Israeli police interrogate three Israeli journalists who visited Arab states

Thursday December 06, 2007 17:33 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News & Agencies

Israeli media reported on Thursday that the Israeli police had told them they had interrogated three Israeli journalists who had visited Arab states and reported from there.

Lisa Goldman at work - File 2007

The journalists are reported to be Ron Ben-Yishai, of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that did reports from Syria; Tsur Shezaf, who works for the Israeli travel magazine "Masa Aher" who wrote from Lebanon; and Lisa Goldman, from Israeli channel 10 news who did reports from Lebanon.

According to Israeli media sources the journalists had traveled to those Arab countries in recent months.

The investigation was conducted by an Israeli police unit called the International Crimes Investigations – ICI. Israeli law says that Israeli citizens, who travel to enemy states, even if they use foreign passports, could, face four years in jail.

The head of the International Crimes Investigations of the Israeli police, Alon Shahrabani stated that the three journalists did not receive the necessary permits from the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Israeli radio reported.

The president of the Israeli Press Council, Dalia Dorner, said that the aim of her council is to "preserve the freedom of the press" but added that, "if a journalist commits a crime then we cannot get involved." she told the Israeli agency Haaretz.

One of the probed journalists, Lisa Goldman said that she did not known how the information got leaked to the press since it had been a month since the police investigated her, and they had asked her not to discuss it.

She told Haaretz on Thursday that she did not know she had done anything illegal, adding that, "if I had known, there was no way I would have gone."

She continued to say "I'm very surprised that the police have now opened an investigation against three Israeli reporters when there must be at least 10 who traveled to Arab countries using foreign passports over the last couple of years alone and there are certainly many, many precedents over the last decade."

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