Israeli Officials Stepping Up Media Restrictions on Coverage of Unrest

In an apparent reaction to mounting domestic political pressure to quell Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities are stepping up their efforts to restrict the news media’s coverage of the unrest.

Techniques range from direct censorship, particularly of the Arabic-language press, through more circumscribed access to the news for foreign and domestic journalists, to quiet appeals to the patriotism of Israeli reporters and editors.

On Friday, major population centers in the West Bank, including the areas around Hebron and Nablus, were declared off limits to journalists for the fifth straight week, according to the army spokesman’s office in Jerusalem. Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, has often been the day for anti-Israeli disturbances since the trouble began last Dec. 9.

Increased Censorship

Although the Israeli press continues to cover the unrest extensively, some Israeli journalists who specialize in the occupied territories say their articles have been subjected to more censorship in recent weeks.

“They made some changes in the criteria of censorship,” one said. In some cases, he added, material is ruled out on grounds that it could be detrimental to the morale of the Israeli public.

Other Israeli journalists say they have not heard the morale argument directly, but they confirm that the grounds for censoring their articles have gone, as one put it, “beyond pure security”--the traditional justification for military censorship here.

Sources at three different Israeli newspapers said they had run into censorship trouble over stories dealing with Palestinians who work for the Israeli military government being pressured to resign.

Resignations Reported

There has been a significant number of resignations, noted one editor, who said the military authorities “explained that they are trying to save what is left of this system.” He added that they are afraid that any public suggestion that portions of the administrative system are crumbling will become “a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Other material excised from the Israeli press lately has included articles about a Hebrew-language leaflet distributed on the West Bank urging Israeli soldiers to desert and descriptive details from an article concerning army beatings of captive Palestinians.

Israeli journalists say they have also come under more subtle pressure from the authorities, either not to publish information about the periodic, clandestine communiques from the underground Palestinian leadership of the unrest, or at least to sharply limit their coverage.

The communiques invariably include specific instructions to Palestinians regarding the type of protest activity to undertake on given days, and the military has warned editors that by publishing such information they help the organizers get their message across to the Arab population.

“It was suggested that we might legally come to the conclusion that we are aiding and abetting the enemy,” one editor said.

Another said: “At the beginning of the uprising, they simply threw up their hands. They didn’t touch anything. But now there is political pressure.”

In a memorandum to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir earlier this week, Jewish settlement leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip demanded that Israel’s state-run radio and television be prohibited from using terms such as “uprising,” “collaborator” and “national leadership in the territories,” according to the Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv.

Censorship of the Arabic-language press in East Jerusalem, which is mostly pro-Palestine Liberation Organization, is considerably more extensive.

“Since the beginning of the uprising, Palestinian journalists really haven’t been able to contribute anything original” because of censorship, one Arab newsman said. As a result, he said, “the value of the (Arabic) newspapers has really dropped a lot in terms of providing information.”

A side effect, this journalist added, is that Palestinian residents are turning increasingly to the alternate sources of information that Israeli officials most dislike--underground leaflets and radio broadcasts by pro-PLO stations abroad.

Translations Censored

Frequently, straight translations of articles printed in the Hebrew-language papers are censored from the Palestinian press.

“There is a big gap between what the Israelis are allowed to read and what the Arabs are allowed to read,” an Israeli editor said.

In one recent case, a photograph published in the leading Hebrew-language afternoon newspaper was censored out of an East Jerusalem Arabic newspaper the same day. It showed an Israeli soldier appearing to cower from a Palestinian crowd.

Material dealing with the expulsion this week of eight Palestinians accused of incitement was censored from another East Jerusalem publication, even though it had been distributed by the army through the Israeli Government Press Office.

Foreign correspondents have had different types of problems, meanwhile.

“The unusual thing to say about censorship is that there’s been virtually no censorship,” said Robert Slater, chairman of the Foreign Press Assn. However, the military has increasingly denied journalists access to West Bank and Gaza Strip trouble spots, he said.

“It’s more harmful to the government to have pictures of (Palestinian) kids getting beaten by soldiers than to swallow the written criticism of censorship,” an Israeli editor commented. “They made a cold-blooded calculation, and they acted.”

On March 30, the authorities ordered the Palestine Press Service shut for six months. The agency had been an important source of information about the unrest for a number of news organizations.

In the latest controversy, the new director of the Government Press Office this week banned the distribution there of an English-language Palestinian news digest directed at foreign correspondents. The Palestinian material, along with mail and press releases from many other non-government organizations, has traditionally been delivered to special boxes maintained for resident journalists at the press office.

Backs PLO

Director Yoram Ettinger, who took over the post last Sunday after more than two years as Israel’s consul general in Houston, said the East Jerusalem newspaper Al Fajr, which publishes the digest, is committed to backing the PLO.

“They shouldn’t expect Israel, whom the PLO wants to destroy, to facilitate their dissemination of information,” he argued.

The Foreign Press Assn. has protested the order, which Ettinger suspended pending a meeting scheduled for Sunday with Slater and other officers of the association.