US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

At least 30 news organizations declined to sign a new Pentagon access policy for journalists, warning of the potential for less comprehensive coverage of the world’s most powerful military ahead of a Tuesday deadline to accept new restrictions.

The policy requires journalists to acknowledge new rules on press access, including that they could be branded security risks and have their Pentagon press badges revoked if they ask department employees to disclose classified and some types of unclassified information.

Reuters is among the outlets that have refused to sign, citing the threat posed to press freedoms. Others that have announced their refusal to accept the new press access rules in statements or their own news stories are: the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, Axios, Politico, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Hill, Newsmax, Breaking Defense and Task & Purpose.

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement on Monday: “The policy does not ask for them to agree, just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is. This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”

The department has set a Tuesday deadline for news organizations to agree to it or turn in their Pentagon press badges and clear out their workspaces in the building by Wednesday.

President Donald Trump, asked about the new policy on Tuesday, told reporters that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth “finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace and maybe security for our nation.”

Hegseth called the requirements “common sense,” adding that “we’re trying to make sure national security is respected.”

News organizations have not disputed restrictions on reporters’ access to sensitive areas in the Pentagon. Credentialed reporters have historically been limited to unclassified spaces, according to the Pentagon Press Association.

All five major broadcast networks issued a joint statement on Tuesday, saying: “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the US military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.”

The New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Richard Stevenson said in a statement on Friday: “Since the policy was first announced, we have expressed concerns that it constrains how journalists can report on the U.S. military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer money annually. The public has a right to know how the government and military are operating.”

Reuters also took issue with the new rules. “Reuters is bound by its commitment to accurate, impartial and independent news under the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. We also steadfastly believe in the press protections afforded by the US Constitution, the unrestricted flow of information and journalism that serves the public interest without fear or favor. The Pentagon’s new restrictions erode these fundamental values,” a spokesperson said.

The rules, which followed negotiations with Pentagon officials in recent weeks, threatened to violate protections for the press under the First Amendment to the US Constitution by regulating routine attempts by reporters to seek newsworthy information and documents from sources, said a lawyer familiar with negotiations with the Pentagon.

The requirement that reporters acknowledge that disclosure of sensitive information could harm US national security could aid prosecutors if they sought to charge a reporter for disclosing defense information under the Espionage Act, the lawyer added.

Conservative cable news outlet One America News signed on to the new policy.

“After thorough review of the revised press policy by our attorney, OAN staff has signed the document,” Charles Herring, the president of OAN parent company Herring Networks, said in a statement. Reuters could not immediately ascertain if other organizations had also signed it.

The Pentagon’s policy, announced last month, is the latest expansion of restrictions on press access under Defense Secretary Hegseth, a former Fox News host. Trump has ordered the department to rename itself the Department of War, a change that would require action by Congress.

Hegseth on Monday, while traveling with Trump to Israel and Egypt, responded on social media platform X to news organizations declining to agree to the policy by posting a hand-waving emoji, implying he was bidding them goodbye.

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents more than 100 news organizations that regularly cover the military, including Reuters, urged Pentagon leadership to reconsider the policy, arguing it “gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release.”

The group said it was not issuing a specific recommendation on whether reporters should agree.

The Pentagon revised its proposed policy following negotiations between the department and news organizations that came after they widely condemned requirements that barred credentialed reporters from seeking out sensitive information that was not approved for release.

The revised policy notes that receiving or publishing sensitive information “is generally protected by the First Amendment” but states that soliciting the disclosure of such information “may weigh in the consideration of whether you pose a security or safety risk.” The policy adds: “The press’s rights are not absolute and do not override the government’s compelling interest in maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information.”

Barry Rosen knows what it means to wait for freedom.

He spent 444 days as a hostage, one of 52 Americans held prisoner at the U.S. embassy in Iran from 1979 to 1981. He described when he was reunited with his family as “one of the greatest moments” of his life.

But Rosen also knows from experience that the psychological scars of captivity endure long after that celebratory moment.

So when he heard that the remaining living hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were being released this week, he felt “overwhelmingly relieved.” But his joy was also tempered by worries of what comes next, and the memory of the difficulties he faced re-entering society after being stripped of freedom for so long.

“It never goes away,” said Rosen, now 81. “Being a hostage is part of my DNA.”

444 days of darkness

Rosen, who is Jewish and grew up in Brooklyn, fell in love with Iranian culture during his time as a Peace Corps officer there. A decade later, he returned to work as a press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

On November 4, 1979, he was sitting in the embassy office when men with clubs stormed in and accused him of spying for the U.S. government.

Over the next nearly year and a half, he endured brutal conditions: Rosen was kept in a cell with no windows, subjected to mock executions, starved, and beaten, he said. He often feared he would never be released, telling his prison guards he expected them to grow old together.

Small reminders of the outside world helped him. The singular time his captors allowed him outside for 15 minutes, he slipped a blade of grass into his pocket — and would think of the baseball games he attended with his father as a young boy whenever he took it out.

Meanwhile, Rosen’s wife, Barbara, became a national figure, speaking to the media and meeting with politicians to advocate for his release.

President Jimmy Carter ultimately brokered a deal. After 444 days in captivity, Rosen was blindfolded and driven to the airport in Tehran. Soon after, he was in his family’s arms.

They popped champagne, he said, and “drank as much as they possibly could.”

The road to recovery

After the initial elation of being freed, Rosen said it took several months before he was able to resume a semblance of normal life.

Following his release, he went on a speaking tour and co-wrote a book with his wife, The Destined Hour: The Hostage Crisis and One Family’s Ordeal. Writing about his experience, he said, helped him process what had occurred.

Rosen also channeled the trauma into advocacy for other hostages. He co-founded Hostage Aid Worldwide, which researches unlawful detention and maintains a database of hostages around the world. In 2022, he went on a hunger strike to raise awareness of the plight of foreign nationals held by Iran. Most recently, he turned his attention to the hostages in Gaza, helping to schedule meetings between hostage families and officials at the United Nations.

Rosen said he feels a “certain camaraderie” with the hostages returning to Israel from Gaza, many of whom were confined to underground tunnels in darkness.

“The human condition is similar when you’re held under a gun or tied up, not knowing whether you will live or die,” he said.

He emphasized that some returning hostages may not be ready to speak about their experiences and stressed the importance of respecting how different people may process trauma.

Even small choices, like deciding what to eat, can bring up emotions for returning hostages.

“You’re being held for so long without any power over anything,” Rosen said. “If you’re now given a choice to do this or do that, it could be very difficult.”

On his speaking tours, Rosen said it was often challenging to translate the experience of being a hostage to an audience. When asked, “How does it feel to be a hostage?” he would reply that the experience was too complex to describe.

“I don’t particularly think that most people want to hear the pain,” Rosen said. “It’s something that cannot really be conveyed to another person, even if you’re the most articulate person in the world.”

The post ‘It never goes away’: A former hostage describes the paradox of freedom for Israelis who returned home from Gaza appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — BERLIN — At a hummus restaurant in Berlin’s leafy neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg, war has come knocking many times over the last two years. Recently, it came with the threat of closure.

Jalil Dabit, a Palestinian, and Oz Ben David, an Israeli, have run the business together for 10 years. The last two saw Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the devastating war that ensued in Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and largely reducing the enclave to rubble.

Dabit and Ben David named their restaurant Kanaan — a Hebrew and Arabic word for the ancient land they both call home, before it was known as Israel or Palestine.

They have a mission beyond bringing the best hummus to Berlin. They turned Kanaan into a local symbol of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, organizing free programs that teach about cooking and prejudice. One project joined Palestinian refugees who fled Gaza during the war together with members of Berlin’s Israeli community to cook under one roof. A rainbow sign outside the restaurant reads, “Make hummus not war.”

But in August, the partners issued an emergency plea.

“Kanaan is facing closure,” they announced to customers. “The year 2025 was tough. War, economic uncertainty and a sharp drop in revenue have brought us to a point where we cannot continue without your help. If nothing changes in the next two weeks, we will have to close Kanaan.”

Dabit and Ben David have continuously fended off the Gaza war’s encroachment on their business. On Oct. 7, 2023, they closed for six days. Ben David said he felt driven to quit after his friend was killed and his family members hid in their safe room from the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. Dabit coaxed him back from despair.

The unlikely duo supported each other even as their message cost them Israeli and Palestinian friends from home. Ben David grew up in Ariel, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; Dabit comes from Ramle, a mixed city in central Israel where his family has lived for hundreds of years. He had 16 family members in Gaza when the war broke out, all of whom since escaped to Australia.

In Berlin, their restaurant has been tested by tensions over the war. Both far-right and far-left factions have protested the “normalization” of an Israeli and a Palestinian working together.

In July 2024, Kanaan was vandalized after hosting a Jewish-Muslim brunch. The attackers shattered wine glasses, destroyed furniture, spread excrement and left hate messages throughout the restaurant. With nothing stolen, police suspected the vandalism to be motivated by hate. Months later, an Israeli woman was assaulted by four people while wearing Kanaan’s signature pin, which depicts a heart divided between the Israeli and Palestinian flag. One of the attackers shouted “Israel muss weg,” or “Israel must go,” while they knocked the woman to the ground and kicked her.

More recently, Ben David said they faced a downturn in revenue. Their customers were dwindling and they struggled to keep up with rising costs and high rent. He reached out to an email list of previously loyal customers, asking for feedback about why they weren’t returning. The responses weren’t about the food.

One answer came back clearly: People couldn’t figure out how to place Kanaan’s message of dialogue and coexistence. “‘We don’t understand if you are pro-Israel or pro-Palestine.’ That’s something that we heard a lot,” said Ben David.

Another response came down to fatigue with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After reading and watching news about the war for two years, when they finally had a break, many customers said they’d rather go out for sushi or Italian food.

Two weeks from bankruptcy, Ben David and Dabit tried to explain the restaurant’s significance to their community. “Kanaan was never just a restaurant,” they wrote on social media. “It’s a place where Israelis and Palestinians work together, where all guests eat together, where food is more than just enjoyment. … It’s a bridge between people.”

The following weeks saw a stunning change in fortune. Kanaan filled up again with a 300% increase in diners. Catering orders poured in, while many customers bought vouchers for the future. The support wasn’t just financial, said Dabit.

“When people react to our call, they give me — not just Kanaan, but also Oz and me — they give us the energy to continue,” he said. “They show us that we’re doing something right, even though it’s a really bad situation, but we’re doing something right.”

For now, the restaurant can keep going. And the partners have new inspiration for their persistent hope: Back home, the first phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas saw the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages returned in exchange for 1,968 Palestinian prisoners on Monday, as scenes of ecstatic reunions and continued grief washed over Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Dabit and Ben David said they were filled with joy and relief, mixed with yearning for a lasting peace and reconciliation.

“The ceasefire feels like a breath of fresh air after so much suffering,” said Dabit. “It’s bittersweet, but it’s an opportunity for change. This is our chance to write a new narrative for our future.”

In Kanaan’s backyard, the Gaza war triggered a sharp rise in antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents across Germany. It also drove a fraught debate over Germany’s relationship with Israel, which became central to German national identity after the Holocaust. Unlike other European countries that have recently recognized a Palestinian state, including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Portugal and Spain, Germany has declined to do so.

Pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin have also led to government crackdowns. In April, German immigration authorities ordered the deportation of three European nationals and one U.S. citizen over their alleged activity at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Three of the orders cited Germany’s responsibility toward Israel — a doctrine known as the country’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” (All the protesters have appealed and won measures for interim relief.)

Dabit and Ben David plan to shape the conversations about Israelis, Palestinians, Jews and Muslims in Germany through projects beyond their restaurant. On Nov. 5, they will publish a cookbook titled “Kochen ohne Grenzen,” or “Cooking Without Borders.” The book collects their recipes while also sharing their kitchen with Berliners from around the world — including rabbis, imams and priests who cook together.

During a recent phone call between Dabit in Ramle and Ben David in Berlin, they jokingly interrupted each other’s stories about their families with accusations of “propaganda.” Turning serious, Dabit said, “I’m optimistic because I see the beauty of every person. If I couldn’t see the beauty, I couldn’t be with you for 10 years, Oz.”

“That’s true,” replied Ben David. “You managed to take a settler from Ariel and make him your best friend, like your brother.”

The post War battered their Berlin hummus bar. But the Israeli-Palestinian partners behind Kanaan see a way forward. appeared first on The Forward.