A study just released here charges that “pervasive” Israeli censorship of Arab publications on the West Bank is not aimed only at breaches of security but primarily “to eradicate expressions that could foster Palestinian nationalist feelings” or deny “Israeli national legitimacy.”
The study, sponsored by the New York-based Fund for Free Expression, was undertaken by Meron Benvenisti, a former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and currently director of the West Bank Data Base Project. The Fund for Free Expression is a voluntary non-governmental body which also maintains the Helsinki Watch and the American Watch. It is not affiliated with the Washington-based Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe which monitors compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act.
The 167-page study notes that Israeli censorship “mirrors the larger struggle between Palestinians and Israelis” in which “both sides view words and ideas as powerful weapons.” According to Benvenisti, “Israeli censors attempt to prevent the publication not only of the supposed national security secrets and the ideological tracts that are the targets of censors everywhere; nor is such censorship the main point,” the study observes.
“Rather, the primary concern is to eradicate expression that could foster Palestinian nationalist feelings, or that suggests that Palestinians are a nation with a national heritage. Concomitantly, expression denying Israeli national legitimacy, or imputing behavior to Israeli officials that suggest illegitimacy, is eliminated by the censor.”
EXAMPLES OF CENSORSHIP
As examples of censorship aimed at denying Palestinian national expression, the study notes that Israeli censors prohibit such items as a death notice for a Palestinian which asserts that a family “in the homeland and the diaspora mourns” his passing. Also prohibited are items reporting that neighbors “distributed gifts to the mothers of martyrs” and helped rebuild “a home which was destroyed by Israeli authorities.”
Benvenisti says censorship rules out even a line in an Arab newspaper reporting that “the Israeli authorities released the day before yesterday three residents from Arrabeh in the Jenin district.” That line indicates that Israel maintains its control over the occupied territories by coercive measures and thereby could be thought to deny the legitimacy of the occupation, the study notes.
‘A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE’
But, Benvenisti reports, Arab editors play what they themselves describe as “a game of cat and mouse with the censor.” According to the study, “The Arab press attempts to assert that which the censors would prohibit.” It is a “mobilized” press and “Arab editors, with no exceptions but with varied emphasis attempt to express Palestinian nationhood and to question Israeli legitimacy.”
On the other hand, Israeli censorship “is pervasive”. Arab editors must submit to the censor all material for publication including photographs, advertisements and crossword puzzles. Of 1,077 items in English submitted by one newspaper in 1982, 367 were prohibited entirely and another 214 were partially censored. The censor may close a newspaper at a moment’s notice, as has been done frequently, Benvenisti asserts.
His study also deals with book censorship. While at present no well known work of literature is prohibited on the West Bank, the list of prohibited books “includes every work that expresses or that arouses Palestinian national feelings.” This embraces more than 1,600 titles, the study reported. There was no immediate response from Israeli officials to this study.
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