22 thoughts on “Shabak Ends Gag Against Identifying Amiram Benoliel as a Dawabsheh Killer – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Why do you deserve credit for writing it first?
    Israeli reporters didn’t learn of the identity from your blog. You published info many journalist knew but didn’t publish b/c of gag order.

    When you actually bring to light new info, credit might be deserved. In this case, defiantly not!

    1. @ Arik:I did publish “new info!” New info is something not previously published. That is the journalistic standard. When you become the editor of a major Israeli newspaper you can change the standard. Till then, you’re about as much of an avatar of journalistic standards as Charles Foster Kane.

      defiantly not!

      Defiantly [sic] not proper English usage. Brush up your Shakespeare!

      Am I the only one who noticed that lepxii and Arik’s comments, saying virtually the same thing, came in within a half hour of each other??! Must’ve been a Hasbara alert providing the talking pts. But guys, you should take more pains to vary your arguments and the times you publish them. When you say the same thing at the same time, we know something’s afoot.

      Not to mention that the hasbarati have already offered this lame, false claim before when I’ve broken Israeli gags. Can’t you come up with original arguments?

  2. Richard, when you break something (and yes – you do indeed provide interesting information!) – that was leaked to you from IL journalists (and other people) who can -not- publish due to the gag order but know exactly what and who is involved – when the gag order is lifted then it is not reasonable to expect these journalists to quote you as a source, as you are not their source in this regard (in fact, you are publishing what they leak).

    I do understand when you think that US and intl media (e.g. the Forward piece about this case) should quote you as a source when they use you as a source – as they do not always (though they do sometimes) have access to the source (or gagged source which leaks).

    Your blog serves an important source for leaking gagged material – I would say that this is the site one looks to first when trying to get to the gagged stuff (all be it that one has to ignore the anti-Israeli editorial opinions throughout your publication to separate fact from opinion).

    The question is whether Melmen used you specifically as source material.

    1. @ lepxii: That is not the way journalism works; or at least not the way it should work. You don’t earn points for stories you know about but can’t publish. You earn points as a journalist for what appears with your byline in a published article. It doesn’t matter what I did, how I learned my information. It matters that my name was on a story that no one else had published. Anyone writing an article that starts with information I published should acknowledge this. Not every article they may write. But at least the first one should.

      If what you said was true & the entire Israeli press corps already knew stories I report then no Israeli reporters or editors would care about my blog or social media accounts. But I assure you there are scores of such journalists & editors who follow them all. They do so because they know they’ll find something there they didn’t already know. If you read the blog, you’d have seen one such message from a journalist writing for the Orthodox press. I don’t usually get mash notes from Orthodox Jews. Regardless of all this, my original source is not a journalist but a security source. Meaning my information does not come from a journalist who can’t publish the information him or herself.

      But you know what, I don’t care much what you think the standard should be, unless you’re an editor of a major Israeli newspaper or TV news channel. And in that case I’d say your response symbolizes the impoverishment of your profession. It would explain why Israeli journalism has such low standards and is a willing handmaiden to the governing elites.

      The question is whether Melmen used you specifically as source material.

      You have things backwards. It doesn’t matter whether Melman specifically knew about or read my blog posts. What matters is that a prior journalistic source published the material he was publishing. Acknowledging that, as any graduate student writing a paper knows, is proper sourcing standard. Journalists may be sloppy in Israel, but there’s only so far you can go before it becomes an inexcusable mess that is an embarrassment to the profession.

  3. (*Irony Warning*) – Sometimes it is necessary to apply a Straussian approach to the texts. What is said, it cannot be denied, is not always what is meant. In this case, also, there may be a sort of brain bileraterality problem. One side of the brain thinks in hebrew and the other side in the languages of the talking beasts. So, in this case, it may be that Richard actually was the first to extract their names from a hebrew-language source online, such as a forum or comments thread, not from a spoken-word informant, and what he really means is that he is the first to have published them in the language of the beasts, constituting a true and classical shande fur de goyim.

  4. Arik, a gag order is when many journalists know something but obey the government who forbids them to publish it. Duh…

  5. I am surprised that you allowed Berkeley’s racist statement to remain on your site. He is a known, rabid anti-semite, mentally unstable and angry at the world because ZOG{sic} is running it.

    1. @ gershon: I am surprised that I’m allowing your stupid comment to remain on this site. I am neither your, nor Rowan Berkeley’s keeper. I’m not responsible for what you or he say. Fortunately, I wasn’t even sure what he meant in his comment. But it certainly wasn’t anti-Semitic. When/if he publishes something that violates the comment rules, he will know about it. That’s the way I treat every commenter here. Even the right-wing Gotcha crowd like you.

  6. @Richard– an honest question, I am not a journalist.
    What is the difference between a leak from a gag order, and a “scoop”? I am happy that your site is not censured and I like reading the leaked information (even as I obviously differ from you in your views…). Especially when the reason for the gag order is to protect a Heredi rabbi from embarrassment.
    I usually associate a scoop with some investigative reporting revealing something to the public that is being illicitly covered up, or something that was said or done, not intended for public consumption.

    1. @ Yehuda: Now you’ve moved the goal posts. In your last comment, you claimed my reporting didn’t deserve credit because all the Israeli journalists who later reported stories I broke knew what I knew, but just couldn’t publish it. But now you claim that I’m reporting material “leaked from a gag order” (not even sure what that means).

      A scoop is a scoop is a scoop. Any major story that no one has previously published is a scoop. Period. There are no conditions, no qualificatons, though try as you may to find one. Doesn’t matter whether you found the information in an e mail or a telephone booth, whether it came to you from the prime minister or a bar maid. As long as you’re reporting a major story accurately, & no one else has before you, it’s a scoop.

      I usually associate a scoop with some investigative reporting revealing something to the public that is being illicitly covered up

      If you want “investigative reporting” you’ll have to go to the Pulitzer committee or read Uri Blau. They have my admiration and the support of well-heeled media outlets or patrons funding their work. I don’t. So I do what I can. And when that involves breaking stories others haven’t or can’t, that deserves credit.

      That’s enough on this subject. Please post in a new thread.

  7. [Comment deleted: violating comment rule against repeating arguments of others verbatim. To avoid repetition, do not advance precisely the same arguments as others with whom you agree. Besides being boring, it makes it appear you are coordinating your attacks or conspiring to advance a particular idelogical agenda, which I know you all wouldn’t want us to believe!]

  8. [Comment deleted–comment rule violation. Comments may not duplicate arguments of others, nor your own previous arguments. Another hasbaranik offered precisely the same argument which I soundly rebutted. This is not tag team hasbara wrestling or whack a mole where i smack an argument down & you pop yr head up offering the same exact argument. Make sure your comnenrs are original & not repeating others sharing your views.

    If you have not already, read the comment rules carefully before commenting again.]

  9. Richard you are confusing me with another commenter, that was my only comment on this post about this…
    Perhaps you are grouping all of us bad guys together 🙂

  10. It’s very Silverstein of you to criticize censorship while you do it yourself everyday here in your blog.
    You have never published a single comment I have made

    1. You attempted to publish 2 previous comments here. One scolded me for not covering the faces of the children in a picture of an Israeli police commander; a picture that is publicly accessible already, including the faces of his children. I do not consider such comments to have any substance. There is no argument offered. ANd responding to such nonsense I find a huge bore. No one asks you to visit this blog. If you do, you accept my editorial judgment on such matters. If you don’t, don’t visit.

      The other comment used the insult “pathetic” & said I needed “SEO advice.” Again, this is not a comment with any substance. Read the comment rules, eps. if you want to publish here in future. Comments can’t be snark or flippant insults. They have to contain an argument, an idea, some substance. If they don’t they won’t be published.

  11. And now for something completely different… (i.e. unrelated to credits and scoops):

    The Ben-Uliel charge seems suspect on at least two counts.
    One: they claim he did it all by himself. Considering 2 houses burnt down, and 2 sprayed writings were found at the scene of the crime (in what seems like very different handwriting), he’d have to be extremely adept to accomplish this all by himself. The house wasn’t at the edge of the village either.

    Two: initial reports said 4 people were seen escaping in the direction of Ma’ale Efraim. Aside from 1 being less than 4, Ma’ale Efraim is in the exact opposite direction from Ben-Uliel’s abode at the time (Adei Ad outpost).

    And all that’s aside from the question about the admissibility of his confession, especially as Chaim Lewinson at least claims they have nothing else aside from the confession (and that of a minor who was supposed to assist but didn’t).

    1. @Yaniv: yes, good detective work. I’m going to publish a new Mint Press article on just such subject. Hint: there is a mystery suspect Shabak doesn’t want you to know about. I’ve already blogged about hom in general terms w/o naming hom. In the article i suggest a name, though my source won’t yet confirm it.

    1. @ Yaniv: I just found it in the Spam filter. I don’t know what or how that happened. I originally replied to it & didn’t change its status at all. At least not on purpose. Sometimes you accidentally hit a wrong button & do something you don’t intend. Especially can happen when you’re editing on a small screen device. At any rate, I’ve restored it now.

  12. Regarding this guy’s last name..I’ve seen it spell Ben Uliel. I totally wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is a relative as we’ve got a bunch of ultra orthodox relatives living in Israel but can you check the spelling of the last name? Thanks

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