Judge Miriam Naor rejected on Friday (March 21th) a petition presented to her that morning by Channel 10 to cancel a decision of the army spokesman to pass photographs taken by the Israeli intelligence satellite " Ofek 7 ", exclusively to the news company of Channel 2, which were intended to be shown on that evening, or at least order the army to pass the same photographs to Channel 10. She explained it was too late to enable the army to react properly, and the judges to discuss it and make a decision within hours after the urgent petition was presented.
Judges are not censors
Judge Naor said Channel 10 did not ask her to issue a temporary injunction banning Channel 2 to show the photographs, but even if it did - she would have rejected it. "As a rule, such an injunction has the sense of an early censorship of a publication, and will only be given in rare cases where there are considerable justifications", she added.
Channel 10 itself wrote in its petition that it knew "a few days before" about the intention of Channel 2 to show the photographs on Friday, nevertheless it waited until the last day, the judge said.
As opposed to the drama in court, the report shown on Friday was quite a bore. Actually the photographs were a gimmick to attract people to watch a PR promotion film for one of the army units. Some of the photos shown were of the Busher nuclear reactor in Iran. We have seen them many times.
Supreme court 2633 / 08 (a) - News 10 ltd v. 1. Army spokesman, 2. The Israeli news company Channel 2.
