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.

‘I’m sorry we have come to a situation where such prominent journalists have to be punished,’ said Yossi Ahimeir, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. ‘We hope it will be a clear hint for all the other journalists.’

The Israeli government has refused comment on reports that Israeli agents killed PLO military commander Khalil Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, April 16 in Tunisia. Both correspondents quoted Israeli sources in reporting Israel’s involvement in the slaying. Under Israeli law, journalists must submit reports relating to security matters to military censors.

The government has not clearly defined security matters and leaves the submission of reports to reporters’ discretion. Neither Fletcher nor Frankel submitted their reports on Wazir’s killing to the military censor. Yoram Ettinger, head of the Government Press Office, said the suspensions would remain in effect until an investigation was completed.

He would not elaborate. As a result of the suspensions, government and army officials will no longer grant interviews and access to Frankel and Fletcher, Ettinger said. Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, said the newspaper would protest Israel’s move against Frankel.

NBC spokeswoman Mary Lou O’Callaghan said NBC was writing a letter of protest to the Israeli government. Fletcher, 40, who has worked in Israel for five years, said he didn’t believe he violated censorship rules. 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 a government leak,’ Fletcher said. Frankel, 38, who has been a Post correspondent in Israel for two years, said, ‘It is natural that there are conflicts between any government keeping what it considers to be secrets and a free press.

This is one of those conflicts.’”

Context added by this archive

The fullest American printing of this dispatch in the archive, and it carries the sentence the shorter printings cut. A spokesman for the prime minister says he is sorry two prominent journalists had to be punished, and then says what the punishment is for:

“We hope it will be a clear hint for all the other journalists.” That is the chilling effect stated out loud by the government doing it, in an American paper, on a Wednesday.

The paragraph underneath explains why a reporter cannot comply even in good faith: journalists must submit anything touching security to the censor, the government has not clearly defined security matters, and the decision about what to submit is left to the reporter.

Fletcher describes what that felt like from inside — he waited for the telephone call that usually comes, it did not come, and he assumed he was clear.

Cite this item

"Israel suspends U.S. journalists’ credentials," Argus-Leader, 27 April 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-067. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-067