Fear, Censorship and Repression Are Keeping Israelis in the Dark About Gaza - Haaretz Editorial - Haaretz.com
The public's indifference to what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip is not just the result of a lack of care but the result of the war Israel is waging against the possibility of knowing.
Israel is hiding images of the destruction, of wounded children, of dead women, the scale of the carnage, the hunger, disease, the state of the hospitals and the extent of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
Not only is it about concealment, but also about silencing opponents of the war, even those who express concern over what is happening.
Eden Solomon (Haaretz Hebrew, May 11) revealed how the state has silenced the voices of Negev Bedouin. Some 20 people interviewed testified that since October 7, the Shin Bet security service has functioned as a censor, mainly of social media.
All criticism of the government, mainly regarding the war in Gaza, is liable to result in being called in for questioning. Men, women, minors and the elderly have been summoned to the Shin Bet, threatened and subjected to humiliating searches.
The police arrested a young Bedouin woman after she shared a post that said, "I know people with relatives killed in Gaza and are scared to talk about it, certainly not to show their pictures in public." A political activist tells how, due to the harassment, "no one speaks, attacks ministers or the government, or expresses opinions."
At the same time, the government is moving forward with the NGO Law, which is designed to restrict the actions of civil society organizations to the point of eliminating them.
Displaced Palestinians walk amid the rubble of an UNRWA school-turned-shelter, heavily damaged in an overnight Israeli strike in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB
Under the bill, a draconian 80 percent tax rate would be imposed on any donation from a foreign state, in other words, donations from Britain, Germany, the United Nations or the European Union, for example, to Israeli nonprofit organizations working to promote human rights, women's rights, environmental protection or Palestinian rights. The law also stipulates that a nonprofit organization relying on such donations will lose its right to appeal to the courts – an unprecedented step even compared to autocratic regimes.
The goal is clear: eliminating the critical elements of civil society and giving the coalition complete control over public discourse.
All of this is taking place amid a prolonged media blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip. For 19 months now, foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter the enclave and report independently. Foreign reporters have only entered Gaza a dozen times since the start of the war, and under restrictive conditions, accompanied by an army spokesperson.
This is not a free press, but a fabrication of reality. Regardless, Israel finds itself constantly challenging the information that does come from inside Gaza, claiming that it is Hamas propaganda that should not be accepted.
This is how a reality bubble is built. Israelis live in isolation from what is happening outside the walls of censorship. The only way to stop the deterioration is to first know. It is time to put an end to the concealment, the silencing, the political persecution and the engineering of consciousness.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.