The New York Times made a rare admission that it submits to Israeli state gag orders, fueling charges from critics that the globally-influential publication plays fast-and-loose with journalistic ethics to give favorable coverage to Israel.

The revelation emerged when the The Times delayed its coverage of the Israeli detention of a Palestinian journalist, due—as it turns out—to a gag order from an Israeli court.

The blackout came to light when journalists who did not heed the gag order exposed the detention and media censorship. The Times’s public editor, Margaret Sullivan, then elicited an admission from her own publication that it complies with Israeli media blackouts as a matter of policy.

Journalist and activist Majd Kayyal, who is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was returning from a conference in Lebanon on Saturday when Israeli Shin Bet secret police detained him for five days, during which he was interrogated and denied access to a lawyer.

Blogger Richard Silverstein wrote on Saturday about Kayyal’s detention and later released a copy of the gag order. Journalist Ali Abunimah, writing for Electronic Intifada, on Sunday reported the arrest and published classified court transcripts that revealed the existence of the gag order on the media regarding the case. Abunimah subsequently wrote several pieces following the story.

Thanks to an appeal from legal rights organization Adalah, the gag on Israeli media coverage was lifted Thursday.

It was only after the gag order was lifted—five days after the detention and interrogation was exposed by other journalists—that The Times covered the story of Kayyal, who has since been released from detention.

Sullivan on Thursday revealed that The Times’s failure to cover the story earlier was due to its compliance with a media blackout.

The chief of the Jerusalem bureau of The Times, Jodi Rudoren, confirmed compliance with Israel’s gag orders. Sullivan writes,

Yet Jim Naureckas, editor of Extra! Magazine for media watchdog group FAIR, told Common Dreams that such a claim “mocks the whole idea of standing up for freedom of information when you compare a gag order from a secret police organization to a traffic light.”