Israel’s attempts to silence journalists are not new. My colleagues and I faced IDF threats in 1982.

The IDF campaign touched off a countercampaign by correspondents there from The Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the three main American television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. We all alerted our home offices to the IDF threat to bomb the Commodore, and our home offices in turn alerted the White House to the danger we faced. Exactly what transpired between Reagan and his aides and the Israeli government we never learned. But the IDF threat to bomb the Commodore abruptly ceased, and the hotel remained untouched until the end of the Israeli siege of Beirut that September.