Where are free speech zealots when we need them? (Beat the press: the hand that rules the press ... rules the country--Judge Learned Hand).

Censorship in Israel is draconian by American standards. Journalists can be jailed for defying military censors, and publications have occasionally been shut down (temporarily) for defying the rules that require approval of articles on security matters prior to publication. It wasn't until 1996 that the name of the head of the Israeli General Security Service could even be mentioned in news accounts. Understandably, this has fueled a decades-long debate in the Israeli press and government over conflicts between the public's "right to know" and national security.

Foreign media have pushed for press freedom. In the late '80s, Israel tried to force journalists to participate in a pool system for covering activities in "the Occupied Territories." Bob Slater, Time magazine's Israel bureau chief and head of Israel's Foreign Press Association at the time, spearheaded a lawsuit against the Israel Defense Forces. He won an order from the Supreme Court, demanding the army show due cause why journalists shouldn't be allowed to travel alone.

Israel's policy on the press is marked by constant compromise among principle, necessity, politics, and the rule of law, as befits a democracy. The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, just threatens to murder journalists.

By now everyone has seen the images of Palestinians cheering, ululating, and dancing in the streets like winners on the Arabic "Price is Right" after images of the World Trade Center attack were beamed across the world. Those celebrations were inconvenient for Palestinian leaders, who are dedicated to a Big Lie campaign that they are "shocked" and "horrified" by terrorist attacks (despite the fact that over 70 percent of Palestinians tell pollsters they strongly support continued suicide bombings in Israel). So when a second spontaneous rally broke out in Nablus on the West Bank the day of the attacks, the Palestinian Authority's solution was to allow it to continue with the stipulation that journalists not cover it. When some journalists resisted, they were arrested. One AP cameraman who managed to film the cheering crowd waving a giant poster of Osama bin Laden was told bluntly by the official PA security forces that he was putting his life in jeopardy.

Later, higher-ranking officials of Arafat's Fatah organization came by the AP office. Not to apologize, but to emphasize: We cannot "guarantee the life" of the cameraman if the footage is released. The chief of the AP bureau and the current head of the Foreign Press Association decided not to release the tape.

Facing the prospect of having one of your employees summarily executed will inject a healthy dose of realism into ...