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גוגל חסמה לגולשים מישראל את הפוסט על ברוך בן עזרי – קצין מג”ב שהרג את סלומון טקה

UPDATE: Both Calcalist and 7th Eye reported this story for Israeli readers. Thanks to Eyal Clyne who translated the two posts about this incident into Hebrew and posted them in his blog.

I’ve just received an official notice from Google that an Israeli court has filed an order demanding that it remove any reference to my recent post, which identified Baruch Ben Ezri as the police commander who killed Solomon Takah in cold blood.

Unfortunately, this has happened to me before. Sometimes, an individual malefactor doesn’t like his misdeeds exposed to an Israeli audience. Sometimes, the state itself wants to cover its behind and conceal the identity of its own evildoers, as in this case.

The order only affects those who use Google.co.il as their search engine. If you use any other Google search engine URL the post should be accessible. If you are Israeli and want to see the post, use one of these Google URLs and not the Israeli Hebrew language search engine. The post has not been censored from other search engines. Though clearly, Google has the lion’s share of search traffic.

Note that the court order also demands that Google not share it with me. This, in effect, protects the official censors ie. the state prosecutor who filed the demand with the court and the judge who rubber stamped it.

Finally, the most disturbing aspect of this is that while Israel has slapped a gag order on reporting Ben Ezri’s identity and no Israeli media may report it, this does not extend outside Israel. Anyone else may report this information as I have. And that’s how Israelis learn of it. But in this case, Google is permitting Israel to extend its own censorious practices outside of its own legal jurisdiction. Google has become a party to Israeli transnational censorship.

So when people complain about social media or search engines being complicit in censorship in China or other countries, remember it’s happening in a country many people consider a western-style democracy (though it isn’t).

As a form of resistance, especially if you are Israeli, please circulate this post and the censored one as widely as you can within Israel and abroad. We must not let the censors win.

Finally, if you support my efforts against Israeli censorship and in favor of press freedom and transparency there, please donate via Paypal or Network for Good (see sidebar links or Donate button in top navigation bar).