Senior government officials are urging the Israel Defense Force to take legal action against NBC News and The Washington Post for allegedly violating military censorship rules.
NBC broadcast a report last week that Israel’s policy-making Inner Cabinet decided by majority vote to authorize the assassination of Khalil al-Wazir, the No. 2 man of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Washington Post published over the weekend what it said was a blow-by-blow account of the decision-making process that sent a hit team to gun down Wazir at his villa in suburban Tunis on April 16.
The Israeli media reported Sunday that there was pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to act against the two American news organizations and other media that file reports overseas without submitting them to the military censor.
Action could result in loss of accreditation or even of residency permits for American correspondents reporting from Israel.
NBC acknowledged last week that it had not submitted to the censor its report that the Inner Cabinet voted to eliminate Wazir with dissent only from Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Ezer Weizman, a Labor Party minister without portfolio.
The network said it had received no prior notice from the censor requiring it to submit stories on this subject to the censor before transmission. It noted it had often done so in the past with no adverse reaction from the censor or other officials here.
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