The Committee to Protect Journalists insists the vests be reserved for “verified members of the press” who somehow never notice rockets fired from hospitals.
Jerusalem, April 13 — In a new safety protocol announced Tuesday, the Israel will begin distributing bright blue “PRESS” vests to combat personnel operating in high-risk areas. The decision comes after years of relentless international media coverage portraying every terrorist eliminated while wearing a press vest as an innocent journalist ruthlessly targeted by the Zionist war machine.
“Enough is enough,” said one senior IDF officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still has to brief foreign reporters. “If the world insists that a ‘PRESS’ vest grants instant journalistic immunity and turns anyone wearing it into a sacred cow, fine. Our soldiers will wear them too. Maybe then the headlines will read ‘Israeli Journalist Killed by Hezbollah’ and we’ll finally get some understanding.”
The move follows repeated incidents in which Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah operatives were neutralized — only for outlets from Al Jazeera to The New York Times to blast Israel for “targeting journalists” because those operatives were sporting the PRESS identifier while engaged in intelligence gathering or combat operations. IDF spokesmen have repeatedly stressed that a press vest does not magically convert a terrorist into a member of the Fourth Estate, but the message has struggled to penetrate tendentious media coverage.
One reservist from the Golani Brigade summed up the prevailing mood in the field: “We’ve seen them running around with RPGs and ‘PRESS’ written across their chest like it’s body armor. Then the BBC calls them ‘media workers.’ So now we get the same vests. At least when they shoot at us they’ll be shooting at ‘journalists.’ Fair’s fair.”
Critics scrambled condemn the initiative, and to create distinctions between when Islamists wear PRESS vests and Israelis do. Human rights organizations accused the IDF of “further endangering real journalists” and “appropriating the symbols of the free press.” Several European foreign ministries expressed “deep concern” that the policy “undermines the protected status of media professionals.” A spokesman for the Committee to Protect Journalists suggested the vests should be reserved exclusively for “verified members of the press” — presumably the ones who somehow never notice the rockets being fired from hospital rooftops.
Soldiers on the ground took the announcement in stride. “If it stops the next blood libel about us executing reporters, I’ll wear a tutu and carry a notebook,” said one infantry sergeant. “Just don’t ask me to start filing dispatches about how diverse and vibrant Gaza was before we arrived.”
Defense officials noted that the vests remain strictly optional and intended only for situations where misidentification by global media poses an operational or diplomatic risk. No word yet on whether matching “PRESS” helmets or lanyards will follow.
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