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3 Responses to “Israeli Police Seek to Criminalize Journalism”

1. Greg says:

   December 9, 2007 at 7:19 PM

   Lisa Goldman’s trip happened a long time ago so I think it’s quite odd that the police are just investigating her now.

   I think it’s also worth noting that Lisa’s trip to Lebanon caused a major stir and a great deal of outrage in the Lebanon because Lebanese law forbids Lebanese from having any sort of contact with an Israeli whatsoever. Lisa was heavily vilified in the Lebanese media, even papers like the Daily Star published vicious and misleading stories about her. When it comes to preventing people to people contacts I’m afraid the Arabs have Israel beat.

   Reply
2. Leila says:

   December 10, 2007 at 10:13 PM

   Hunh – very strange for several reasons.

   1) Israeli government is ALWAYS asking Lebanese, usually Christians and usually right-wing, to visit Israel. There was a Lebanese blogger in the past year who went to Israel, got quoted “anonymously” in the Israeli press, and was very quickly found out – all you had to do was google a phrase and you went right to his blog,, written under his real name. (Dumb IMHO). In 1982 a close relative of mine was invited by the Israeli occupying army in 1982 to tour Israel and give his opinions to their “experts” (he declined).

   2) Lebanese who go to Israel and are found out are supposed to get into terrible trouble. It’s against Lebanese law to even email Israelis. My mother, an American who also possessed a Lebanese passport, was teaching at the American U. of Beirut in the 1990s when she made contact with Israeli peaceniks by email. She was warned by her department chair to cut it out or lose her job. She was also told that if she did attend a big professional conference in her field to be held in Israel, she would lose her job. “Lebanon is at war with Israel, and you are teaching at a university in Lebanon. You may not go there under any circumstances, even as part of resisting Israeli occupation.”

   I always thought this Lebanese horror of any contact with Israelis was counterproductive. Hey, if they’re your enemies, don’t you at least want to find out a little something about them? Now it seems that the Israeli government, when it suits its own purposes, enforces the same kinds of laws against its citizens. But when it doesn’t suit, of course they let in Lebanese and wine them and dine them, cozying up for whatever reasons, and use them for propaganda purposes in the Israeli press.

   Let’s face it, none of these countries are devoted to a free press. (and how devoted is our American government to same?)

   Reply
3. Richard Silverstein says:

   December 10, 2007 at 10:37 PM

   Yes, it is all a very silly, cynical game.

   In fact, this is what Zvi Solow, a professor at Ben Gurion University wrote me about his take on this incident which he thought was much ado about nothing & stirred up by some mid-level police operative:

   Not everything in this country is high politics. This place, as you know, is full of Jews & they have their Kavod.

   Some idiot in the Police decided to investigate her, & Ron ben Ishay of Yediot an adventurer-journalist who already reported from Afghanistan & Iraq & previously Lebanon at huge personal risks. Also another journalist whose name I don’t recall at the moment. Ben Ishai is a super hawk & has connections in Tzahal & other such organisations, so this is definitely not political persecution of lefties.

   The cops simply want some – they think – favorite media attention, so they found this technical infrigement of the law which has been going on for years.

   The Press Council is up in arms & the attorney general will bury it. This is a classic example of non-news.

   Reply