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Anat Kam, Self-Censorship and the Israeli Left

Friday, March 19th, 2010

This blog was the first English-language source which reported that Israeli journalist Anat Kam was secretly arrested by the Israeli police for allegedly leaking top secret IDF memos describing the army’s flagrant disregard for an Israeli Supreme Court ruling. The latter provided limitations on the IDF’s use of targeted assassinations against Palestinian militants and the memos documented the army’s violation of the judicial decision. I reported that not only was Kam’s arrest secret, but the reason for her arrest too was embargoed by the Shin Bet.

After I read every Hebrew source about this affair and wrote my own post, a number of these sources disappeared. It turns out that Anat Kam herself and others on the Israeli left have urged those who have published to remove their material. Indymedia Israel did this (see cached version). Kam asked the Hebrew Wikipedia to remove the article about her and it did. As a member wrote quite sensibly (in Hebrew) in response:

If Shimon Peres told you to remove his Wikipedia article, would you?

For a few days I also did so after an Israeli peace activist told me that Kam was negotiating with the Shin Bet and hoped if little was made of this affair that she might get off with no jail time. I took my post down. Then I wrote to Avigdor Feldman asking him to confirm that he wished me to do so. I never received a reply. I republished my post.

Aside from the Shin Bet’s egregious behavior, several developments in this case have troubled me. First, I discovered that Anat Kam had published a tart dismissal of the Israeli conscientious objector movement. I wondered how someone who allegedly leaked top secret documents discrediting the Israeli army’s policy on a item of major national security significance could also disparage the very peace movement which these memos would assist.

I also noticed that at a Hebrew language website which had archived all online sources dealing with this case, someone sounding very much like Kam, but using the pseudonym “Noa,” railed against the website owner for maintaining the archive. I should add that I have other confirming evidence that the commenter was Kam. Among other disparaging statements she made about him:

You know Anat Kam? You tried to make contact with her? Or did you take on yourself the decision to be the Prince of Human Rights and Democracy and to claim you know what would be best for her?

…And further, I haven’t even begun to count to the number of times you were an accomplice to violations of the gag order (linking to articles which commit such a violation makes you into a criminal accomplice. It’s a good idea to examine the law from time to time.)”

On reading this, Aryeh Amihay, owner of the website took the entire archive post down. He too was intimidated by the veiled threat in the comment. So someone will have to explain to me how this sort of behavior serves anyone’s interests, even Kam’s. I fully understand that she is only 23 years old, faces very serious charges, and is under enormous pressure from the security establishment. I understand how this can turn one from being a principled person attempting to do good into someone seeking to save their own hide. In fact, I had experience with another whistleblower who, after being caught, acted in almost precisely the same way. This appears to be part of human nature, the instinct for self-preservation. So I am trying not to be judgmental on that score. But this seems to go far beyond what is required under the circumstances.

So I’d recommend that those on the Israeli left who’ve cooperated with the wall of silence reconsider their decisions. I continue to believe that silence doesn’t serve the greater good of Israeli democracy. I don’t even believe it serves Anat Kam’s interests, but as she herself says, that’s for her to determine.

I don’t know what motivated Anat Kam allegedly to leak the IDF memos. I would hope her actions were based on a citizen’s disgust with the army’s brazen disregard for the rule of law. But it occurs to me, and I freely concede and even hope I am wrong, that the leak may’ve been motivated by an aspiring journalist who found herself in a position to advance her career by making such material public through Israel’s leading daily newspaper, Haaretz, and a respected investigative journalist, Uri Blau.

There are aspects of this case which still have not come to light. Anat Kam is not the alpha and the omega of this story. More than this, I can’t say at this time. I look forward to being able to say more at a later date.

Tags: anat kam, democracy, Israel Defense Forces, israeli left, self censorship, shin-bet, targeted assassinations
Posted in Blogs-Tech-Science, Mideast Peace | 2 Comments »

Shin Bet Secretly Detains Reporter for Leaking Top-Secret IDF Memos

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Shin bet logo

NOTE: On March 14th, I was the first blogger or journalist to report this story outside Israel. Subsequently, an Israeli peace activist informed me that Anat Kam’s attorney and friends have asked others not to publicize her case. In honor of that, I decided to take down this post as I did not wish to harm her defense. I wrote to Kam’s attorney, Avigdor Feldman, and asked him to confirm that he did not wish any public discussion of her case. He has not replied. For that reason, I have decided to repost this story with some amplifications and editing to reflect new information I’ve learned.

* * *

We’re going to be getting into deep territory tonight regarding Israeli military intelligence, the Shin Bet, and their ability to make a mockery of alleged Israeli democracy and freedom of the press.

Anat Kam: 'Disappeared' Israeli journalist

An Israeli friend brought me word that Anat Kam, an entertainment writer for the popular Israeli internet portal, Walla, was secretly arrested and imprisoned, after which she was placed under house arrest by Israeli authorities. Needless to say, this is a highly unusual development. In fact, I can’t remember the last time this happened to an Israel journalist. I apologize that most of the material I’ll be linking to is still in Hebrew and not yet translated. If that situation changes I’ll be adding English language links or sources.

Though Kam denies this, Israeli sources maintain she has been fingered by the Shin Bet as the source of a highly damaging 2008 Haaretz report that noted that a number of Palestinian militants who, the IDF claimed in separate media reports, were killed during firefights were actually assassinated in cold blood. This of course wouldn’t be news since it has happened many times before. What was news was that in 2006 the Supreme Court laid down specific and limited procedures under which targeted assassinations may be pursued. Haaretz revealed that the IDF was ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling and essentially killing militants in cold-blood and covering up the fact. It approved killings even if civilians were also likely to be killed. It approved killing suspects who were not “ticking-bombs,” another contravention of the Supreme Court. In fact, as recently as 2009 the IDF killed Palestinians under suspicious circumstances which Palestinians have labelled murder in cold blood, leading one to believe that targeted assassinations continue.

The Haaretz report, which presumably and inexplicably passed military censorship, displayed two IDF top-secret documents drawn up by the military senior command, which laid out the provisions for the killings and proved that they were ignoring the Supreme Court ruling.

A former intelligence agent, Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, working as a researcher for Dore Gold’s Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, examined the documents in detail attempting to trace the source. While he didn’t specifically identify Kam, he did make clear that he believed the “Deep Throat” served in a position in military intelligence which allowed access to such documents.

Dahoah Halevi fed the story to ShalomLife, a Canadian Israeli news portal which published this rather sloppy right-wing slant on the Kam case. Dahoah Halevi was the editor of Shalom Toronto, listed as a sponsor of ShalomLife. The publisher of ShalomLife, Yossi Arbel, is also the publisher of Shalom Toronto. Some speculate that it may be an attempt by the Jerusalem Center to smoke out an Israeli journalist who will break the gag order by reporting on a story previously reported outside Israel.

On a rather humorous personal note, the author of the ShalomLife article confuses this blog with an “internet forum belonging to the Israeli left” by misattributing a quotation from this post to such an entity:

Internet forums belonging to the Israeli left have expressed support for the leak by Anat Kam, and have called it “a moral act” and “a civil duty”. One of the messages stated: “We must fight for Israeli democracy even if Anat Kam cannot or will not do it herself, and even if the Israeli press cannot or does not want to do it itself.”

There is one especially salient, disturbing passage in the ShalomLife story, which speculates on Kam’s motives in leaking the documents:

It is safe to say that the leaker wished to advance a political agenda and arouse wider public criticism in Israel and the world towards the IDF’s focused and deliberate policies against agents of terror.

First, it is convenient for an Israeli rightist to focus on Kam’s alleged political agenda and neglect that she undoubtedly had a moral and democratic agenda as well. Second, since the author of the Jerusalem Affairs analysis was himself a former intelligence officer and because Gold is a Likud loyalist, we can safely assume that this reflects the Shin Bet’s own views in the matter. Which is all the more reason to fight this detention tooth and nail. The far-right can natter all they wish about opposition to its policies being political, but the truth is that opposing targeted assassination and leaking material that documents violations of the law is a MORAL act and a the democratic duty of a citizen. We must fight for Israeli democracy even if Anat Kam cannot or will not do so herself. And even if the Israeli press cannot or will not do so itself. On that note, Haaretz, who used Kam’s materials for its scoop, has so far written nothing about her predicament. That seems to me an unfortunate editorial decision.

The Israeli sources who have written about this note that there is a military gag under preventing reporting not only about the alleged leak, but that Kam was arrested at all. I call this censorship of infinite regress. Which may explain why Haaretz has been silent. One hopes the Israeli press will find their voice and do their duty as journalists regardless of the strictures of the national security state.

Those who believe in Israeli democracy should explain how a citizen can disappear without a trace. Is this China, where the government denies it even is detaining a troublesome dissident who has disappeared? Is this the face Israel wants the world to see? Does the security apparatus have the right to run roughshod over whatever civil liberties citizens retain? I should add that this isn’t quite as bad as China. Some people now know what happened to Anat Kam. She is safe although under detention. But other than that, there are a lot of what Don Rumsfeld was fond of calling, in that inimitable way he had with the English language, “known unknowns.”

Apparently, it took over a year, but they have finally closed in on Kam as the culprit. They have really put the fear of God into her. As Israeli bloggers and activists have become aware of this incident and written about it publicly, associates of Kam have approached them asking that they desist. Each individual has to consult their conscience in situations like this. But I personally can see no benefit to Israeli democracy or even Kam herself by keeping silent. Undoubtedly, intelligence agencies have threatened her with horrible punishments if she doesn’t maintain absolute muteness. As a 23-year-old relatively unfamiliar with the school of hard knocks that is the Shin Bet or military intelligence (where she presumably worked and which presumably investigated the leak), she’s quaking in her boots. Who could blame her?

But I think that others need to have different priorities. Even if Kam doesn’t want to, or can’t fight for herself we must do so ourselves. And again, we do this for the sake of Israeli democracy. We do this to attempt to draw red lines and prevent the intelligence services from crossing them. For we know that the Israeli national security state puts little stock in the rights of its citizens–witness the trampling of the rights of those whose passports and identities were stolen by the Mossad in carrying out the Dubai assassination.

We must make common cause with those Israelis and human rights NGOs who fight against such outrages. As such, a measure of thanks is due the Israel Democracy Institute and its ejournal, The Seventh Eye, which has featured fine reporting on this matter. Sol Salbe has directed me to an excellent archive of linked online articles about Kam’s situation. Indymedia Israel also wrote up the story (web page now taken down) providing additional information. Maariv published a highly allusive piece by Kam’s apparent boss, which reminds me of samizdat of decades past, which satirized the political culture of authoritarian regimes through allegory, indirection and oblique allusion. Here is the first sentence:

How can a journalist be detained for over a month and everyone stays silent? The journalists in Shoo-Shoo-land must be nonentities, otherwise it would be impossible to explain how in the past month not a single one of them wrote a single word on the journalist’s detention.

Let’s not forget that we’re talking about the Only Democracy in the Middle East™ here. And lest we forget how the Shin Bet has dealt in the past with similarly damaging incidents, we need only remind ourselves of the Kav 300 Affair.

I wonder why the spooks did not target Kam sooner since she leaked the documents over a year ago. Possibly, she was working on a current story they didn’t want to see the light of day and this prevented her from reporting it. Or perhaps, the current political climate in which the far-right is running roughshod over the rights of peace and human rights activists with the approval of the government has emboldened the intelligence establishment to light out after practicing journalists. It may also be possible that Kam is part of a larger constellation and the investigation includes her, but goes beyond her as well.

We must fight back. We must help Israeli democrats turn back this assault on freedom of the press, free speech, and democracy.

Tags: anat kam house arrest, civil-liberties, freedom of press under attack, Israel Defense Forces, national-security, national-security-state, palestinian militants, shabak, shin-bet, targeted-assassination
Posted in Mideast Peace | 15 Comments »

IDF Violates Israeli Supreme Court Constraints on Targeted Assassinations

Monday, March 15th, 2010

NOTE: Yesterday, I published a post about an Israeli journalist secretly detained and placed under house arrest by the Shin Bet for allegedly leaking top-secret IDF memos detailing planned targeted assassinations against specific Palestinian militants. The memos made clear that the IDF was flouting a Supreme Court ruling which permitted such attacks, but only under a limited set of conditions.

I have changed the status of this post to private, thus removing it from public access out of respect for Israeli peace activists who inform me that the alleged leaker is negotiating with the authorities over a plea deal and that publication of the details of the case could jeopardize this process. I have grave concerns about whether I did the right thing, since it appears to me that silence only furthers the interests of the intelligence agencies prosecuting her and the IDF, which wishes the whole embarrassing episode would just go away.

To thwart this goal, I’d like here to review the original Haaretz story (English translation here–a cursory reading indicates to me the original is much more comprehensive and damning than the translation) which utilized the leaks about targeted assassinations. First, let’s go back to 2006 when the Israeli Supreme Court refused to outlaw this tactic, which Israeli human rights NGOs argued persuasively was a violation of international law. As a compromise, the Supreme Court said it would continue to allow such extrajudicial killings as long as they observed certain criteria. First, the victim had to be a ticking-bomb, that is someone imminently planning a terror attack. Second, he or she could only be killed if there was no other way of apprehending them short of death. Third, there could be no danger of killing innocent civilians in such an attack.

The leaked IDF memos proved that the IDF, after the Supreme Court ruling, had liquidated terrorists included on the list, but had publicly released information on their killing which made it appear as if they had been killed during a normal military operation in which they posed a threat to IDF soldiers. In reality, they were killed in cold blood.

In the memo, the army senior staff explicitly permit killing the victims even if civilians might be killed. It also made no provision for capturing the wanted person alive. The mission’s goal was death. In another memo, the chief of staff specifically postpones a killing timed for the visit of a U.S. secretary of state. In other words, the victim was not a “ticking bomb” and postponement of his death was a matter of political expediency as it would embarrass the government for it to happen during a U.S. diplomatic visit.

Haaretz published its story in 2008 thus embarrassing the IDF. But as far as I know, the Supreme Court was not embarrassed enough to take any remedial action to ensure its ruling was respected. Further, another part of the ruling directed the establishment of a committee to review these assassination and ensure they comply with the Supreme Court directive. To this day, such a committee has not been established.

As late as 2009, the IDF announced it had killed wanted militants on the West Bank. The army claimed they were armed and thus posed a threat, but even it admitted they had not fired a shot. Palestinian witnesses claimed they were executed in cold blood. As far as the Israeli military is concerned, impunity–but not the truth–goes marching on.

The Israeli who leaked these documents did a great service to Israeli democracy, even if she potentially violated a law. What was worse–the IDF treating the highest court in the land with impunity while engaging in acts of savagery violating international law? Or a young person who saw an evil and attempted to expose it?

Someone please tell me what kind of democracy allows its intelligence and military to run roughshod over the rule of law. What kind of country allows its domestic intelligence service to arrest a journalist secretly and maintain her in detention secretly. In what kind of country does a journalist simply disappear with other journalists and news outlets having no recourse to publish about it? China? Cuba? Vietnam? Iran? North Korea? Is that what Israel is aiming for? To be no better than countries ruled by despots?

I say to the Shin Bet and IDF: remove the gag order. Allow your allegedly free press to report this story. Don’t treat someone doing their duty as a citizen as an enemy of the state. I look forward to the time when I can make my original post accessible once again.

There are several Hebrew sources which have reported on this story. Here is a wonderful fable about an imaginary place called Shoo-Shoo land which disappears a journalist without a trace. The ejournal of the Israel Democracy Institute, The Seventh Eye, has also written a tough critique of this incident, It Can’t Happen Here. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing about this in English yet.

Tags: civilian collateral damage, counter-terror, idf senior command, israeli-supreme-court, shin-bet, targeted assassinations, ticking bomb
Posted in Mideast Peace | 1 Comment »

Reut Institute Maps Israel’s Intelligence War Against Enemies

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The last time I felt this way was when The Israel Project had the guts to make Frank Luntz’s hasbara opus public, thus laying out almost the entire game plan of the Israel lobby. Now, comes word of a new report by Israel’s Reut Institute, spooky think tank devoted to speculating on who’s trying get Israel and how we get ‘em first.

Friedman, happy warrior for Reut and Israel's intelligence establishment

Reading the summary of this report gives one the sense of listening in on a bunch of generals and intelligence officers plotting Israel’s global strategy against the bad guys. Of course, the main problem is that the bad guys aren’t just the ones hiding in caves in Pakistan or building bombs to kill Israeli civilians. For Reut, the bad guys are, well–you and me. That’s what makes this report so monstrous. Yes, I use that term deliberately because this isn’t some document produced by David Horowitz or Moshe Feiglin, a bunch of crazy loons no one takes seriously. This is a manual for Israeli pols and spooks outlining how to fight the enemy. And I gotta tell ya, when they say enemy, they mean it literally. We are in the cross hairs along with all the usual suspects like Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. This is pro-Israel paranoia and it strikes deep:

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your heart it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the Man come and take you away.

–For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield

Just like the IDF made no distinction between civilians and fighters in Gaza, the new tack by Reut seems to treat all Israel’s critics as, if not terrorist, then fellow travelers and accomplices. The rhetoric is feverish, apocalyptic. You’ll notice how many times the word “existential” is used in the Bibiesque context.

Testimonial from Israel's disgraced former president

The only truth in the entire report is the introduction which posits that the greatest danger to Israel in the recent past has been the Gaza and Lebanon wars because they have served to unify Israel’s enemies as never before. But every idea proceeding from this thesis is bogus starting here:

There are two main generators of attacks on Israel’s legitimacy. The Resistance Network – which operates on the basis of Islamist ideology and includes Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas; and the Delegitimization Network - which operates in the international arena in order to negate Israel’s right to exist and includes individuals and organizations in the West, which are catalyzed by the radical left.

…The erosion in Israel’s status internationally is driven by the coalescence of two parallel process:

The Resistance Network advancing the ‘implosion strategy’ that aims to precipitate Israel’s internal collapse through a policy of ‘overstretch’: To achieve this, the Resistance Network increases the burden of the ‘Occupation,’ delegitimizes Israel, and develops an asymmetric use-of-force doctrine in the military arena and towards Israel’s home front. These groups take their inspiration from the collapse of the former Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa.

The Delegitimization Network aiming to turn Israel into a pariah state by undermining its moral legitimacy and ultimately aspiring towards eliminating the ‘Zionist entity.’

…The Resistance Network relies on military means to sabotage every move directed at affecting separation between Israel and the Palestinians or securing a two-state solution.

The Delegitimization Network tarnishes Israel’s reputation, ties Israel’s hands in defending itself against military assaults, and advances the ‘one-state solution.’

This attack on Israel’s political and economic model is effective, possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years.

Note here that it is Israel’s enemies undermining the two-state solution and not Israel itself. Can you think of anything more deluded?

So far, the rhetoric is overblown, but the analysis is standard hasbara. But then it takes an unusual tack:

A harbinger of such a threat would be the collapse of the two-state solution as an agreed framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the coalescence behind a ‘one-state solution’ as a new alternative framework.

What’s especially strange about this notion is that Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid a two-state solution, which in turn drives Israel’s critics into the arms of the one-state solution as the only remaining viable option (the view of some critics, though not necessarily my own). So Reut has set up a beautiful tautology: if Israel’s enemies coalesce around a one-state solution it will be the ultimate expression of hatred of the state of Israel. But Israel itself will do everything in its power to avoid a two-state solution. The logic is beautiful, twisted and totally self-fulfilling.

Where will the next anti-Israel weapon come from after the Gaza and Lebanon wars lose their resonance? Israel’s Palestinian citizens of course (do I hear, “fifth column” anyone?):

…The issue of Israel’s Arab citizens may become the next ‘outstanding’ issue on these groups’ agenda. In fact, the Resistance Network has already attempted to harness this community, albeit with very limited success.

Ben Caspit penned the most vicious attack on New Israel Fund and publicized the Im Tirtzu smear. 'Don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows' for Ben

And if you’re wondering, as I have, what formal or informal role Israel’s security establishment has played in the vicious attack on Israel NGOs who cooperated with Goldstone, this should key you in:

…The threat undermining its [Israel's] legitimacy originates in a network of NGOs around the world whose role on the global stage is increasingly influential. Israel lacks a response to this threat…

This is part and parcel of the alarmy Israeli effort to criminalize advocacy on behalf of democracy and human rights. In fact, I’ve been following Israeli society going back to 1967 and I’ve never felt there was a time in Israel more like the McCarthy era. The Israeli right and intelligence agencies are playing and playing for keeps.

The practical “policy options” are the most chilling element of this analysis. This is a practical blueprint for Israeli intelligence and its activities for the coming years. Pay attention especially to the italicized passage also noted by Ali Abunimah in this incisive analysis of the report:

Israel’s security doctrine must ensure ‘Synchronized Victories’ in a number of arenas simultaneously: the military arena, the political-diplomatic arena, in the home front, and within the media. Because these arenas are interlinked in a number of contexts, they should be considered as a whole.The above threat may become existential in nature. It is imperative to treat it as such: Israel needs to harness the intelligence establishment, to develop new knowledge, to draw upon all the relevant bodies, and to create a relevant strategy.

It takes a network to fight a network – In order to contend with the Delegitimization Network, Israel must operate according to a network-driven logic:

On the one hand, Israel must identify and focus its efforts on global hubs of delegitimization (such as London, Toronto, Madrid, and the Bay Area [ed., damn they left out Seattle!]). In this context, Israel should sabotage network catalysts and drive a wedge between its component parts, primarily between soft critics of Israeli policy and delegitimizers of its existence.

On the other hand, Israel must cultivate its own network on the basis of the diplomacy establishment and a network of ‘informal Ambassadors,’ comprised of individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Israel must empower these catalysts and harness NGOs in order to act against those NGO that advance delegitimization. In addition, the Histadrut’s international department should be invigorated.

When Reut uses the term “sabotage” above they don’t mean it symbolically or metaphorically. I take this as literal. This is why Sheera Frenkel’s Times of London article on the Mossad assassination campaign against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian targets adds weight and fear to the above passage. Further, the creation and maintenance of Israeli rightist NGOs like Im Tirtzu and NGO Monitor would seem to be a deliberate outgrowth of the advice in the last paragraph above. We must presume that many of these groups are either creatures of the security establishment or doing its bidding (intentionally or unintentionally). But not just NGOs, Reut is recommending the cultivation of local spies and fellow travelers (“informal ambassadors”). And the former worker’s union, the Histadrut, which presumably might find favor in some international leftist circles, is to be exploited on behalf of Israeli intelligence objectives.

The report revives the deluded notion that Israel, the damaged goods product, can be miraculously re-branded as a peace-loving, hip, cool, technologically sophisticated place:

Brand Israel – The perception of Israel as a violent country that violates international law enables delegitimizing forces to portray the country as an apartheid, pariah state. Israel’s re-branding can yield strategic implications which will improve its ability to communicate its message and reduce the Delegitimization Network’s ability to achieve its goals. In this context, the importance of international aid should be emphasized (in addition, of course, to its clear moral value).

Among the most cynical advice here is that Israel should shamelessly and fawningly create friends among “influentials” who can put in a good word here, write a puffy op ed piece there, and pass along useful intelligence to Tel Aviv:

Relationship-based diplomacy with elites and ‘influentials’ - An effective barrier against delegitimization is a network of personal relationships. Working within identified hubs, Israel should aspire to maintain thousands of personal relationships with political, financial, cultural, media, and security-related elites and influentials.Harnessing the Jewish and Israeli Diaspora communities - There are a significant number of Israelis abroad, such as academics, business people, and students. These communities should be harnessed to Israel’s cause before they embark on their international interactions. Additionally, Israel should make a concerted investment in Jewish communities, without taking their commitment for granted.

The rhetoric here is so Luntzian I’d be surprised if he wasn’t a–or the consultant preparing this document. Not to mention the utter cynicism displayed. It’s Frank Luntz through and through.

Tags: Ali Abunimah, human rights ngo, israeli intelligence services, mossad, shin-bet
Posted in Mideast Peace | 15 Comments »

Dershowitz Calls Goldstone ‘Evil,’ ‘Traitor to Jews;’ Shin Bet Urges NIF Investigation

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Israeli far-right goes 'Der Shturmer' on Naomi Hazan in Jerusalem Post ad.

I’ve never felt this more than tonight. There is deep evil afoot among elements of the IDF, Shin Bet, and in the halls of hasbara represented by Alan Dershowitz and the like. Much of it revolves around the hysterical reaction by the Israeli military and political elite to the Goldstone Report. We knew all this before. But the attacks have never been so vicious as those of the past few days, bordering on incitement to violence. The phrases being voiced remind me of the environment just before Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by the same type of rabid Israeli nationalist as the ones calling for blood from Israeli peace activists. I know many of us have been critical of the Israeli left and the peace movement. I remain so. But it is now time to pick whichever portion of the Israeli left we can most support and do so wholeheartedly. The Israeli left is under attack as never before.

Two developments in particular have chilled me to the bone, and I thank Jerry Haber for posting about Dershowitz’s latest eruption and Didi Remez for posting about the IDF’s machinations against Prof. Naomi Hazan and New Israel Fund. And I urge you after reading this to do everything in your power to support the forces under assault. Make contributions to New Israel Fund. Send messages of support to Prof. Hazan. Call your local Israeli consulate to complain about the assaults on her and Justice Goldstone. This must stop.

I do not have a problem with anyone whether right or left expressing their views on the issues. It is good to criticize Goldstone or New Israel Fund if you feel they’ve got things wrong. But it is dead wrong to call your opponent “evil” or use Der Sturmer tactics to turn your opponent into a subhuman (note the rhino horn on Prof. Hazan’s head in the graphic I’ve posted here–the Hebrew word for “Fund” is the same as “horn,” which explains the rather foolish-looking horn on her head).

We MUST turn the conversation away from this assault and back on the substance of the Goldstone Report. We must support the UN process outlined in Goldstone which could bring the report for consideration by the Security Council and International Court of Justice if the Israelis and Hamas refuse to investigate their misdeeds. This is where attention needs to be. And not on accusations of treason and other McCarthyite red herrings.

Please spend time reading the articles linked here and listening to the Dershowitz radio interview and disseminate this as widely as possible with the added message that we will not take our eyes off the ball that is Goldstone. We will stand by our allies in Israel and outside it when they are under attack.

Alan Dershowitz gave a radio interview to Israeli army radio, Galey Tzahal, in which he launched a full frontal attack on Justice Goldstone. Keep in mind that the Israeli officials discussing whether and how to create the least effective investigative panel that would satisfy the Goldstone conditions have bandied about the name of this thug as a potential member of the panel. Here are some of the interview’s key passages:

D: The Goldstone Report is a defamation written by an evil, evil man. Goldstone is an evil man. No one should mince words about it. He allowed his Jewishness, the fact that his name is Goldstone, and that he has connections to Israel–he allowed himself to be used to give…a heksher, a certification of purity to a defamation.

It would be as if the Czar when he wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion he asked a prominent to Jew to edit the report and sign the Protocols in order to show that it had credibility.

Galey Tzahal: Do you hint Prof. Dershowitz that he is a moser, someone who betrays his own people?

D: Absolutely. There is a prayer that is said every day for people like him: La-malshinim al t’hi tikvah (“there shall be no hope for the betrayers”). He is a man who uses his language, his words against the Jewish people. I regarded him as a friend. I now regard his as an absolute traitor.

Eyal Nir, on my Facebook page makes a perceptive comment (Hebrew) about the Protocols: either Dershowitz is claiming that the Protocols were based on true testimony or he’s claiming that Goldstone is the same type of fraud as the Protocols. Perhaps Dersh wants us the believe Cast Lead never happened or all those Gazan civilians didn’t die? Can anyone doubt this man is a charlatan?

Later in the interview Dershowitz says he hasn’t been asked to serve on the committee. With mock modesty he ventured Justice Aharon Barak as a better candidate for the panel. Jerry Haber points out that when the Goldstone Report was first issued Defense Minister Barak approached Dershowitz and Barak to spearhead the campaign in Israel’s defense. You can see what Dersh’s reply was. Barak refused. And given this performance, how likely does anyone think it will be for Aharon Barak to answer this tainted call to serve?

If you understand Hebrew, also listen to the remainder of the interview with Shulamit Aloni who savages Dershowitz, calling him a “patriot nutcase” and Ehud Barak, saying she believes he deliberately wanted to kill Gaza civilians during Cast Lead. She also calls him “the most dangerous man in Israel” and a “Napoleon” (which is rendered even funnier by the fact that Barak is quite short).

Didi Remez translates part of the story by Maariv’s Ben Caspit which reveals that the Knesset’s foreign affairs and security committee will deliberate about New Israel Fund’s alleged role in collaborating with the Goldstone Report by passing incriminating IDF documents to it, thereby blackening Israel’s name in the process. These documents were forwarded to the Attorney General by the Shin Bet, requesting an investigation be launched.

In an earlier story on the affair, Caspit writes this incendiary claptrap about NIF (as reported in Noam Sheizaf’s blog post):

“Israel’s image is at an all-times low. International pressure is mounting, and with it the calls for boycott. All this was fueled by the Goldstone report, which was in itself fueled by Israeli sources. The funding for these sources is provided by, amongst others, the NIF. The question is whether the New Israeli Fund is indeed for Israel.”

Caspit mentions 300 grassroots and social organizations receiving funds through the NIF, and asks: “is all this activity just intended to serve as a front for radical subversive activity, acting against the very foundations of the state?”

Other Knesset members are proposing ending cooperation between all government agencies and NIF grantees (NIF funds various social justice, human rights and anti-poverty NGOs and initiatives in Israeli Jewish and Arab communities).

Far-right Israeli nationalists protest outside Naomi Hazan's home. Placards say: "Love Naomi--Hate Tzahal" (Flash 90)

The far-right nationalist group, Im Tirtzu, is campaigning against NIF and Naomi Hazan, its Israeli chair, placing the ad displayed here in the Jerusalem Post. The Israeli right have demonstrated outside Hazan’s home dressed in in mock Hamas kefiyes and thanking her for her support.

Here are some of the shenanigans the Israeli right and intelligence services have planned for NIF:

..The materials exposed…are familiar to the IDF authorities and the legal authorities in Israel. Some of them were given half a year ago to the Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit.He checked the material and gave it to the Atty. Gen., with a recommendation to open an official investigation. No such investigation has been made so far. The Shin Bet is also familiar with the material and the sensitive issue. Taking action against this is not simple because NIF is a registered association in the US. Also, it is noteworthy that a large part of the fund’s activities in Israel are devoted to social and public issues of the first order.

“It will be hard to connect this activity to political subversion,” said a security source, who is well familiar with the affair. “But on the other hand, there is clearly a worrisome pattern here that is causing Israel serious damage and helping its worst critics tie the IDF’s hands and undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state in general and its right to defend itself in particular.”

Im Tirtzu is now planning to launch a large public campaign, both against the New Israel Fund in general and personally against its head, Prof. Naomi Hazan. Dozens of movement activists demonstrated last night in front of Hazan’s house dressed up as Hamas activists and carried signs thanking Hazan and the fund.

For the past few months and until tonight, I’d broken off contact and support for NIF over the treatment of fellow blogger, Shamai Leibowitz several years ago. Since Ben Caspit played an instrumental role in this affair as a conduit of the Shin Bet in smearing Shamai, it’s appropriate to bring it up now. Shamai came to the U.S. to study international human rights and receive a law degree from George Washington University. He came with the support of an NIF fellowship. Leibowitz taught a State Department language, culture and politics course for new U.S. diplomats being sent to Israel. That is, he taught the course until Aipac found out about it and conveyed this information to the Israeli government, which in turn leaked the information to Caspit, who published it as a juicy piece of gossip: defender of convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti teaching U.S. diplomats about Israeli culture. You get the drift. Shamai lost the job.

Later, Shamai made a speech endorsing the BDS movement in Cambridge which was also reported back to the powers that be in Israel. Such pressure was exerted that NIF dropped Shamai from the program. When I learned of this I was so angry I wrote to the then NIF director, Larry Garber, berating him for his betrayal of Shamai. He never responded. That’s when I cut my ties to NIF.

But as far as I’m concerned, the Israeli power structure is out to castrate NIF and I simply won’t allow it to happen. It’s all hands on deck. Do not let this ship go down.

Those of you who follow the Israeli media closely should note the role that Ben Caspit is playing in this little escapade. Some journalists’ interests are so closely allied with the security services their salaries might as well be paid by them. Caspit is one such.

Israel’s Hired Gun (themagneszionist.blogspot.com)
Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “responsible for Goldstone Report” (promisedlandblog.com)
While Goldstone Hysteria Sweeps Israel, IDF Admits Some Guilt: Too Little Too Late (syds-blog.blogspot.com)

Tags: alan-dershowitz, didi remez, goldstone report, human-rights, Israel Defense Forces, knesset, Naomi Hazan, new-israel-fund, operation cast lead, richard goldstone called traitor to jewish people, shin-bet, war crimes
Posted in Jews & Judaism, Mideast Peace | 7 Comments »

Malsin Agreed to Deportation Under Duress

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Let’s be clear about what happened to Jared Malsin before Israeli hasbara lays down its marker. The Shin Bet is responsible for subjecting a professional journalist to inhuman detention conditions in virtual solitary confinement, with minimal contact with his attorney and almost no contact with family, in a darkened room with only a meager suitcase worth of possessions. No showers, no change of clothes, no writing implements, no books or newspapers. Subject to the whims of his jailers.

Under these deplorable conditions apparently, Malsin caved and voluntarily (if you can believe the government’s position) agreed to leave Israel, thus acceding to Israel’s original intent to expel him from Israel for his critical reporting on the Israeli Occupation for the Palestinian Maan news agency:

Castro Daoud said his client, Jared Malsin, chose to leave because “he could no longer endure the conditions of his detention.”

Further, an Israeli judge accepted at face value a legal document purportedly signed by the victim requesting that he vacate his appeal of deportation without guranteeing from the victim’s own mouth that he signed the document willingly. Malsin signed this document while being deprived of contact with counsel a fundamental right under most democratic governments (outside Israel). Nor did the judge even confirm with the man’s attorney any of the particulars of the signing. This all reeks of the comfy relationship between Israeli justice and the security establishment. Judges have no interest in prying too closely into the business of the Shin Bet. They’d just as soon wash their hands of sticky cases like this one. Malsin’s alleged petition presented him a convenient way of getting out of it.

You can’t quite call Malsin’s treatment torture since there was deprivation and emotional abuse but apparently no physical abuse. But it is the worst form of duress. One doesn’t expect 25 year old Americans, no matter how strong their principles, to withstand eight days of mistreatment as Malsin did. Perhaps he broke. No doubt relentless forms of emotional gamesmanship were utilized by the Israelis to get the result they wanted. The Shin Bet is quite adept at this. Perhaps Malsin thought he got a deal of some sort from the authorities who would’ve wanted to avoid the opprobrium accompanying the forcible detention of a journalist from Israeli territory, though it wouldn’t be worthy the paper it wasn’t written on.

I urge Malsin to make a public statement as soon as possible to clarify what happened. No matter how badly he was treated and whatever he may feel about how his ordeal ended he has too many international supporters who rallied to his defense who seek to know what happened and why he abandoned his case.

He left Israeli earlier today on an El Al flight for New York.

Tags: israel, israel violated democratic rights, Israeli Occupied Territories, jared malsin, occupation, palestinian maan news agency, press freedom, shin-bet
Posted in Mideast Peace | 3 Comments »

Israel, National Security State

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

I had lunch recently with an Israeli fellow blogger who I sometimes consult in my attempts to parse Israeli politics and government policy. I’d never met him before in person though we’ve been in contact for several years. We got to talking about the Mossad, Shin Bet and Israeli intelligence matters. He is a seruvnik who helped found one of the early seruvnik groups. Almost any effective pro-peace group, he told me, whether Jewish or Arab, is infiltrated by the Shin Bet. At times the intelligence agency will meet openly with leaders of such groups and tell them that they may protest up to a certain point, but that if they cross a line they will be punished. At other times, the Shin Bet plants individuals within groups either to divide them from within or else to foment actions which will discredit the group and allow it to be criminalized by the authorities.

My companion also told me that young people are recruited to careers in the Shin Bet or Mossad and consider it a badge of honor. Such a job is looked on as a great adventure by many. And every family seems to have at least one member of the extended family working for the intelligence services. It’s an open secret.

I asked him what was the difference between this and the CIA. He said the CIA had overt and covert branches. One could work honorably for an open department within the CIA. In Israel, the Mossad and Shin Bet are entirely shrouded in secrecy. There is no such thing as a public face or overt action. Budget figures are never public information.

This is the price Israel pays for being a national security state, for which citizens sacrifice rights that Americans take for granted.

Lest you think the harm is confined to Israel, intelligence analysts here estimate that Israel has one of the largest and most active intelligence apparatuses in the United States. Only countries like Russia and China have larger capabilities.

This country is by no means a perfect democracy. But I breathe more easily knowing there are rights and laws that protect me in ways they do not protect Israeli citizens (Israel has no constitution). So the next time you hear someone boast about Israel being the “only democracy in the Middle East,” you can fill in what’s missing from that specious claim.

Many Israelis seem prepared to sacrifice their rights for the sake of the supposed security that a strong national security state provides. But I question whether its an even exchange. Does it really provide the ironclad security it claims? And should security shorn of principle become a be-all and end-all of national existence? Here in the U.S., we’ve experienced eight years of this and thankfully the electorate turned away in revulsion from such an approach. Would that something like this one day happened in Israel.

Tags: israel national security state, mossad, shin-bet
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 20 Comments »

Shin Bet Offers Palestinian Journalist ‘Gitmo Treatment’

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Mohammed Omer, Gaza photojournalist roughed up by Shin Bet

If you’re an award-winning Gaza journalist, the Shin Bet has a message for you: get out and don’t come back. Inter-Press Service photographer Mohammed Omer just won the distinguished Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London. He traveled to Jordan on his way home and stopped to coordinate his return with Israeli authorities. Once he was given proper approvals he went to the Allenby Bridge to cross into the Occupied Territory. Here is what happened:

Accompanied by Dutch diplomats, Omer passed through the Jordanian side of the border without incident. However, after arrival on the Israeli side, trouble began. He informed a female soldier that he was returning home to Gaza. He was repeatedly asked where Gaza was, and told that he had neither a permit nor any coordination to cross.

Omer explained that he did indeed have permission and coordination but was nevertheless taken to a room by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency the Shin Bet, where he was isolated for an hour and a half without explanation.

“Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the x-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was in the company of Dutch diplomats,” Omer said.

His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of the European parliamentary officials he had met.

The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being “the prize-winning journalist”.

The Gazan journalist was repeatedly asked why he was returning to “the hell of Gaza after we allowed you to leave.” To this he responded that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. He was told he was a “trouble-maker”.

The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something the investigators refused to believe.

After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked.

“At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear,” Omer said.

At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, “you haven’t seen anything yet.” Every cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer’s neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted.

When he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened and his eardrums probed by an Israeli military doctor, who was also armed. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by the Shin Bet officials, with his head repeatedly banging on the floor, to a Palestinian ambulance which had been called.

“I eventually woke up in a Palestinian hospital with the doctors trying to reassure me,” Omer told IPS.

Reuters adds to the story that Omer’s ribs were broken during his manhandling.

This, of course, is not the first time that Palestinians accompanied by western diplomatic personnel have been roughed up. It’s not even the first time that western diplomatic personnel themselves have been roughed up by Israeli goons masquerading as representatives of the security apparatus. The last time something like this happened, the prime minister’s office was abject in apologizing and swearing something like this wouldn’t happen again. Well guess what–it has.

What’s the Israeli explanation? They have many, all of which appear lame:

A spokeswoman at the Israeli Foreign Press Association said she was unaware of the incident.

Lisa Dvir from the Israeli Airport Authority (IAA), the body responsible for controlling Israel’s borders, told IPS that the IAA was neither aware of Omer’s journalist credentials nor of his coordination.

“We would like to know who Omer spoke to in regard to receiving coordination to pass through Allenby. We offer journalists a special service when passing through our border crossings, and had we known about his arrival this would not have happened.

“I’m not aware of the events that followed his detention, and we are not responsible for the behaviour of the Shin Bet.”

So you have a rogue Shin Bet answerable to no one taking it upon itself to brutalize Palestinian journalists merely because they’ve distinguished themselves by winning an international journalism prize. Of course, what the Shin Bet really wants is for Gaza’s best journalists to leave Gaza and never return so there will be no one to report to the world on Israel’s behavior there. They’ve already prohibited Israeli journalists from reporting there. Much too uncomfortable to have Israelis knowing from their own journalists about the hell that Israel is making there.

One wonders whether the Shin Bet and CIA are sharing “interrogation techniques” in the hunt for dangerous “Islamist terrorists” like Mohammed Omer. I suppose Omer should be happy he didn’t receive the treatment recently accorded another Gaza photojournalist, Fadel Shana–a flechette blade to the neck courtesy of an IDF tank, severing his spinal cord and killing him instantly.

This story was also covered by Democracy Now. Thanks to reader Ellen Rosner for tipping me off to the story.

Tags: fadel shana, gaza photojournalist, gellhorn journalism prize, gitmo interrogation techniques, inter press service, mohammed omer, shin-bet, torture
Posted in Mideast Peace | 8 Comments »