(This was rejected for publication)

Truth be our torch

    On a wall in my home, overlooking my desk, is a framed copy of this newspaper. A small item in that rare edition mentions the suspension of two journals because of censorship contraventions, and we found the story sufficiently newsworthy to give it space.
    That is extraordinary, because on the same day, February 1, 1948, the main headline described the demolition of this newspaper by a massive truck bomb. Our building in ruins and many of our colleagues stricken, we valiantly published nonetheless.
    "The Palestine Post takes pride in its record of fair reporting and honest comment," that day's editorial said. "It attributes last night's bomb to that fairness and honesty, which will continue to be its standard henceforth." It concluded with: "The Palestine Post will go on." And here we are.
    With so much of the limited space given to our own story that day, still we budgeted three inches to the censorship of two Arabic newspapers in Jaffa.
    It happened 51 years ago, and it's worth mentioning only because it's happening again, today, at this very newspaper.
    Ironically, you would not know about the Post's unionized editorial staffers' conflict with censorship if you depend solely on this paper for news. Ironic, because we have always been a vanguard of labor news reporting in Israel, always championed labor as the backbone of the nation, always stood up for honesty, even after being blasted off our feet. Now we --  we! -- are being censored ... by ourselves.
    Our labor strife is a legitimate news story that is widely reported elsewhere, but suppressed by our management. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the story, the responsibility to report it is sacrosanct. Let them tell their side, yes, but let us tell ours. It may seem like mere quibbling, compared to monumentally historic processes in progress at present, but censorship of a newspaper, by a newspaper, is alarming.
    There cannot be democracy without a free, unfettered press. There cannot. As such, this medium is very, very much the message. Cynicism creeps in when you consider that we are foreign-owned, which means that half a world away, at some executive office in Vancouver, non-Israelis are preventing Israelis from performing an Israeli democratic right.
    (That's another irony: Canadians are supersensitive about their sovereignty being trampled by their own hulking shadow, the United States.)
    On that faded page on my wall, an eloquently trumpeted column, by David Courtney, declares victory for the very virtue we now cower from. "The truth is louder than TNT. ... It is surprising what some men will do to destroy truth. The tyrant, the Fascist, the fool, and the ignorant victims of any one or all of these, have tried to suppress the truth since history began; and tried vainly. They are still at their monstrous folly."  
    Now, it would be over-strident of me to compare TNT to a red pencil, or to even suggest that the management and ownership for whom we work are any of the ogres mentioned above. (Those whom I know, I genuinely like.) And their folly is much less than monstrous. What Courtney had to say that is relevant to us is about truth, and ignorance: that is what we are grappling with today.

    DAVID, TOM, Paul, Avi, Hirsh: Tell the readership what is happening, why Herb, Esther, Brian, Aryeh and I, and all the rest, are on the verge of going out on strike -- why we are desperately fearful we will lose our jobs. Then let us plead our case too. It is news. Treat it as any good piece of journalism: permit both sides of the story to be known, giving weight to neither, shedding light on both.
    My publisher, my editor, if I may entreat you: we have been riven by these bitter negotiations, the two sides lockjawed and whiteknuckled. Let us speak openly, freely, even publicly.
    We have worked together, some of us, for many years. There are still a couple of fellows who were here on February 1, 1948.
    For my 17 years, I, like others we know here, have considered this old place to be home, the mother ship -- to that extent is our love and loyalty.
    At the raucous union meeting we held last week, when we were barred from entering this former chicken slaughterhouse we call beitenu, our home, I was overcome with a profound melancholy. As the anger of my colleagues mounted, I very nearly started to cry, and had to hurry away. One or two others, I am told, did cry. We are resolute, but deeply, passionately affected by all this. I think you should know, so that you may heed us as flesh and blood.
    Now, if you would turn to page one -- not of today's paper, but of our paper's history. On December 1, 1932, Gershon Agron, our founder, wrote an announcement heralding the first issue.
    "The Palestine Post will not seek to promote personal ambitions or party advantage. Its reports will be as objective as is humanly possible, and its criticism informed, legitimate and helpful. In criticism and in reports, the studied purpose will be the present and future welfare of the country and of its people."
    To you, my publisher, my editor, he has passed the torch.
    The remainder of my message I address to our readers.
    If you are reading this, you will know that journalistic integrity, and dedication to the truth, have prevailed at this newspaper.
    If not, you will never know it, but we are sunk: we the people at The Jerusalem Post,  we the citizens who flourish in a democracy supported by a free press.
    If you are not reading this, you must fear for what you do -- and do not -- read here in the future.