The Israel Police must cancel its directive permitting any officer on the field to act against journalists filming the impact sites of Iranian missiles, the nonprofit Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) argued in a letter to Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara on Tuesday.
This directive, which primarily targets foreign media journalists, was issued without authority, undermines essential rights, and is unlawful, the legal group argued. It added that the letter to the A-G follows a series of acts carried out against foreign media by the police over the last few days.
The Jerusalem Post queried the Israel Police for comment.
The directive does indeed have a legal basis. It is meant to prevent “any suspicion that documentation or broadcasting is either revealing classified information or is going against the [IDF] censor’s guidelines.” Moreover, the directive has legal merit in that it ensures that the specific location of a classified or strategic fall site remains hidden.
Accordingly, “the premise is that both Israeli and foreign media outlets are aware of the censor’s guidelines and the security factor. Still, and as much as possible, authority figures in the field will act to prevent news staff who are documenting these sites from publicizing their specific locations.”
The IDF Censor, Brig.-Gen. Kobi Mandelblit, issued the directive last Wednesday, which requires approval for any footage from missile sites, whether from Israeli or foreign news outlets, before publication.
However, two days later, on Friday, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud) and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) said that they had decided, based on “joint staff work,” that international media would require permission before even filming from the sites, not just before publicizing the footage.
Last week, Baharav-Miara requested a clarification for this directive, for what the “staff work” actually was, and for what the legal basis was for this instruction.
Karhi and Ben-Gvir, in a fiery letter to her on Monday, did not provide an explanation for their decision. They neither addressed the permission requirement nor the differentiation in these cases between Israeli and foreign media outlet coverage.
Discussions over what role the censor can play
The ACRI requested that it be clarified to the ministers that the IDF censor “does not bend to their every wish.”
Per the directive, police officers are to consider the sensitivity of the site, its accessibility to the public, the potential exposure by the media outlet, and the degree of obligation that the news source has to the military censor before making a decision.
What they can do, for instance, is demand identification from a journalist, remove them from the area, and confiscate their equipment.
If the information gets publicized, police are liable to take the necessary next steps, the directive states.
The police’s legal adviser breached his authority in effectively giving free rein to officers to act against journalists at impact sites, a directive that has no legal basis, the ACRI argued.
The decision of whether to allow a journalist to photograph or film a site is beholden to each individual officer’s personal judgement, and it has been overwhelmingly used against foreign journalists, it added.
According to the ACRI, officers also have the authority to film or photograph journalists, cut off a live stream, and apprehend them on suspicion of spying. Further, they can question the journalist’s good will and intent to follow the censor’s guidelines.
The crux of ACRI’s argument is that the authority granted to so many officers is alarmingly unreasonable, as their decisions are made according to “their own perspectives, philosophies, and knowledge.”
It added that foreign media outlets are long familiar with censorship guidelines. The police directive noted that the censor’s guidelines do not obligate international news organizations.
The ACRI noted that this directive follows similar steps taken by the ministers against international journalists, such as demanding that they obtain permission from the IDF censor before broadcasting from Israel.
The government’s legal advisory blocked this, “but the damage was already done,” it said.
It added that statements made by the ministers that they would not allow “journalistic irresponsibility” in coverage of the war had ripple effects and “trickled down the police ladder and to the broader public.”
The ACRI cited several examples from the last few days of police seizing control of an impact site.