7th Eye interview with Former IDF Chief Censor, Brig. Gen. Sima Vaknin-Gil
Former IDF chief censor, Brig. Gen. Sima Vaknin-Gil looks for material to censor.
The IDF military censor, Brig. Gen. Sima Vaknin-Gil [later referred to as VG], recently completed a decade of service in the job and announced her retirement. 7th Eye, the journal of the Israeli Democracy Institute, published this extensive interview with her. Because it both identifies the processes by which the censor operates, its relations with the Israeli media, and exposes her own conceptions of censorship in an ostensibly democratic state, it’s an important document.
Below, the interviewers questions are italicized. Vaknin-Gil’s responses are unitalicized:
When the censor staff must examine the content of long news stories or books, the routine still involves printing out the materials [to be reviewed], reading them in on paper, and marking up the portions which require change or erasure. After the censorship process is completed, soldiers of the unit shred the paper and throw it into the recycling.
Vaknin-Gil is ending a decade in the job. Journalists and editors who work with her mostly characterize her as a “liberal censor,” who attaches great importance to the need to protect freedom of speech. As she reviews [her tenure] in the interview with her, in the years when she headed this body shrouded in secrecy, she was careful, and limited the full use of her censorship powers. She redefined the limits of debate, and for all intents and purposes softened the military oversight [of media discourse]. The backlash which her approach caused among representatives of the establishment was exemplified several days after the conversation with her, in the aftermath of the decision to permit Channel 2 to air the statements Ehud Barak said about the cabinet deliberation which preceded a planned Israeli operation to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Last month, Vaknin Gil published a comprehensive article in which she summarized the rationale under which she led the organization. She suggested a newer and more open model than that which preceded her. The model–currently in use by the censor, which obligates the media to transmit materials for prior approval which cover tens of pre-defined topics–is not appropriate for democratic nations, and is based on regulations she defines as “draconian.” Therefore, she suggests replacing it with a more open form of oversight.
“One of the things you write in the article is that the model of prior restraint could become a system which the public can’t live with. Which social or technological advances need to happen in order for this to be realized?”
“It’s already happening, you don’t have to wait,” Vaknin-Gil replies. “Every model employing restraint is quite problematic for this new era. That article [which VG wrote] was written after a decade of activity during which I saw how things were changing at a very fast rate. The public today lives and acts through the internet, and by the schedule of the internet. The desire to be first and control the narrative is the most central element. When I receive a report from a mainstream website and it takes me two minutes to check it–those two minutes, in terms of the internet, are sometimes a matter of life or death. Because, in that amount of time someone else could publish the information.
“The strategic conception on which the article is based, which was presented to the defense minister, is to say: let’s anticipate what’s to come. But everything I identity as futuristic, we already have today.
“I understand that working with us [the censor] is a form of damage [to the media]. As far as we can anticipate the world of the internet, and as far as news will become more like this and less like it was once–TV and the print newspapers–more and more outlets and journalists will face greater difficulties working with us [unless we anticipate change].”
“You describe a situation in which technology turns the law bit by bit into a dead letter.”
Right. I personally think that what I’m describing will get even worse somewhere between next month and the coming decade. I don’t know exactly when.
“You mention something else in the article which is the model of oversight of the U.S., which is different from the Israeli model, in that reviewing material happens in retrospect, after publication, except in time of war.”
That’s the model I suggested strengthening: to cancel censorship under the current system and to build a different system. To limit the process of restraint and move to the mode of advising. To decrease the amount classified as secret. To write legislation which has broader range–but in emergency conditions going back to a situation of full restraint, like today. The way we do things today is especially Israeli–to a surprising extent the military makes such decisions, advancing freedom of speech, call it what you will–that’s OK. But afterward you go to the U.S. and you are the Israeli military censor. They simply don’t understand this [method].
Censorship of the sort that applies to newspapers and TV can’t survive in this new world. Therefore we must find a different method. For me, this comes from a fundamental place and from my perspective on censorship in a democracy.
By the way, I can tell you that security officials in the State of Israel are prone to the idea that censorship and democracy don’t go hand in hand, even more so censors wearing a uniform. There is widespread agreement that we must move the burden from the censor to those who control information [the media]. And that the responsibility should be upon them. If they make an error, they should pay the price.
One of Vaknin-Gil’s predecessor, Rachel Dolev, stopped censoring soldiers’ letters and shut down the office which eavesdropped on international calls made inside Israel.
“Just so we aren’t confused, I am the chief censor, whose job is to protect the security of the State. Any place where the security of the State might be harmed–I protected it. What is “security of the State?” What are the criteria used to protect it? On this we may have differing interpretations.”
“How is the censorship [unit] that you leave different from what you found ten years ago [when you began]?”
“It’s almost unrecognizable. It’s different in so many ways that it’s difficult for me even to begin to describe. We’ve several times over changed our internal work methods with a view to how we interact with new media. We moved from a unit based in the 70s to one that is super-automated.
“We underwent four processes of organizational change. And the motto for each one was to take the censor’s office another step forward and bring it into the new millennium: physical infrastructure, computer infrastructure, legal infrastructure and strengthening the work perspective to one more suited to our era. We have systems to monitor TV, radio and internet which are, to my mind, the best that exist. These days we are about to introduce an added system which will be deal with another internet niche.”
“Which one?”
“I’d prefer not to say. We find ourselves today in a place where there isn’t any piece of meaningful security information on the internet, or anywhere, about which the censor isn’t aware–before its publication, through the use of prior restraint; or immediately thereafter, through the use of real-time tracking. I’m leaving the censor’s office when it’s blossoming–whether due to the quality-individuals drafted into its service, or because of the computer infrastructure we’ve developed, a portion of which was developed by units within the IDF and the security apparatus.
We’re aided quite a bit by means of the judicial decisions we’ve won, laws which have been passed, legal opinions crafted for us. I have here people who were censors in 1973 and do this job in 2015–this isn’t a simple thing. They went through this transformation together with the entire unit: from the pre-computer era to the computer era, from the “closed” era of the security apparatus to the open era of the security apparatus.”
There is a perspective which says that in the last few years managing editors try not to bring cases to the Supreme Court, for fear that the Schnitzer decision [which placed restraints on what information the censor could restrict] will be overturned. Are you in accord with this?”
“No and the reason is simple: the Schnitzer decision, we know it in our context. But the “review with near certainty [that national security will be harmed]” which it inscribed is a criteria recognized in many decisions, and balanced in many different ways. And I have trouble seeing a Court which would rule differently in the matter of balancing freedom of speech.
“If so, could there be another reason for this fear [of editors bringing decisions to the Court]? Why do you think that in recent years there have been so few appeals to the Court on matters of censorship?”
“During my whole tenure, there were only three Supreme Court decisions, two of which I can’t speak about. Only one of them dealt with the media. It’s possible to claim that this is because they’re afraid of a reversal. But I suggest a different reason: I think we succeeded in reaching a situation in which the media doesn’t need to take us to the Supreme Court because we’re not ‘going crazy.’ We don’t take our power to the extreme. We’ve always found a happy medium. Always been able to maintain a bridge. At this, we are experts.
“There were a few cases in which journalists could have gone to the Supreme Court, but decided against it because the editors wouldn’t support them. There were other times when people thought they might not win in court, because the security apparatus always succeeds in persuading the judges at the end of the day. I can’t say this isn’t true. I only know what’s the bottom line: if the censor did go crazy, you would find us before the Court as happened in the past. And you would find us before the editors’ committee as happened in the past. But on the other hand, I could ask myself: “One moment, maybe I’ve been too good to you [the media].”
“That’s surely what the security apparatus says.”
“The security apparatus thinks that it deserves absolute protection. Once we asked ourselves: ‘how do we know that we’re doing all right?’ We had a rather silly, but correct method of determining this: if at the end everyone is mad at you part of the time, sometimes I’m here [on one side] and sometimes I’m there–finally everything is pretty well-balanced.”
“So you’re saying that the perspective of the security apparatus isn’t that you’re liberal towards the media?”
“That you’ll have to ask them. I can’t say there isn’t some officer who thinks that I shouldn’t have permitted discussion of something. According to my view, I as censor have to give a place of honor to freedom of speech and the right of the public to know. Not everyone agrees with this perspective, but I think differently. I claim that the role of censor is to determine how to balance these two needs. The censor asks: in a particular circumstance is the harm done to freedom of speech commensurate with the need to protect security [of the State]; or the extent to which I can keep the need to maintain security to a minimum in order to permit the maximum freedom of speech–or the reverse.
“But don’t be confused: I am an IDF officer. I am the chief censor whose job is to protect the security of the State. In every circumstance in which I thought that the security of the State might be harmed–I protected it. I fought to protect it.
Now, what is the “security of the State?” What’s the criteria for its protection? On this we may have different interpretations. There may be a chief of staff or Mossad chief who doesn’t think as I do–but this is legitimate. I have more than a few hard discussions with the security apparatus, just as I have on the other side with the media. By the way, there’s a terrific way to determine if you’re on the wrong track: the security apparatus can simply fire you.”
According to the outgoing censor, there is one area in which it ignores considerations of freedom of speech–emergency conditions [wartime].
“During emergencies, there is a jump of 30% in censored material. In these circumstances, what concerns the censor most is that soldiers return home safely. The war’s over? We go back to the way it was.”
According to her, 85% of what’s presented to the censor on a daily basis is approved for publication with any involvement in its content.
Chilling Effect
Even today, says Vaknin-Gil, the media refuses to bring to the censor a not insignificant amount of material which it’s obligated to transmit for review before publication. She says only 70% of what should be presented prior to publication is indeed transmitted. Almost all the information that isn’t passed to the censor beforehand doesn’t contain matters that are prohibited from publication.
“Editors recognize the boundaries and everything that gets close to the edge they send to us [for review]. What don’t they send us? The things with which we would have no problem.”
One of Vaknin-Gil’s proposals which, according to her, will be implemented in the future, is a decrease in the list of subjects which require prior submission to the military censor. Instead of 36 subjects, there will be only 8. The subjects which must be submitted are formulated in an agreement between the censor and the editors committee, a historic body whose status has been in continual decline since the 1990s, and which today no longer exists. The appeals body for this system, the Committee of Three has convened, according to Vaknin-Gil less than ten times in the last decade.
“Because the agreement was formulated with the editors committee, and it no longer exists, the agreement is no longer in effect.”
“Despite the fact that the committee no longer exists the agreement remains. How do you explain this?”
“It remains because all of us remain under the same system and we understand that this is the way it works. We tried to find a different partner who would sign an agreement with us; the journalists council. By the way we wanted to introduce changes to bring it up to date with current environment, to deal with the Internet.”
“And it did not succeed?”
“It didn’t succeed. And because no one was willing to sign a new agreement, we were forced to find a different solution and the solution was this: to work unilaterally. The content would be identical: the same agreement, the same logic, same spirit, same processes of remediation. But now the defense ministry acts unilaterally in relation to the media.”
“How could you propose such a thing to the media when the media was not a partner in the agreement?
“It’s very simple. Even today you aren’t a partner in the agreement. You never once signed this agreement, right? Yet you still work under the principles outlined in it. This agreement falls automatically on everyone…”
“You propose reducing the number of subjects which obligate prior submission to the censor. Why [do this] now? Why not, let’s say, five years ago?”
During my second year, I met with the editors and they said to me:
“Listen, this isn’t bothering anyone. We prefer the list include as many as subjects as possible. Because the staff changes so frequently–it’s preferable that they not be confused.”
Every two years I reviewed the list anew. By the way–this is part of the job description of the censor–and after the second time with the editors they told me the same thing. So we left things as is. We, from our perspective, determined from time to time subjects which we removed or which we added.”
“Do you think that writing that Israel has nuclear weapons without adding “according to foreign sources” harms with near-certainty the security of the State?”
“As to the nuclear issues, with your permission, I don’t want to enter into it. I will only say one thing: the policy of opacity is the policy of the State of Israel. What the censor does is not to determine the policy or change it, but to interpret this policy on behalf of the media. If I have a discussion about the content of the policy–it’s done with the defense ministry and not journalists as much as they may be respected.”
“In the report we published about your article, several journalists who’ve been in regular contact took care to praise your work. But they also noted that in the current political climate, turning the censor into a civilian responsibility would likely lead to politicization; and that the legislation is a dangerous process which is impossible to know where it may end.”
“I can’t reject what they say. There is a certain logic to it. I will only say what bothers me, and after that we can add analysis: these statements which have been made throughout the existence of the censor, are what has determined how the censor works. It’s OK for everyone [editors] to be on good terms with the censor, but these same individuals when they meet colleagues who come here from abroad in order to examine the level of freedom of speech in Israel, whine the censor. I’m only saying: “take the cobwebs from your eyes.”
“Despite this, they’re right. At first glance, if you are a civilian body situated in the ministry of justice, defense or in the national security council, you are perceived as being less clean than someone in the military. Why? Because the army itself has a reputation for professionalism and “clean hands,” and for being insulated from politicization. I’ll tell you how I came to my view about making the censor a civilian entity.
“I have a great deal of trouble with the fact that what I do, I do in a uniform. It reminds me of regimes with which I don’t want to be compared. When I thought about a civilian authority, my intent was not for them to appoint a soccer player, but rather someone who comes from the security sphere–a person formerly of the Mossad, Shabak or army, or a jurist with a security background.
“Now, after saying this, let’s talk about the law. It’s true–when you go to the Knesset with legislation you know how it will start, but you don’t know how it will come out [in the end]…Pay attention to what I’m proposing: it’s true that I proposed a law, but along with the law there are three things cancelled which are far more draconian: Paragraph 113 of criminal code, which deals with spying; Paragraph 117 dealing with the transmission of information from a public worker, and the emergency regulations concerning security.
Regarding the regulations, don’t make the mistake of thinking that I won’t enforce them: the censor has enormous power in her hands. What would happen if tomorrow I decide to go wild?”
“Since you do not use these means, from the point of view of journalists it’s more convenient to rely on gentlemen’s agreements and handshakes [than explicit documents].”
“It’s clear to me that it is convenient for you. It’s quite convenient for you that I do your work for you. Because what happens? Restraint is the most difficult model, right? It leads to a freezing effect as they say in academia, right? That’s ridiculous. The censor knows all the secrets. Therefore, when you present me reports, I’m not obligated to disqualify the entire thing. I disqualify only the specific portion which I know is problematic. In an absurd sense, the Israeli model of restraint upholds freedom of expression better than any place else [in the world].”
“What you’re now saying, that censorship in its current format does not lead to a chilling effect on the will of journalists to publish information, contradicts somewhat what you said earlier about editors which aid censorship and its principles through self-censorship. That’s proof of the fact that self-censorship exists.”
“It doesn’t contradict that. It complements it. If an editor gets an amazing scoop, what do you think? That he won’t present it to me? Certainly, he will. And he’ll quarrel with me about publishing it. Under a different model, in which an editor makes a decision and doesn’t present the story for prior approval, he may fear to take such a dangerous step because he doesn’t know where the line is. Now, he has someone whose sole job is to define: “the line is here.” So for all these reasons, it’s convenient for journalists that the censor remain.
“Now, I have no problem with that. It’s OK. I’d just like to ask a simple question: if it’s so convenient for everyone, come let’s embrace it. Just stop whining about it abroad.”
“If we understand you correctly, your vision concerning the new [civilian] model has not been accepted [by the defense ministry].”
“First of all, analysis of the problem was accepted. There’s general agreement that what I proposed it right. It’s correct that the defense minister [Bogie Yaalon] said that he accepts this, but that he doesn’t want to do it in the radical way I proposed. He proposes that we do it in an evolutionary mode: we will take those things I identify as problematic and correct them within the current system. He said: “No, I don’t wish to change the format, don’t wish to repeal censorship based on prior restraint, doesn’t wish to cancel defense regulations, and don’t want new legislation, because I identify with the current system–and this is an important statement–as something that fits the particular culture of Israel.”
“This strange agreement under which we live wouldn’t work if you and I didn’t come from the same place, in which you wish to do your job but don’t wish to harm security–and I must do my job, but don’t wish to harm freedom of speech. At the moment we understand that we both have identical interests, we can work under such an agreement. But this is something that only fits Israel’s culture. It would never work in the U.S. or in Britain.”
Censors in Pajamas
Military censorship, says VG, is a small unit in IDF terms. It’s composed of 40 staff dealing with actual censorship, most of whom are civilian workers in the IDF, and 20 others dealing with more comprehensive matters.
Further Reading:
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John Pilger explains the world ........http://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2016/feb/22/john-pilger-webchat-the-new-rulers-of-the-world?page=with:block-56cd8641e4b064ef543f2729#block-56cd8641e4b064ef543f2729
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