Press agog over broken gag

A botched gag order makes top news in the press after the police mistakenly let the cat out of the bag on the Bar Noar shooting before the all-clear was given for them to talk about it with the press.

Tel Aviv District Police held a press conference on Monday to announce their findings after four suspects were arrested in connection to the 2009 murders. Israel Hayom reports, however, that even though Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court Judge Ido Druyan had lifted the gag order, “he delayed executing the decision until [Tuesday] at noon in order to give the suspects’ lawyers time to appeal [it].”

The police, on live TV, told the public what they evidently were not supposed to know about the case. Haaretz reports that the information the police released was uploaded to news websites, “but after approximately an hour, they were requested to remove the reports from the sites.” Nonetheless, “large amounts of information remains on the web,” the paper reports.

Israel Hayom calls the incident a “farce” and a “circus,” Yedioth Ahronoth calls it “a grand embarrassment,” and Haaretz calls it a balagan. Maariv’s headline reads: “Began the day as heroes — and ended it as violators of a court order.” The paper tears mercilessly into the cops for the error, saying “in the Israel Police and legal system’s history of embarrassments, this will take a place of honor.”

Tova Tzimuki, in Yedioth Ahronoth, calls the incident “the height of absurdity” and criticizes the system by which the legal system and the police issue gag orders — and inevitably screw them up. She notes the incident a few weeks ago in which the name of the suspected murderer of a Netanyahu woman was banned from publication after everyone already knew which soccer player was in question.

“While websites have been full of information about the present case since last Wednesday, the judicial system behaves as though it were the days of the invention of the telegraph,” she says, and calls on Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to formulate a proposal with the Supreme Court whereby gag orders would be the exception rather than the rule in criminal cases.

Haaretz’s editorial goes on the stump in favor of government compensation for the victims of the Bar Noar shooting, and calls for the legislation of greater equality for the gay community. Despite the findings of the Israel Police that the shooting was not a homophobic hate crime, the paper writes, “Regardless of whatever personal circumstances might have sparked the hatred inside the perpetrator of the Bar Noar murders, his crime was not directed against one specific individual. Instead, it took the form of indiscriminate gunfire into a center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth — a place where they were supposed to feel secure.

Green light

According to a report in Haaretz, based on British government documents, Israel sold military hardware through a UK intermediary to Pakistan, the UAE, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, despite the fact that (except for Egypt) it does not have official relations with those Muslim countries.

“Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied… processed hundreds of Israeli applications to purchase military items containing British components for use by the Israel Defense Forces, or to go into systems exported to third countries,” the paper reports.

Products sold to these countries include (but are not limited to) radar systems, electronic warfare systems, Head-up Cockpit Displays ‏(HUD‏), parts for fighter jets and aircraft engines, optic target acquisition systems, components of training aircraft, military electronic systems, pilots’ helmets, aerial refueling systems, and thermal imaging equipment.

Speaking of unlikely partners, Maariv reports that Hatnua party leader Tzipi Livni is trying to enlist the help of Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid in pushing for the advancement of the peace process.

According to the paper, “during a party meeting, Hatnua members proposed that Yair Lapid’s party join them in forming a coalition bloc that would deal specifically with the [Palestinian negotiations] policy.”

“Until now Yesh Atid has dragged its feet on the matter,” a senior Hatnua member told the paper. “The objective is to sit down with them together to show how we push [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu in this direction.”