Editors Committee (Israel)

The Editors Committee is an informal forum comprised by the editors and owners of the main Israeli media and representatives of the high political leadership of the country.

Origins

The British mandatory authority enacted in 1933 the Press Ordinance, which regulated the content of the news press in British Palestine. Many of the country's Jewish newspapers, particularly the English-language Jerusalem Post and those printed in Hebrew, were founded by Zionist political parties during the pre-statehood period, and subsequently continued to be politically affiliated with such parties.

Professor Dan Caspi, who has served as chairman of the Israeli Communications Association, notes in his "Mass Media and Politics" (The Open University, 1997), that “the majority of the newspapers in [Israel's] pre-state period were founded as ideological organs of political trends, and were under the ideological authority of the political parties and dependent on their financial backing. The party institutions and their leaders were involved in the selection process for the sensitive senior positions in the paper, particularly in the choice of the editor.”

In the pre-state yishuv period, most of the Hebrew press editors felt that their primary role was educational, to help in the state-building process. Such values as freedom of the press and the idea of being a public watchdog were secondary. The editors of the Hebrew-language press founded the Redaction Committee in 1942 because, as they stated at the time, they “felt the need for guidance from the Jewish community’s leadership on publication policy concerning sensitive matters, such as the expulsion of ma’apilim (illegal immigrants) and the search for weapons in Hebrew settlements.”

tate of Israel

In 1948, the Press Ordinance was adopted by Israel and administered by the Ministry of Interior which undertoom to "license, supervise, and regulate" the press. After the establishment of the state in 1948, prime minister Ben-Gurion saw great advantages in the arrangement with the Israeli press, and he frequently convened the newly renamed Editors Committee to share important information with the editors, on condition that it not be published.

The IDF assumed responsibility for administering the censorship regulations, and, under an agreement with the Editors' Committee, most Hebrew-language newspapers were allowed to exercise self-censorship, with the censor receiving only articles dealing with national security matters. This arrangement did not cover Palestinian publications, whose editors were required to submit items for publication to the military administration on a nightly basis.

Current status

The arrangement began to collapse after 1977, when Menachem Begin and the Likud took over the government. They were suspicious of the press, which they considered to be hostile towards the Likud, and they rarely convened the forum. In 1988, Israeli authorities, suspecting Palestinian journalists of involvement in the intifadah, censored and shut down many Palestinian newspapers and magazines in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and arrested Arab journalists, including several members of the board of the Arab Journalists' Association.

ources

* [http://www.ifla.org/faife/report/israel.htm The IFLA/FAIFE World Report on Libraries and Intellectual Freedom, 2001 : Israel]
* [http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=379 Palestine-Israel Journal : The Rocky Road from Big Brother's Helper to Government Watchdog, by Hillel Schenker, 1998]