Israeli Press
Israel's Press Council accuses the army of picking who covers Qusra
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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Israel's Press Council has written to the army spokesman over reports that journalists were turned back from Qusra while a Channel 14 reporter was let through, the Israeli daily Maariv reported.
The council said it does not dispute the military's authority to close an area for security reasons. Its objection is to the enforcement: "The problem arises when restrictions are not implemented equally toward all media outlets."
Discrimination between reporters allowed in and reporters kept out, it warned, damages press freedom and the public's right to information from the scene. It asked the army to review its procedures and end what it called invalid norms of abuse of power and media discrimination.
Channel 14 is the broadcaster closest to Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition and the most sympathetic on air to the settlement enterprise.
Qusra is the West Bank village where settlers besieged Palestinian families this week, drawing an unusually blunt condemnation from the American ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who called the men involved Israeli terrorists.
Maariv reported no response from the army spokesman's office.
Palestinian journalists have made this complaint about the same military for two decades, with far heavier consequences than a turned-back news van, and no Israeli press body took it up. The council's letter concerns access for Israeli reporters to an Israeli story.
What it establishes, in an Israeli institution's own words, is that the army at Qusra decided which cameras would see the village.
