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I should have OCR’d it but oh well, here’s it typed up:
operation “Swords of Iron”
Israeli Chief Censor Directive to the Media
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In light of the current security situation and the intensive media coverage, we wish to encourage you to submit to the Censorship all materials dealing with the activities of the Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F) and the Israeli security forces prior to their broadcast.
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Below is a breakdown of the topics that are not allowed for broadcasting and should be submitted by the Israeli Censor prior to their publication;
(1) Hostages - Personal details; any posts that they held; medical situation; Israeli negotation positions and any details concerning the negotiation for their release.
(2) Operational Details - Order of battle of the security forces and their location assembly areas, troop movements, operational plans and covert operation. It is forbidden to report vulnerabilities in the Israeli defense abilities, including the deployment, location, and capabilities of the Iron dome system and other air and missile defense systems. It is also forbidden to broadcast images and\or vfideos that can identify the forces, their composition and scope
(3) Intelligence - Any intelligence concerning the intentions and capabilities of the enemy.
(4) Weapon Systems - details of weapon systems in I.D.F use, I.D.F equipment that fell into the hands of the enemy (even if your report is based on enemy news)
(5) Rocket attacks - it is forbidden to report rocket strikes that struck strategic infrastructure targets such as power plants, gas and water infrastructure, transportation depots, military and defense bases, factories and other sensitive areas
(6) Cyber-attacks - it is forbidden to report attacks against security, federal and national institution. Furthermore, it is forbidden to report Israeli cyber-attacks against the enemy.
(7) Visit by senior officials - During the course of their visit in the combat zone, it is forbidden to report the presence of senior officials such as the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff, Ministers, Members of Knesset and other senior officials.
(8) Security Cabinet - Any reports concerning details and information from the Cabinet meeting must be submitted to Israeli Censror prior to their broadcast.
Please update your staff to the content of this letter, with an emphasis on the news desk and field reporters.
Your sincerely, Kobi Mandelblit Brigadier General Chief CensorAll that seems pretty standard. I wonder if the “don’t report idf war crimes or else 💀” part was on a post it note or just common knowledge at this point.
Yeah most of it is fine and reasonable (like not revealing the whereabouts of their senior officials or hostage talks and plans), but some elements are vague and cast a wide net (e.g. “sensitive areas” at the end of point (5) could encompass their hospital bombings, schools, theatres or whatever area they like)
The main thing is that the indirect enforcement structure and fear of retaliation (such as credible reports of media being deliberately targeted by Israeli strikes) sends a chilling effect on free, democratic journalism unrelated to either side of the conflict.
5 is referring to rocket attacks against Israeli infrastructure
At least in 5 they admit to destroying civilian infrastructure.
I’m sorry but you think not being able to report on cyberattacks, rocket attacks, or if the enemy is using your sides weapons is standard?
Standard to who, the Propagandaministerium?
Yes, you don’t want your press doing recon for your enemy. When Russia has been successful in an attack, for example, they’ll wait long enough for first responders to show up to attack again. Confirming successful attacks can inadvertently expose weaknesses or new targets.
It’s wrapped up in operational stuff. Part of their standard operations, after all,
Not reporting on the intentions of Hamas? That could cover a lot of stuff. Like if Hamas publicly abandons a neighborhood and Israel bombs it anyways.
Also the section on the IDF can easily be used to prevent identifying units responsible for war crimes or reporting on tactics that amount to war crimes.
Purposely forbidding reporting on the medical condition of hostages seems very strange.
The world really isn’t allowed to hear that Hamas didn’t torture any of them.
You can tell this isn’t an official translation either. It’s officially translated to operation Iron Sword not Swords of Iron. That means this document is subject to translation errors by the 3rd party translator’s bad interpretations.
It was a statement released in English by the undersigned official, not in Hebrew then translated. It’s available directly on the Israeli government website. See below.
https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/news/8swordsofiron101023/en/operation Swords of Iron.pdf
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Can we not have titles with all caps and “exclusive” in the them unless it’s relevant to the actual story?
Rule 69: You’re not the mod.
The document, a censorship order issued by the Israeli military to the media as part of its war on Hamas, has not been previously reported.
Therefore, EXCLUSIVE. Find a better talking point to dismiss media censorship.
You could edit the title to remove the all caps, at least
I could.
How is this “Exclusive”? it’s a publicly available document, and they even say so:
An identical document appears on the Israeli government’s website.
There is legitimate criticism of Israeli military censorship, but this ain’t it
The document, a censorship order issued by the Israeli military to the media as part of its war on Hamas, has not been previously reported.
IE: Exclusive . Happy Kwanzaa!
noun an item or story published or broadcast by only one source.
I guess no other news sources thought it was worth reporting on
Merry Christmas!
Reported for having an all caps title which:
a) is not against the rules and
b) matches the headline of the original article.OP - If you WANT to edit the headline for title case so it’s not so eye-stabby, that’s cool. No requirement that you do!
Yes it’s not against the rules, but that is probably more an indicator that the rules could use some tweaking. You yourself agree it’s ‘eye-stabby’. Why would you not want to prevent such unpleasantness, then?
Part of it is the whole “keep the headline as written” thing. It’s unambiguous which is good, but opens up for issues like this. I’m not going to fault someone for one literal copy/pasted headline.
If it becomes a problem then the mods will get together on it. Fortunately most articles aren’t in all caps.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“I haven’t ever seen instructions like this sent from the censor aside from general notices broadly telling outlets to comply, and even then it was only sent to certain people,” said Michael Omer-Man, a former editor-in-chief of the Israel’s +972 Magazine and today the director of research for Israel–Palestine at Democracy in the Arab World Now, or DAWN, a U.S. advocacy group.
“In light of the current security situation and the intensive media coverage, we wish to encourage you to submit to the Censorship all materials dealing with the activities of the Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.)
While noting that the IDF censor didn’t review the papers, the State Department said, “Editors and journalists from those publications, however, reported they engaged in self-censorship due to fear of retribution by Israeli authorities.”
While The Associated Press, for instance, didn’t respond to The Intercept’s query about whether it cooperates with the military censor, the news wire has in the past reported on the issue, including admitting that it holds itself to the directive.
Asked if it complied with guidance from Israel’s military censor and whether its compliance had changed since the onset of the war, Azhar AlFadl Miranda, the communications director for the Washington Post, told The Intercept in an email, “We aren’t able to share insight,” adding that “we don’t publicly discuss our editorial decisions.”
“He undertakes to obey the regulations in future and understands that any further violation will result in his visa being revoked.”The apology, like so much else of the censor’s work, was to have remained secret, according to a 2005 Guardian story, but the BBC accidentally posted it on its website, before quickly removing it.
The original article contains 1,488 words, the summary contains 277 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Number 6 will shock you!!
All censored subjects are just for obvious military reasons… adding that to the capslocked title, i feel bad for OP’s mom
