During Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, reporters had the run of southern Lebanon, restrained only by their tolerance for the great personal risks involved. On the Israeli side of the border, where I spent three weeks covering the war that summer, it was a different story altogether.
Israeli officials allowed full access to civilians living under Hezbollah rocket fire. To interview Israeli soldiers, however, we had to evade a battalion of public affairs minders, some of whom seemed to see their role as warding off paparazzi. Occasionally, we were brought to see troops preparing to enter Lebanon -- but told not to speak with them. Public roads along the border were choked by checkpoints. And all journalists were forced to sign a list of "censorship" rules as a precondition for obtaining an Israeli press card.
Who would have thought those would be the glory days for war-zone press freedoms? Through more than two weeks of fighting in the current conflict in Gaza, Israel has relegated the international news media to the cheap seats despite a high court ruling that called for greater access. Unable to enter Gaza, correspondents peer in from beyond a security buffer two miles from the border.
Just as they did in 2006, Israeli officials justify the draconian restrictions on two grounds: the reporters' own safety and Israel's national security.
The former is laughably paternalistic. Around the world, in conflicts far bloodier than this one, journalists and their bosses make their own decisions about how to stay safe.
The latter rationale is also dubious at best. Recent U.S. experience illustrates why. After decades of employing an arm's-length approach to media coverage of conflicts, the Pentagon changed course and allowed reporters to accompany U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to traverse the battlefields independently. The result, according to most media analysts, has been not only more favorable coverage than might have been expected but also more consistently evocative war reporting than we have had since Vietnam.
No doubt the Israeli government is worried about sympathies generated by stories of Palestinian suffering. But it cannot be enjoying media coverage from Gaza dominated by a context-free stream of images of the wounded, disseminated by people with unknown agendas. Claims from Palestinian officials of more than 900 people killed and a humanitarian crisis underway have been left to stand unverified, as have Israeli reports that Hamas militants are deliberately drawing fire to hospitals and schools.
