On Wednesday a few minutes before 1 in the afternoon, there was an urgent call to the offices of Yated Ne'eman. On the line was a senior army officer with an invitation: In less than an hour there will be a secret meeting of representatives of all the Israeli media with one of the members of the inner circle of the Israeli defense establishment. The caller stressed that it was secret and not for publication. He was only willing to hint that it was to deal with a critical matter of utmost concern with regard to the security of the State of Israel, related to the story of "Mister X" the prisoner who died over two years ago in an Israeli jail.
An hour later, a who's who of the Israeli media had assembled, waiting for the arrival of the senior security official. The first reports of the special investigation by an Australian reporter had appeared in the world press. One major Israeli newspaper was noticeably absent. The website of Ha'aretz had already published the first local report of the affair just a short time earlier, and so the correspondent of that paper chose not to attend.
The senior security official arrives, a man responsible for important and sensitive organizations, but especially responsible for preserving lives. He is wearing civilian clothes. He begins to talk about the story that has just come to the attention of the world. He talks about the facts that are known, and, a little, about the story behind the story. But he is very obviously very worried.
He knows that this is just the beginning and that a flood of stories is poised to appear. He compares himself to the little Dutch boy who prevented a flood by putting his little finger in the dike before the leak broke through and unleashed the floodwaters. But he stresses one thing that the Israeli security establishment has learned from many years of experience: as long as a story appears only in the non-Israeli media, its credibility and effects are limited. But once it starts to appear in Israeli media, its credibility is immediately boosted, even if the local media are careful to write that they are basing themselves on foreign reports.
This official has a request, almost a plea: Please, do not publish this story. It touches on very sensitive issues that could cause irreversible harm. Most importantly, lives hang in the balance. The lives of Jews who endanger themselves for the security of the whole community.
The head of military censorship, who is also present, notes that even though it is a request, it is backed by an official order of the High Court. It is not easy to secure such an order. It required a massive intervention on the part of the security establishment to convince the court that human lives utterly depend on secrecy before the Court agreed to issue such a sweeping order.
Even though the real chances of stopping the story are very poor, when Jewish lives hang in the balance they are willing to try anything explains the security official.
Ha'aretz has already published information about the affair. The officials briefing us stress that this is not just breaking the censorship, but a flouting of the entire Israeli legal system and ignoring an order of the High Court. In the middle of the presentation, word arrives that right now, in real time, the website of Ha'aretz is reporting the existence of this meeting, which was supposed to be secret. Ha'aretz apparently considers itself above the law, or below it.
But that is not the end of the meeting. Senior journalists, participants in the meeting, start to argue that there is no reason to forbid Israeli media from quoting foreign reports. Our official repeats what he said earlier about the difference that a report in the local media makes, but it does not stop the complaints. "The public's right to know," "freedom of the press," and all the other tired cliches are thrown around. The security official repeats, patiently, that human lives are endangered by such publication. He says that he knows well how things work in this global age, but this is such a critical issue that it is undoubtedly worthwhile to try whatever can be tried. The journalists do not seem to hear what is being said to them.
Then the editor of Hamodia, Rabbi Matisyahu Tannenbaum, the other chareidi journalist participating in this meeting, asks to say a few words. He says that he is committed to freedom of the press and all the other principles. But, he says, if it were your brother or another relative whose life was at stake, would you argue the same way? Isn't it clear that when a senior official tells you that Jewish lives are endangered, the lives of people who endanger themselves day and night, for months and for years, to save more lives, to save your lives — is it not clear that nothing else counts?
As soon as Rabbi Tannenbaum finishes, an even more senior journalist starts to speak. Amos Regev is the editor of Yisrael Hayom, a very popular newspaper. He supports Rabbi Tannenbaum. He recalls that the last such meeting took place 27 years ago just before the publication of details about the Vanunu affair. He says that we cannot select those parts of the rule of law to respect and those to reject. If the Court issues such an order it must be honored — or it can be fought within the court system.
We know what happened after that. The stories in Ha'aretz brought Arab Members of Knesset and the extreme Israeli Left to bring up the issue in the Knesset plenum. Let the State go down the tubes. Let the anonymous fighters be endangered. Let the rule of law collapse. They will not shut their mouths. The will use the forum given them in the Knesset to stomp on the State in which they live.
That's the story, at least the part that is allowed to be published so far. It is not brought as a journalistic scoop, but as a lesson, to understand a little, those people who preach to us, the chareidi community, all day about "sharing the burden," about disloyalty to the State, about not contributing to it, about not honoring the rule of law and other accusations — all of which are tinged with some hatred, but, even worse, with hypocrisy. By this I mean not just Ha'aretz, the paper of the extreme Left, leader of the fight against Judaism, who grossly tramples the rule of law and mocks all the values that it preaches to us, the chareidi community, but really all of the media that participate in that hypocritical campaign against us whose only value is their personal interests, whether economic or political. Not the lives of Jews, not the security of the public and certainly not Zionist values move them. When we are forced to wage a war against internal enemies who want to destroy traditional Judaism in the name of democracy, equality, freedom and humanitarianism, it is worthwhile to know these people better and to see how they apply these values in their own lives.
