palestine, photographs and censorship.

There is something about photographs that just begs for censorhip.  Textual reports can be printed and distributed.  Photographs end up censored . Censored  by laws and special acts of Governments. And censored even by  photographers themselves.

I wonder if the Goldstone Report would have gone the way it did, if these images had been available.

I would have put up the  Haaretz interview but it exists behind a pay wall. Behind another kind of censorhip.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/israeli-news-broadcasters-don-t-cry.premium-1.494640#

A staggering, doom-laden interview published by Haaretz with an Israeli television journalist suggests that the full truth of what happened in Gaza 4 years ago was suppressed not only when the United States and its author stomped the Goldstone Report-- which alleged deliberate targeting of civilians-- but suppressed by Israelis too. Shlomi Eldar was Gaza correspondent for Channel 10 news. Here is what he saw and could not live with but put in "an envelope" and has never published, awaiting a commission of inquiry that never has come:

"I came into possession of shocking material. The kind of material that sends you to a psychologist. I have never shown it. Children who were shot. Piles of bodies of civilians... I came into possession of material about very grim events relating to the idea that Israel was deliberately 'going crazy.' Testimonies, images and much more. So many people were killed there."

I safeguard myself, and I need to safeguard myself against a host of things. I will tell you something I have never told anyone, and I hope I will not regret telling you. During Operation Cast Lead I came into possession of material about very grim events relating to the idea that Israel was deliberately "going crazy." Testimonies, images and much more. So many people were killed there. I took it all and put it in an envelope. I told Reudar Benziman, who was CEO of Channel 10 News at the time, what I had. He told me, "Work on it." I told him I couldn’t. Because that’s the truth − I couldn’t. If I had verified what I heard, I would not be able to live with it. I couldn’t have evoked the "rotten apples" metaphor. I still have the material in a closed room. I didn’t give it to anyone. When there was talk about a commission of inquiry, I said I would be ready to give them the material − let them check it out, not me. I’m not touching it. I’m not capable. I can’t. I, too, understand my limits.

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/reporter-suppressing-civilians.html