The Anat Kamm affair raises serious suspicions that the law enforcement agencies in question – the Israel Defense Force’s information security unit, the Shin Bet, Israel Police and the State Prosecutor’s Office – are good at coming down hard on the powerless, while overlooking similar suspicions when attributed to senior officials. It’s the “sentinel syndrome”: the weak are persecuted and dealt with a heavy hand, while the deeds of the strong are slighted.
IOA Editor: Melman is the primary reporter covering the Israeli secret service agencies for Haaretz. As always, his is an Israeli-centered focus. This article is important because it covers the mode of operation of Israel’s various “security” agencies, and how they deal with those Israeli-Jews they deem to be their enemies.
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz – 8 April 2010
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1161745.html
Yossi Melman
The Anat Kamm affair raises serious suspicions that the law enforcement agencies in question – the Israel Defense Force’s information security unit, the Shin Bet, Israel Police and the State Prosecutor’s Office – are good at coming down hard on the powerless, while overlooking similar suspicions when attributed to senior officials. It’s the “sentinel syndrome”: the weak are persecuted and dealt with a heavy hand, while the deeds of the strong are slighted.
Anat Kamm committed offences by removing secret documents without permission and handing them over to an unqualified party. For that she deserves to be punished.
But is it appropriate to accuse her of offences as severe as serious espionage and intent to undermine state security, the maximum penalty for which is twenty years in jail?
If one was to follow the authority’s logic, the actions attributed to Kamm are as severe as the ones for which former spy Marcus Klingberg was sentenced for, which included revealing the secrets of the Biological Institute to the Soviets; or Nahum Manbar, who sold materials to Iran’s chemical weapon’s program; or Mordechai Vanunu who told a British journalist Israel’s most prized secret, the number of atomic bombs it allegedly possesses.
And all this while the same authorities played down cases in which similar charges were leveled at senior officers and top officials. Here is a partial list of the State Prosecutor’s Office and the defense establishment’s impartiality.
N., the Mossad deputy chief, was recently suspected of meeting a journalist and providing him with confidential material. N.’s actions were exposed as a result of an investigation conducted by a Shin Bet tracking unit, which documented his meetings and tapped his phone, all at the direct order of former prime minister Ehud Olmert, made at the request of Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
Dagan warned his second in command that he would be fired if he did not quit himself, but never handed the material pertaining to the investigation over to the police or to the State Prosecutor’s Office, and made do with removing N. from his position.
Five years ago, former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and two senior military intelligence officers filed a complaint against the former head of military intelligence, Eli Zeira, claiming he had systematically leaked state secrets for years, including the name of a senior Mossad agent who provided Israel with the warning ahead of the Yom Kippur War.
The complaint arrived at the desk of former attorney general Menachem Mazuz, who handed over to a police probe a long three years later. The police took an additional two years to investigate, without making any arrests, with the case now back in the present attorney’s office.
No measures were taken against Zeira, even though the leak led to the London killing of Mossad agent Dr. Ashraf Marwan, probably at the hands of Egyptian intelligence.
But that’s not the only issue with this most recent Anat Kamm affair. The other problem, one just as serious, is the fact that the whole affair has been kept in the dark. The ones responsible for the blackout weren’t, at least this time, the IDF censor but two judges: Einat Ron at the Petah Tikva magistrate’s who issued a blanket gag order on the case, and Ze’ev Hammer who left the ban standing until he removed it Thursday.
The publication of even the most minute detail would have caused the publisher to break the law and risk being charged with contempt. Even if the gag order was justified, in order to protect the investigation, should it have been left standing for so long? Surely not for the last two weeks, when the absurdity reached new heights as international media outlets and bloggers reported extensively on the affair. Only the Israeli media establishment – daily newspapers, radio stations and TV channels – remained silent.
I myself am a veteran of legal battles waged against the defense establishment, police and State Prosecutor’s Office to remove gag orders. The drill is the same every time: someone is suspected of security-related offences, arrested, indicted, and tried. Always, and I mean always, the defense establishment and the State Prosecutor’s Office hurry and demand a blanket ban on the case. Their rationale is constant: any publication would undermine an investigation, they say. Later, when the investigation ends, they pull out a new one: the possible undermining of state security.
For those state security “gatekeepers” any case, even the most miniscule and irrelevant, poses an existential threat to Israel’s security. When it comes to security issues, they find it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, using cannons against flies. That is, until realty slaps them in the face. They remind me of the saying on the House of Boron, they “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
But what’s even more disconcerting is the way most of Israel’s judges conduct themselves. That the Shin Bet or the IDF’s information security unit want to hide, investigate, punish and avenge – indeed vengeance is part of their essence – is understandable. After all, it is their state-entrusted mandate. But the fact that most of the judges are willing, without hesitance or scruple, to comply with any of their requests, without an ounce of skepticism, should worry any advocate of freedom and anyone who believes in the most basic democratic principles.
By doing so, these judges are single-handedly and severely damaging Israel’s image in the eyes of enlightened international circuits, the democratic nations to which Israel so wants to belong to. It presents Israel as a backwards country, which abuses freedom of speech and harasses freedom of the press. Even Sima Vaknin-Gil, the chief military censor, criticized the ban.
This affair sends an important message to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, to State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, to deputy state prosecutor Shai Nizan, to attorney Hadas Forrer which handles the case, and others. When they consider state security issues in the future, they must think of the damage which could be caused to Israel’s already deteriorating good name. A good name and image contribute to Israel’s prosperity and security just as much as the Shin Bet and the IDF’s information security unity.
And maybe there’s a silver lining to be seen here, if someone in the judicial system would fathom the wisdom of Chazal who mentioned a “burden the public cannot bear” and consider its position when asked to strike a balance between freedom of the press or freedom of speech and issues of national security, real or otherwise.
