Government Decides to Sit on Press Censorship Measure

The government agreed late yesterday to hold in abeyance for the time being a proposed measure that would impose severe criminal penalties on news media publishing information classified as secret. The retreat from the censorship bill that aroused the ire of the press when the Cabinet endorsed it Sunday. followed a lengthy meeting between Premier Yitzhak Rabin, Justice Minister Haim Zadok and coalition members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, which would have had to approve the measure.

It was announced instead that the government would try to reach an understanding with the press to voluntarily refrain from publishing classified information leaked from Cabinet meetings or other high level sources. Political observers said the government had been forced to back down when it discovered that it could not expect a majority of the Knesset committee to support its proposed measures.

In fact, a delegation of newspaper editors met with committee members for more than two hour earlier yesterday to voice their objections to political censorship. They expressed willingness to consider other possible steps to prevent publication of sensitive information on a voluntary and ad hoc basis. Apparently their lobbying effort was successful. Mapam members of the committee said they would not support the measure. The National Religious Party and Independent Liberal Party were wavering and it was virtually certain that the eight Likud members on the 22-man committee would oppose the government.

TRY TO REACH UNDERSTANDING

Zadok insisted this morning that the government had not changed its position but agreed to suspend action on the censorship draft bill because the press had become more amenable to voluntary restraints. He said the cooperative attitude of the press was not in evidence when he and Premier Rabin met with editors last week and attributed the change to the threat of penalties.

Zadok stated that efforts would be made now to reach an understanding with the press but if they proved fruitless the censorship measure would be revived. He said it was not withdrawn but merely suspended and was still technically before the Knesset committee.

The measure would bar, on penalty of criminal prosecution, publication of secret communications between the Israeli government and other governments and information on secret meetings between Israeli officials and officials of countries that had no diplomatic relations with Israel. Persons who provided such information would be liable to sentences of up to 15 years’ imprisonment and persons who published it would face jail terms of up to seven years.

Moshe Zak, a senior editor of Maariv and chairman of the editors’ committee, said the editors were prepared to offer the same kind of voluntary cooperation last week as they are now. He contradicted Zadok’s version of events claiming that the government was forced to back down when it realized, from the outcry at home and abroad that political censorship would do Israel more harm than good.

FACTORS IN FURTHER DISCUSSIONS

The editors are proposing in effect that the government inform them in advance of highly secret or sensitive diplomatic moves and request that this information be withheld from publication. In each case, the editors’ committee would decide whether the request was valid. In the new government requests not to publish certain information almost always met with a positive response from the editors.

The editors object to a blanket agreement with the government to prior censorship of stories covering a wide area of Israel’s foreign relations. There are, however, wide differences between the various newspapers and it is not clear whether the editors will be able to reach unanimous agreement on voluntary restraint. This factor is expected to figure in discussions with the government.