It’s not a new piece, but one that was just brought to my attention by RealJ (since I never read the New York Sl. . .I mean Times, if I can help it). The piece is called Military Censorship in Israel, and the author is Jodi Rudoren. In her article, Jodi explains how military censorship works in Israel and how the NY Times finds a way to get around the censors when it chooses to by having someone not based in Israel, write the story up after someone in Israel does the fact-gathering, for instance, Jodi.
Jodi says that on the other hand, if the Times thinks someone might actually die as a result of Times’ writers disobeying the military censors, they refrain from spilling the beans.
Jodi then proceeds to tell the reader how the military censor asked her to vet with him anything she writes about Hadar Goldin, the soldier who was kidnapped and chopped into pieces by Hamas after Hamas’ most recent “ceasefire” (‘cuz that’s how they roll). Jodi decided that the censor was only interested in vetting pieces about Goldin because Israel didn’t want Hamas to know that Goldin was a relative of Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli Defense Minister. Jodi assumed the only issue the censor had was keeping that info from Hamas, because it might drive up the price for releasing Goldin from captivity.
After the Israeli military confirmed that Goldin was killed, based on the amount of blood and gore at the scene as being incompatible with life, Jodi just assumed she no longer had to run her pieces by the military censor and could post whatever she wanted about Goldin.
Then she went ahead and posted that Goldin was related to Yaalon. Oh, and let everyone know that Israel was trying to stifle her God-given American right to Freedom of the Press!
Because who cares if her co-religionists can get back their son and brother’s body back for burial, right?
As long as she doesn’t actually KILL anyone with her story, who cares what the IDF thinks. Ya know? Who really gives a crap.
