A Muzzle for Israelis
'document proposed new libel law is a ferocious 'document with a dangerous capacity for totalitarian application. The basic provisions for libel and slander actions are not so very different from those in many other democratic countries, though the categories of libel seem wider than most (Libel of the State is included, for instance). But some of the provisions are quite indefensible. It is true that in British law libel is automatically a criminal as well as civil offence; but in •prac- tice there has been no action for criminal libel in Britain for many years, and it is quite inconceiv- able that a criminal prosecution could. be launched alongside an ordinary civil libel action. And this is more or less standard democratic practice. But not only is the Israeli law clearly designed to make the criminal element in a libel action of equal weight with the civil; all the signs are that it is (if the Act is passed unamended) to be enforced. Not that this is all, or the worst. For the proposed law contains a provision under which a court may order the closing down, for an indefinite period, of any newspaper which has twice been convicted of libel within two years. Further, any newspaper any member of whose staff has twice been found guilty of libel within two years can similarly be closed down in- definitely. There are other disturbing provisions in the Bill; it narrows the possibility of defence to a libel action, for instance, more rigorously than is the case in Britain (let alone the United States) and other democratic countries. Perhaps the application of the 'measure would be less fearsome than its actual provisions allow. But this is small consolation; governments and ministers, not to say situations, can change, and for a measure like this to be on the Statute Book gives a terrifying power of muzzling and controlling the freedom of the press.
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