Love of the Land: Awakening the Left

Awakening the Left

The lifting of the gag order on the Anat Kamm affair should prompt some serious introspection on that side of the political spectrum.


Michael Freund
Fundamentally Freund/JPost
15 April '10

The Anat Kamm affair has sent shock waves throughout the military and political establishments. Allegations that the young soldier stole reams of sensitive IDF documents and passed them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau raise serious questions about basic security procedures and information controls in the army. Sweeping changes will need to be implemented to ensure that such an outflow of documents does not recur, and one assumes that the military brass has already taken steps to plug the leaks.

But of all the secrets that Kamm may have revealed, few are likely to be as explosive as the real bombshell she has unwittingly uncovered. Kamm has cast a spotlight on a critical question that does not get nearly as much attention as it deserves: Why does the Israeli Left seem to produce so much treachery against the state?

Indeed, the sad fact is that if the charges against Kamm are true, she is but the latest in a long line of ideologically-driven left-wingers who have betrayed the country.

Remember Mordechai Vanunu, the former nuclear technician who disclosed details of Israel’s atomic-energy program to The Times of London in October 1986?

Or how about Marcus Klingberg, one of the country’s top military scientists, who passed data to the Soviets out of ideological conviction before his arrest in 1983? And then there is Tali Fahima, who was convicted in 2005 for her contact with Zakaria Zubeidi, a Palestinian terrorist from Jenin who headed the local branch of Fatah’s Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

There are plenty of other such examples, which only leads one to wonder why some on the Left seem to have no compunction about committing duplicitous acts which harm the state.

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Love of the Land: Awakening the Left

Love of the Land: The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

by Uri Heitner, Yisrael HaYom


Yitz
Shilo Musings
13 April '10

The following is my translation of an editorial which appears in today’s Yisrael HaYom newspaper in Hebrew.

Immediately upon exposure of the Kam affair, it was clear that for certain groups in Israeli society, a new hero was born. I knew that Kam would be portrayed as a heroine: a knight of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom for the struggle against the ‘corrupt occupation’ and so forth.

Indeed, since publication of the affair, we’ve read dozens of articles about an important journalist who sits in detention because she revealed the war crimes of Israel. The second journalist involved, Uri Blau, has informed us, without the least bit of modesty, that he did not struggle at all on his own behalf, rather but on behalf of Israel.

Articles of support maintain that the great sin of Kam amounts to the fact that she has a world-view that led her to reveal illegal acts of Israel. Or, alternatively, some argue that she just did her duty of conscience, and that the problematic factor here is the IDF, whose injustices she has exposed.

Well, even if we are a ‘baloney-ridden’ State, such a concentration of nonsense has not been seen here in a long time. Then there is nothing further from the issue of freedom of expression and freedom of the press than this case.

The "journalist" that was arrested, is rather an Internet website gossip columnist. There is no connection at all between her vocation and her arrest.

After all, she was not arrested for her work as a ‘journalist’, but for what she did as a soldier. As a soldier, she stole classified documents, kept them, and passed some on. This is the truth under the false code of "free press".

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Love of the Land: The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

Love of the Land: Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

P. David Hornik
Pajamasmedia.com
13 April '10

The partial lifting of the gag order on the Anat Kam espionage affair, which had already been exposed to the world media in March by Judith Miller, is stirring up a storm in Israel. The charge sheet accuses Kam of “divulging secret information with the intent to harm the security of the state,” which falls under “serious espionage” and carries a maximum life term. Haaretz, Israel’s left-wing daily, is at the center of the storm — and tying itself in knots to defend Kam, its journalist Uri Blau, and itself.

First, to recap: Kam, born in Jerusalem in 1987 and a gifted student, served as an office clerk under the then head of Central Command, Yair Naveh, from 2005 to 2007. She’s charged with illicitly copying about 2000 computer documents — 700 of them classified secret or top secret — and taking them with her when she left the army. The charge sheet says the documents contained, among other things, “plans of military operations, summaries of discussions within the IDF, deployment and order of battle … of IDF forces … , IDF situation estimates, IDF targets, and so on.” Security sources say they could have cost soldiers’ lives and posed a grave danger.

In 2008 Kam, then a student at Tel Aviv University and a journalist for the Walla news site, delivered a large amount of the documents to Blau. He, in turn, published in Haaretz some stories based on them that were cleared with the military censor. The stories involved assassinations of terrorists in the West Bank who, allegedly, could have been arrested; the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that in such cases, the terrorist has to be arrested rather than killed. (Meanwhile, on Sunday the IDF spokesperson said Blau’s claims in these articles were “upsetting and distorted.”)

When sources in the defense establishment saw the stories, they worried about where they could have come from. The Israel Security Agency, better known as Shin Bet, eventually worked out a deal with Blau where he returned his documents and was promised they wouldn’t be used to incriminate him or his sources. A few months later, in December 2009, the Shin Bet identified Kam as the source of the documents — but the problem was that she admitted to giving Blau far more documents than he had turned over.

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Love of the Land: Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

Love of the Land: Competitors try to close down new Israeli Daily

Competitors try to close down new Israeli Daily

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem
23 December 09

Until recently, the Israeli Hebrew media was dominated by three daily newspapers. The most sophisticated daily, Haaretz, known for its far left post-Zionist agenda has a small circulation but is widely read by opinion makers.

But the market has until recently been dominated by two tabloids, Yediot Achronot and Maariv, both of which have a penchant for sensationalism.

Two years ago, a new newspaper appeared on the scene. Yisrael Hayom*. It recruited some of the best journalists, but many predicted that a paper circulated for free which based its income exclusively on advertising would not succeed. All the more so, in an environment when newspapers in Israel and throughout the rest of the world underwent difficulties as the Internet began intruding into their market and the global financial meltdown was making its impact.

But, contrary to expectations, Yisrael Hayom grew from strength to strength and has revolutionized the entire newspaper industry. Already today, it enjoys Israel’s second largest circulation and is likely to overtake the leader Yediot Achronot in the near future.

The paper was launched by US business tycoon Sheldon Adelson, one of the most generous Jewish philanthropists of our time who has distributed unprecedented amounts of money for various social causes in Israel as well as becoming the largest donor to Birthright.

The success of the newspaper is reflected in the fact that both Yediot Achronot and Maariv in desperation approached various parliamentarians beholden to them and attempted to block the newspaper by introducing legislation making it illegal for nonresidents to publish an Israeli daily newspaper.

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Love of the Land: Competitors try to close down new Israeli Daily