In past decades, restrictions on the news media gave security officials in Israel a free hand to pursue their objectives under the cover of an information blackout. Now, with access to social media and activist blogging, that is no longer possible, and a vigorous, at times frightening, public discussion of the killings has continued online based on rumor and leaks used by partisans of both sides to indict their enemies.
In the case of the three Jewish students who went missing last month near Hebron as they hitchhiked home from school, Israel’s Shin Bet security service barred reporters from telling the public that gunshots were heard on the furtive emergency call made by one of the kidnapped teenagers. The Israeli journalist and commentator Noam Sheizaf argued that keeping salient facts of the investigation secret for weeks allowed a government-backedsocial-media campaign to channel outrage over the abductions to grow, but also set the public up for crushing disappointment once the bodies were discovered.
“In schools across the country, including one near my home, signs were hung with the teens’ names and slogans like, ‘looking forward to your return,’ ” Mr. Sheizaf wrote on his blog. “If the teachers knew about the blood in thecar, the bullet holes and the sound of gunshots, would they have let their young students paint those signs or have their photos taken with them and posted on the Internet?”
Another Israeli journalist, Raviv Drucker, suggested that concealing facts from the public might have built support for the military operation in the West Bank against Hamas operatives during the search for the teenagers, but also created an atmosphere of blood lust, and open calls for violent revenge, in the days before a Palestinian boy in East Jerusalem was abducted and burned to death.
“That doesn’t mean that the search for the boys should have been halted, but perhaps there would have been fewer mass prayer vigils and empty speeches predicated on the belief that the boys were still alive,” Mr. Drucker wrote. “And perhaps there would have been less pressure from the public for a heavy handed response from our decision makers. Perhaps, too, the wave of ugly incitement would have been a bit smaller.”
The absence of verified information about the missing Israelis initially led some Palestinians to speculate that “no abduction had ever occurred,”according to Amira Hass, a correspondent for Haaretz. The widespread assumption that the boys might be found alive, fostered by statements from Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and other officials, also fueled speculation that the boys might have been abducted as bargaining chips to win the release of Palestinian political prisoners.(1)
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