Israel suspends U.S. journalists’ credentials

Associated Press

Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel suspended press credentials for two U.S. correspondents Tuesday, saying they violated military censorship rules by reporting Israel carried out the assassination of a PLO leader.

Glenn Frankel of the Washington Post and Martin Fletcher of NBC News were required to hand over their press cards to the Government Press Office in Jerusalem… Both correspondents had quoted Israeli sources in reporting Israel’s involvement in the slaying… He said military censors usually telephone correspondents when they want to block certain stories.

‘We waited for them to call us and they didn’t so we assumed all was OK. I assumed what I had was right,’ Fletcher said. Frankel, 38, who has been a Post correspondent in Israel for two years, said, ‘It is natural that there…’”

Context added by this archive

April 1988, and the mechanism is domestic and routine: censors usually telephone correspondents when they want to block certain stories. The two reporters were punished for what they did not do — wait for the telephone call.

Cite this item

"Israel suspends U.S. journalists’ credentials," Fort Lauderdale News, 26 April 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-060. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-060