With the launch of a West Bank radio station, settlers are winning legitimacy and influence. Padraig Reidy and Israeli journalist Anat Balint discuss radio in the occupied territories
Anant Balint is a former media correspondent for Haeretz
For more on the topic read Anat Balint’s article Piracy goes Kosher, which appears in Radio Redux, the new issue of Index on Censorship, out now
Nir Toib, director of a banned film which exposed an espionage scandal within the Israel Defense Forces[IDF], is to appeal the documentary film’s banning at the Supreme Court. The Secret Kingdom features interviews with Brigadier General Yitzhak Yaakov, Israel’s first chief scientist and a former research and development head for the IDF, who is accused of espionage in the documentary. Toib refutes the military censor’s claims that the film divulged nuclear secrets, instead arguing that the majority of the information which was cut from the original version of the film was already within the public domain.
Mordechai Vanunu, the former Israeli nuclear plant technician who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the country’s nuclear arsenal, was jailed again on 23 May. He was found guilty of “unauthorised meetings with foreigners” which include journalists and his Norwegian girlfriend. The Israeli government did not allow Vanunu to leave the country, visit foreign embassies nor meet with people from outside Israel after finishing his sentence in April 2004. He was convicted of breaking these terms in December 2009 and sentenced to six months community service. Vanunu claims he did not comply with the order out of fear he would be assaulted.
Twoal-Jazeera reporters were prevented from covering a demonstration in the West Bank on Friday by the Israeli military. They were detained for four and a half hours before being released and told to never return. Cameraman Majdi Bannoura and assistant Nader Abu Zer were arrested trying to videotape the weekly protests on the separation barrier being erected in Bil’in by Israel.
After immense pressure from the right-wing on Sunday, the Israeli bookstore chain Tzomet Sfarim has stopped selling a leftist political manifesto heavily critical of the settler movement. In The National Left, the authors call settlers “messianic madmen” and brainwashed “zombies”. The company claims they pulled the book not for political reasons, but because it “hurts the feelings of some of our customers”.
Meanwhile cameraman and AFP correspondent Hazem Bader was arrested by Israeli forces in Hebron after he refused to stop filming a protest. Fifteen protesters were also arrested for not leaving the closed military area. Bader was detained for three hours then released after AFP intervened.
Reports are emerging that an injunction on the reporting of the case of Anat Kamm, an Israeli activist accused of leaking confidential military documents to the media, has been lifted by a Tel Aviv court.
More to follow
Paul Martin, the British freelance journalist who was arrested on 14 February whilst attending the trial of Hamas activist Mohammed Abu Muaileq, has had his detention extended by a Hamas military court. Martin, who is accused of helping the former militant and collaborating with the Israeli army, will be held for at least another 15 days.
