatly developed to try to obtain information about the army and society. Israeli conflict.

The Israeli censorship works in accordance with the emergency laws issued by the British Mandate in 1945, and increases the control over their use of these laws during the wars fought by Israel. Israeli laws prohibit the publication of any classified material from the Israeli National Archives until at least quarter of a century. in Israel). There has been no change since then, and is the legal basis under which military censorship operates today. This legislation compels the imposition of security controls on any content prior to publication.

For example, article 44 of the Basic Law states: "All decisions of the Government and the meetings of Ministers concerned with the discussion of security matters shall be deemed to be prohibited, unless they are authorized by the Prime Minister or any other authorized person." In order to prevent the diversion of any information that is not intended to be published by the Israeli military censor, Israel has always granted press cards to a limited number of journalists who are allowed access to the information to be disseminated in a framework that serves Israeli objectives.

The military censor, in accordance with articles of the Defense Act of Emergency No. 87 and 97, has the right to order books for review prior to publication. As for press publications, for many years, censorship has sent a personal order to newspaper and magazine publishers, but in 1988 the military censor issued a general order for emergency times , The article provides for the examination before the publication, all material related to the security of the state, peace and community order in (Israel), or regarding the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Arab-Israeli relations, even if the information has already been published.

From time to time, the military observer also sends to the media lists of topics that must be presented in advance. The list includes the subjects announced by the government with the approval of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset, such as "classified information" and other topics determined by the military censor. In a report issued in July 2018, the Military Monitoring Authority acknowledged that it was modifying the news from 5 daily news published on the Israeli media. The report also showed a significant increase in censorship of the publication of several books written by Israeli writers, 31 books out of 83 books during 2017.

The Israeli military censorship was not limited to the visual, audio and print media, but extended to websites and social media. Recently, it was able to enter into agreements with leading social media companies in the world, such as Facebook and Twitter, in order to delete or block any content that it considers harmful to Israel. There is no doubt that this censorship, despite the prohibition of important information about the adversaries in times of peace or war, but it increased the state of internal and external criticism of the state of repression of freedoms in (Israel).

On the other hand, the adversaries did not stand in the position of helplessness against such censorship, and were able to penetrate the regulations imposed by Israeli censorship of information, especially military. The adversaries, specifically the Palestinian resistance, succeeded in bringing many military information through people who were recruited in Israel or via electronic penetration .

The Palestinian resistance worked to break many of the restrictions imposed by military censorship, especially during the war. The publication of many media items showing the losses of the Israeli army during the war of 2014, the negative impact on the army and the Israeli public and the portrayal of the process of Nahal Oz and Zikim is only a simple example. The failed Israeli intelligence operation east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the success of Hamas in uncovering the intelligence cell and killing one of its officers, and even identifying its members and publishing their pictures on the media in order to help the armed wing of Hamas to identify them to enter the conflict between the Palestinian resistance and Israeli control a new turning point.

The role of Israeli military censorship has raised a wave of successive criticisms of the Israeli security establishment and has been accused by many human rights organizations, not to mention the opposition parties, of the fact that part of the objective of this censorship is to limit the freedom of opinion and expression in Israel

Reuters

This censorship did not succeed and despite its warning to the Israelis to circulate and publish the pictures or information accompanying them published by the armed wing of Hamas, but after contact with social networking companies around the world managed to block those images, and even dropped many Palestinian news sites that published the pictures. The role of military censorship extended beyond that, has worked during the recent period to plant software gaps in many Palestinian news sites, specifically those close to Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions, in order to drop those sites through those gaps when wanted to Israeli military censorship.

The weakness of the Palestinian capabilities in this area has prevented the confrontation of these breaches, especially since the majority of Palestinian telecommunications companies are serviced by Israeli companies, which means the prior control of the Israeli security and intelligence services on the entire network in the Palestinian territories. The role of Israeli military censorship has raised a wave of criticism of the Israeli security establishment and has been accused by many human rights organizations, not to mention the opposition parties, of being part of the purpose of this censorship is to limit the freedom of opinion and expression in Israel.

Senior Israeli media professionals have proposed several times to resolve the conflict between the need for censorship and its practical application and exploitation of other objectives by excluding the government from taking decisions on the subject of censorship. There shall be supervision and control over its work. The gray squares, the flexibility of censorship and the ban on publication, have made the media exert no pressure to change the legal status of censorship, which is one of the reasons for the failure of reform proposals over the past years. Changes in the field of information The knowledge gap has increased between the main regulatory body - the judiciary - and between the control system - the security establishment - and the field of censorship represented in the field of information.