Israel, meanwhile, maintained its ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip Friday despite a recent Supreme Court order to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.
The ban has been in place since a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began to fray on Nov. 5. Israel eased the ban last month but tightened it again after launching its air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers a week ago.
A legal challenge by the Foreign Press Association, which represents foreign media in Israel, prompted the court ruling this week to allow groups of up to 12 foreign journalists to cross the border whenever the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza is open for humanitarian cases.
That was the case on Friday, when Israel opened the crossing to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to leave Gaza. But authorities defied the court order and kept reporters out.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003926490
We’ll recall that the US military, stung by reporting during the Viet Nam war and the consequences of that reporting on citizen opinion, initiated attacks on Noriega in Panama while keeping reporters from witnessing or writing about what was going on.
This is all very fine if one wishes to allow military types to head up society and if one believes that citizens are all in all a better sort of creature when made purposefully stupid.
