OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 5 May — Israel is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent as war, and the perception that it is under collective threat, hardens attitudes.
New rules have been issued for journalists working on the state-controlled Voice of Israel radio. Israeli Army is now referred to as "our forces"; its Arabic division has reportedly issued orders that Palestinians are not to be referred to as "assassinated", but "killed", and that the armed forces do not "take over" cities, they "enter" them.
The once vibrant and diverse Israeli media have become markedly more nationalistic and less willing to broadcast criticism. Ishai Menuchin, chairman of Yesh Gvul — an organization representing Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories — says that he can barely attract any news coverage. Issues that used to command acres of space — such as the fact that the number of Israeli "refuseniks" in prison rose to 68 last month — now barely merit a few paragraphs, he says. Aides to Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli justice minister and peace negotiator, say requests for interviews with the politician, renowned for his liberal views, have shriveled to nothing after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched a massive military offensive in the West Bank in the aftermath of the Passover bombing. When academics at Ben-Gurion University discovered that Mr. Beilin was to deliver a lecture there, 43 of them signed a petition trying to get it stopped. (They failed.)
The latest, and most unlikely, target is the septuagenarian Yaffa Yarkoni, Israel’s "singer of the wars". A national heroine, the khaki-clad chanteuse whose patriotic songs once carried Israel forces into battle caused shock and anger when she recently castigated Israel Army, comparing its conduct in Jenin with the Nazis.
"When I saw the Palestinians with their hands tied behind their backs, I said, ‘It is like what they did to us in the Holocaust,’" she told Army Radio. "We are a people who have been through the Holocaust. How are we capable of doing these things?"
It was as if Vera Lynn had appeared on the BBC and denounced the conduct of British troops in Northern Ireland. Reprisals swiftly followed. A ceremony where she was to receive a lifetime award was canceled. Israeli youth organizations declared they would boycott her songs. She was denounced by ministers, and told by one town — Kfar Yona — that she would no longer be welcome to perform at its Memorial Day event.
Israel has long taken pride in its freedom of expression. But the hardening mood has expanded the scope of the Israeli armed forces to restrict and distort information without creating a domestic outcry.
Five months ago, the Israeli military was savaged by the local media when it tried to deny demolishing 60 homes in Rafah, southern Gaza. Since then, the army’s dismissal of evidence that soldiers committed multiple atrocities in the Jenin refugee camp have passed with little questioning. (The Independent)
