11 thoughts on “Israeli State Implicated in Criminal Acts Against Human Rights Lawyer – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Richard said: “As one would expect, given the Israeli police record of defending the rights of left-wing NGOs, the police closed the case for “lack of evidence.”

    That’s not fair Richard.

    Haaretz said that, ” In a years-long probe, police questioned several people under caution, including the founder of the right-wing movement Im Tirtzu, and found that between 2010 and 2013 Sfard and his office had been placed under the surveillance of a private detective.”
    “However, the police did not find who had commissioned the probe, and around six months ago they closed the case.”

    The police spent years investigating the alleged break-in and evenquestioned Im Tirtzu’s founder.

  2. Factual correction, Blau is not in exile. He returned to Israel, signed a plea bargain, and performed 4 months of community service for his crime. He wrote about the experience here –
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.539239
    If he is in the states now (I don’t believe so – but I don’t keep tabs on him to that degree) it is not due to fleeing the Israeli Justice system.

    Regarding Sfard, there is nothing wrong (other than the smell) in going through trash that is in the public domain (though it is interesting he is claiming non-trash info was recovered).
    On should also note that there are some that see LAWFARE as a form of warfare. In accordance to this view people engaging in hostile lawfare would be equivalent to engaging in hostile warfare.

    1. “Regarding Sfard, there is nothing wrong (other than the smell) in going through trash that is in the public domain (though it is interesting he is claiming non-trash info was recovered).
      On should also note that there are some that see LAWFARE as a form of warfare. In accordance to this view people engaging in hostile lawfare would be equivalent to engaging in hostile warfare.”

      Oh come on – going through trash and coming up with complete documents? Who do you expect to believe that.? “He (Sfard) notes that Im Tirzu released print-outs of e-mail and other electronic communication which would not have been in printed form in his office or in the trash. He also notes that the rightist NGO made public actual notebooks, which would never have been disposed of in the trash”.

      Hostile lawfare/warfare? Hostile to whom? To war criminals and land thieves? Don’t you see that it is people like Sfard who belong to the “righteous Jews” who, when the final judgment of history is in, might be seen as the only ones who partly made up for their country’s crimes.

  3. “Haaretz’s best investigative journalist, Uri Blau, who now lives in exile in the U.S. after leaving prison…” This statement is not true. Blau did not go to prison, he was sentence to four months of community service in a plea bargain: http://news.walla.co.il/item/2564052 (Hebrew).

    1. @Truthseeker. Right. I confused his sentence with Anat Kamm’s. She did go to prison. But he was forced by the State to confess to a serious crime which in almost all other countries would be call “journalism.”

      1. The old adage of people living in glass houses…..

        Kamm leaked thousands of classified documents. Kamm was sentenced only to 3.5 years (after appeal, initially 4.5). Blau was sentenced to 4 months community service – and even that was after he didn’t return documents he was supposed to.

        In contrast in the states we have of course the cases of Miller and Wolf, but the more obvious case is Manning (he is serving a 35 year sentence), Assange (who actually is living in exile, holed up in a small embassy, for fear of extradition to the US (via Sweden)), and Snowden (who is in exile, granted political asylum in Russia, and who will definitely be severely punished if he is captured).

        And of course in the vein of glass houses, one should mention Silverstein and Leibowitz (who received a 20 month jail sentence).

        And I won’t bring up the recent life sentence in Islamist Turkey for the two journalists.

        Most countries, and even most democratic countries, don’t allow journalists to conduct espionage.

        1. @ lepxii: You’re recycling tired, old hasbara pablum from years ago which were offered here by others. First, Anat Kamm, while a soldier, was also a journalist, as is Uri Blau. Certainly Blau should have the same protections offered to journalists is real democratic societies. The fact that he didn’t have those protections proves Israel is not a democracy and doesn’t honor freedom of the press. Second, Anat Kamm leaked documents which proved that the IDF not only violated Supreme Court rulings but committed war crimes. As such, she is a whistleblower. Israel claims to protect whistleblowers as most western demcoratic societies do. But it doesn’t. That’s another democratic strike against Israel.

          Judith Miller’s case has nothing to do with the Kamm-Blau case.

          If Bradley Manning had leaked his materials to an Israeli journalist, that journalist would be in prison. But the journalists to whom he did leak his materials are not in prison. Why? Because the UK and U.S. are democracies which honor freedom of the press.

          Edward Snowden is another whistleblower and an American hero. Eventually, he will return to the U.S. & be vindicated. If Snowden was Israeli he would be abandoned and imprisoned for decades. No one would mourn him and honor him.

          Shamai Leibowitz too was a whistleblower. But if he had leaked his documents to me in Israel & I was an Israeli citizen I would be in prison now. And Shamai’s sentence would have been decades and not 2 yrs. I was not imprisoned in a country that is a democracy which respects press freedom.

          Most countries, and even most democratic countries, don’t allow journalists to conduct espionage.

          Utter nonsense, democratic countries do not imprison journalists, because they are practicing journalism. And journalism is NOT espionage. Not EVER. Uri Blau reported IDF war crimes. That’s it in a nutshell. In order to bury the charge of war crimes you bandy about lame references to espionage.

          Certain forms of journalism (naturally, the best ones) are a crime in Israel. So do not boast here ever that your country is a democracy. It isn’t nor do you want it to be.

  4. Why do you tag Smotrich as Kahanist? Or is it just another time when you loosely use an unrelated term to make a point?
    You use the word settler for people who are settlers and the word murder when kill is x10 times more appropriate.

    1. @ History: Once again commenters, read every link in the post before claiming errors in it. In your case, you would’ve seen that Smotrich published his view that Duma was not terrorism in none other than the leading Kahanist publication. Ergo, he is a Kahanist.

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