Hot Air, Hugh Hewitt and others have reported on the comments made by Thomas Ricks on Reliable Sources yesterday.
Ricks believes that,
"RICKS: Echoes of Iraq, yes. But also the Israelis are very sophisticated in their handling of the media. They consider it part of the battlefield, officially. The word "narrative" always comes up with conversations with Israeli national security officials. They consider shaping the narrative, the battle for the narrative, to be key as part of any war fighting. So they see the media as part of the battlefield. And, in fact, there’s some belief from our reporters that they have occasionally targeted the media."
Nowhere in his interview does he say that anyone else is doing so. In fact, he stated that they only tried to stop the film crews from filming where katyusha rockets are being fired from. Of course, they’ve threatened to kill the crews, but that’s only if the crews kept filming, so it’s morally equivalent to being censored.
This is another example of the world stood on it’s head - this reporter thinks the Israelis cynically manipulate the press and deliberately risk their citizens just to achieve a military objective. The Hizbollah, on the other hand, surely just want to avoid filming military activities.
This reminds me of the comment made by NY Times editor, Bill Keller, after the leak of national secrets in June of this year:
“I guess I would say if you’re under the impression that the press is neutral in this war on terror, or that we’re agnostic — and you could get that impression from some of the criticism — that couldn’t be more wrong."
Well, I guess we all know what side they’re on. that is the key answer the Keller never gave.
