‘NYT’ abided by Israeli gag order even as ‘EI’ scooped it repeatedly || Last Saturday, Israel arrested Majd Kayyal, an Israeli Palestinian journalist who works for the human rights group Adalah, after he had visited Lebanon, then detained him incommunicado. Matt Lee of the Associated Press brought up the journalist’s arrest at the State Department briefing on Monday, and Ali Abunimah reported on the case for several days running at Electronic Intifada, noting:

Israeli media are strictly prohibited from publishing any details about Kayyal’s detention under the terms of a Shin Bet gag order approved by the judge.

The New York Times reported on the case yesterday, when Kayyal was released to house arrest, and referred to the gag order in passing– “A court-imposed gag order on the case was lifted on Thursday.” Now it turns out that the Times also abided by that gag order. Today the Times public editor, Margaret Sullivan, published an article about the gag order, stating that the Times bureau accepted it. Sullivan reports considerable confusion inside the Times about whether it does such things. The piece is highly embarrassing to the Times. As Abunimah summarizes the matter: “The New York Times agrees to be gagged by Israel.” [H/T: xymphora]

Thierry Meyssan ■ Lies have shorter and shorter legs. Two months after the change of regime in Kiev, the Polish press has disclosed the role of Donald Tusk’s government in preparing the coup. The new revelations belie Western discourse and demonstrate that the current interim government of Oleksandr Tourtchynov was imposed by NATO in violation of international law. || he Polish left-wing weekly Nie (No) published a startling witness account of the training given to the most violent of the EuroMaidan activists. According to this source, in September 2013, Polish Foreign Minister Rados³aw Sikorski invited 86 members of the Right Sector (Sector Pravy), allegedly in the context of a university exchange program. In reality, the guests were not students, and many were over 40. Contrary to their official schedule, they did not go to the Warsaw University of Technology, but headed instead for the police training center in Legionowo, an hour’s drive from the capital. There, they received four weeks of intensive training in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behavior in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles. Such training took place in September 2013, while the Maidan Square protests were allegedly triggered by a decree suspending preparations for the signing of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement, which was issued by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on November 21, i.e. two months later. The Polish weekly refers to photographs attesting to the training, which show the Ukrainians in Nazi uniforms alongside their Polish instructors in civilian clothing.