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Friday, May 4, 1984
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:14 P.M.
VOL. LXXXV, NO. 10
Blackout the censor
Israel's military censorship has been an issue in the news of late,
prompted by the government's attempt to squelch stories about the recent bus
hijacking by Palestinian terrorists. Photos reportedly showing a handcuffed
man, identified by relatives and friends as one of the hijackers, being taken
from the bus with no apparent wounds has led to questions in Israel about the
possibility that he was killed by security forces after being captured.
The larger issue, though, is whether military censorship is effective and
necessary. No less an authority than Zev Chafets, former director of the
Government Press Office in Jerusalem, says he favors doing away with
censorship, except during a war. "I'm against censorship for two simple
reasons," Chafets said during a colloquium last week in New York on
perceptions of Israel in the American media. "It's stupid and it doesn't work."
He noted that David Shipler, the New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem,
has "flagrantly violated" the laws of military censorship in his coverage of the
hijacking but his "punishment" was simply to be called in by the Goverment
Press Office and told that he had violated the censorship. Why maintain this
farce?
The fact is that any enterprising correspondent can find a way to "get the
story out" anyway, and what we are left with is an impression of Jerusalem
being restrictive with the press when in fact the government is extremely
liberal compared to virtually any other government in the world.
For proof, one need only look back at the media blackouts imposed by the
British during the Falklands invasion and the U.S. during the Grenada
incident and compare them with the widespread coverage allowed by Israel
during the Lebanon war.
There are times when military censorship is necessary, specifically in
wartime or during a terrorist incident, when security is paramount. But in
general, the only purpose censorship serves is to darken Israel's image in the
West.
Kehillot in chains
A continuing outcry for help for the Falashas, the remnant of Ethiopian
Jewry, is a tribute to the rachmonut, the compassion for the persecuted Jews
wherever they may be.
Hopefully, whatever is being exerted in support of the Falashas, their
hope to emigrate to Israel will be accomplished.
Sadly, in the concern for the Jews in distress, Falashas are not alone in
quest for succor. There is the handful of Jews surviving in Syria who are
literally without help, whose desire to emigrate is both denied and
interpreted as disloyalty by the Assad regime.
Now comes a revelation about a surviving group of Jews in Yemen. Since
Operation Magic Carpet, in 1950 and 1951, with the aid of the Joint
Distribution Committee, it was believed that all of the nearly 50,000 Jews
were enabled to escape from Yemen. The actual condition ofKehillat Yemen;
of the community of Yemenite Jews, has just been revealed in an important
.report in the National Jewish Monthly, the official magazine of the B'nai
B'rith.
The revealing article, by George Lichtblau, a retired U.S. Foreign
Service officer, indicates that there surely are several hundred Jews
remaining in Yemen, and he quotes sources claiming there are 2,000.
It is their continuing actual enslavement that increases the concern for
another remnant of Jews who are helpless under conditions of oppression.
Stigma on Jewish reporters
in Israel lifted by NYTimes
BY WOLF BLITZER
The Jewish News Washington correspondent
Washington — The New York
Times gave little fanfare to its formal
announcement the other day that
Thomas Friedman would replace
David Shipler this summer as the
newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief.
But the matter was by no means
routine.
Friedman, the Beirut bureau
chief who deservedly won a Pulizer
Prize for his coverage of the fighting in
Lebanon in 1982, will be the first
Jewish correspondent sent by the
Times to head the Israeli bureau since
the early days of the Jewish state. He
was selected for the important and
highly sought-after assignment be-
cause he was, by far, the most qualified
person for it or. the newspaper's staff.
Among other things, he is fluent in
Arabic and knows some Hebrew. Most
important, he is an outstanding jour-
nalist who understands the Middle
East. What makes all of this even more
impressive is the fact that he is only 29
years old.
While there have been many Jews
dispatched by the newspaper to Israel
to cover various breaking stories or to
Assignment of Thomas
Friedman as Jerusalem
bureau chief is a clear
departure from the past.
fill in for a vacationing bureau chief,
this will represent a clear departure
from the past.
To many American Jews and
others who follow such matters, the
Friedman appointment is a very wel-
come development indeed. In a sense,
it suggests that the professional
American Jewish journalist has fi-
nally come of age. America's major.
newspaper of record can finally "trust"
a Jew to report on Israel without wor-
rying about any supposed conflict of
interest.
There will be positive ramifica-
tions. If the New York Times can send
a Jewish staffer to Israel, then all
other news organizations in the
United States can finally do the same
— even the Washington Post, which
unfortunately has maintained that
same unwritten rule to the point of
rejecting extremely qualified staffers
for the Jerusalem slot simply because
of their religion. The Washington Post,
too, will eventually abolish it ,- ••No
Jews Need Apply" rule.
The matter obviously is a sensi-
tive subject among senior "Times-
men," many of whom happen to be
Jewish and were themselves, ironi-
cally, largely responsible for the prey-
ious disqualification of Jews for the
job.
One popular story has it that
editor Abe Rosenthal was actually
ready for the breakthrough four years
ago when Shipler was moved from
Moscow to Jerusalem. Rosenthal, ac-
cording to Times reporters, thought
that Shipler was Jewish. But, alas, he
is not — nor were his immediate pre-
decessors: Bill Farrell, Terence Smith,
James Feron and Peter Grose.
Many other major American news
organizations have not had the
"Jewish" hangup in assigning resident
reporters to Israel. Thus, CBS News
had Bob Simon in Tel Aviv for many
years. NBC's current correspondent in
Israel is Martin Fletcher, another Jew
who moved up the network's ladder
despite the fact that he is not even an
American. He is from London and is
probably the only major U.S. televi-
sion reporter whose British-accented
voice is regularly heard on the air.
Why? He simply happens to be a first-
rate journalist with many years' ex-
perience covering Israel and the Mid-
dle East, going back to the early 1970s
when he worked for Visnews, the
British news organization.
What the Times has finally recog-
nized is that Jews, like their non-
Jewish colleagues, are fully capable of
reporting on Israel thoroughly, objec-
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