Foreign journalists face visa denials, intimidation and violence, while Israeli reporters and filmmakers are increasingly threatened for exposing what the government would rather keep hidden.<\/p>\n
When I write about what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, I don\u2019t have to ask whether my next article will cost me the right to live and work in Israel. But many of my foreign colleagues do. I am protected by my Israeli citizenship \u2013 for now.<\/p>\n
My foreign colleagues depend on the good graces of the Netanyahu government. A European colleague on a work visa told me that reporting from the West Bank means worrying about more than physical safety. She and other foreign reporters fear that Israeli authorities will see them as giving more space to Palestinian stories than Israeli ones.<\/p>\n
Israeli-backed intimidation campaigns in their home countries have already targeted colleagues reporting from here. Even criticising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sometimes felt like going too far; calling for any kind of sanctions crosses a red line. Simply having to think twice about what they write, she said, shows how dangerous the situation has become.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government threatens foreign reporters; settlers attack them in the West Bank. The aim is the same: to silence those who expose what Israel fights to conceal.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Israeli journalists must stand in solidarity with our foreign colleagues, and that solidarity must extend well beyond Haaretz. We also must not leave them to fear expulsion or nearly fatal violence and assume our turn will never come.<\/p>\n
Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was doing her job in the West Bank last Friday, documenting the olive harvest and the settler violence that routinely makes targets of Palestinians and anyone helping them. Then she became a target herself. She was assaulted and hospitalised; according to her daughter, settlers broke one of her ribs and she nearly lost a finger.<\/p>\n
While Isaac Herzog, Israel\u2019s figurehead president, called<\/a> Levine to apologise, Netanyahu disputed her account, alleging \u201copen questions\u201d about the attack and challenging the accounts of European diplomats who were also attacked by settlers the next day. Beyond the presidential damage control, Netanyahu\u2019s response reveals that Israel prefers to stand with the violent settlers it grants impunity.<\/p>\n But if the Israeli government had its way, Levine would never have been in the West Bank. A foreign journalist documenting settler violence, let alone becoming a victim of it, makes that violence impossible for Israel to conceal.<\/p>\n The same week Levine was attacked, Israel used anti-democratic measures and bogus claims to keep foreign journalists out of the country or intimidate those it lets in.<\/p>\n Israel denied<\/a> Serena Bilanceri of German newspaper taz a work visa over two opinion articles calling for sanctions against settler violence, falsely branding it a call to boycott the country. It revoked the entry permits of French journalist Sylvain Mercadier and Italian journalist Martina Stefanoni, both due to cover the election, without an explanation.<\/p>\n British Channel 4 News journalist Secunder Kermani was detained and questioned about whether he believed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza before being admitted. Jewish American researcher Sophia Goodfriend was denied entry; she said she was questioned over a tweet saying \u201cIsrael should not kill 300 people in Gaza\u201d and called \u201cnaive\u201d.<\/p>\n