Israel cancels credentials of 3 reporters

United Press International

Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM — Israel on Tuesday suspended the press credentials of three reporters following the publication of stories in which Arabs accused Israel of running undercover death squads in the occupied territories.

Israeli authorities, including Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, strongly denied the reports published by the Reuters news agency and the London-based Financial Times… A Government Press Office statement said: ‘There is no connection between the accuracy or inaccuracy of the information published and the obligation to submit news stories to the censor.

In spite of Israel’s security situation, Israeli authorities respect freedom of the press and act very liberally with overseas correspondents.’

Taylor, the Reuter bureau chief, said he stood by the story the news agency sent to its subscribers Sunday in which Weizman was quoted as saying that security sources had orders to shoot to kill fugitive organizers of the uprising ‘with blood on their hands.’”

Context added by this archive

The Israeli government’s own explanation, printed: the punishment has no connection between the accuracy or inaccuracy of the information published and the duty to submit it to the censor. Truth is not the question. Submission is.

The same statement says Israeli authorities respect freedom of the press and act very liberally with overseas correspondents, in the paragraph announcing that three correspondents have lost their credentials.

Cite this item

"Israel cancels credentials of 3 reporters," The Record, 26 October 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-059. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-059