Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Ameer Makhoul, What Little we Know

Ameer Makhoul, What Little we Know

The gag order was lifted (it wasn't in place very long anyway, this time), and we now know that the police say they're investigating suspicions that Ameer Makhoul and Dr. Omar Said, two Israeli citizens, have been spying for Hezbollah.

Since the gag order gave our enemies a few days in which to spew bile, let's see what to make of this story.

1. There is nothing to say about the specific case. The investigation is underway, and the only people who see the entire picture are the investigators - and they' aren't telling. So of everything you'll be hearing in the next few days about the mens' innocence or guilt or the motives of the authorities in investigating, roughly 100% (give or take) will be hot air, speculation, malice, disinformation and similar unseemly phenomenon. The politicians, the journalists, even the bloggers: none of them know what they're talking about. Which of course won't stop them from talking. They already are (linked above)

Makhoul's brother Assam, a former MK for Hadash, said the family had no details of the investigation but they suspected authorities had singled out the activist because of his campaigns against the government's "racist and discriminatory polices" against Israeli Arabs.

2. There is one flimsy indicator about the allegations, and it comes from a lawyer

Hussein Abu Hasin, a lawyer who has handled several cases of spying charges, told Haaretz that espionage laws in Israel were so wide-ranging that an internet chat or telephone conversation with anyone in an 'enemy state' could lead to prosecution.

I don't know if this fellow has any information or not, but his line of defense is interesting: not that the suspects didn't do anything, but rather that they did but the law is pernicious. Well, yes: but it's still the law, and most people manage to live their lives without breaking it.

3. Since we don't know about this case, are there any precedents to inform us? Yes. Israel is a country at war, and its enemies try to collect information about it, and over the years there have been quite a number of Israeli citizens who helped them do so. These have included career officers (Jews and Arabs), scientists spying for the USSR, a Jewish officer who spied for the Syrians, a fellow who spied for Iran, and various others who spied for Hamas and Hezbollah. This is no indicator of the present case, but it does disprove the knee-jerk responses about how if an Arab has been arrested it must be ethnic persecution and a threat to democracy.

4. The Shabak, the police and anyone else involved in these investigations have a proven record of mostly doing their job well. Countless Israelis owe their lives to their proven ability to thwart conspiracies to harm people. That doesn't prove they've got it right in this case, but it does tell us something about anyone using the "If it's the Shin Bet they must be evil" line. Coming from people who live far away this line is ridiculous. Coming from people who live here, it's also ungrateful.

5. This morning we were repeatedly told that this evening there would be a mass demonstration against the gag order and the anti-Arab machinations of the Israelis. (See the Haaretz article above). Well, no. When the time came, there were all of 300 demonstrators (the demonstration was on Zionism Boulevard in Haifa). I'm not certain what this means, such a small demonstration, but it could be an indication that: a. Once the story was out, many Palestinian Israelis decided the story might have enough truth to it to limit their anger and need to demonstrate; b. Perhaps the "Israeli Arab street" isn't as radical as its representatives and the media wish us to believe; C. Haaretz got it wrong (again), and the demonstration was never going to be large.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Ameer Makhoul, What Little we Know

Love of the Land: Israel’s democracy wars

Israel’s democracy wars

Why is it assumed that the doyens of Israeli academia are necessarily democratic and good judges of the country’s democratic character?


Prof. Shlomo Sand

Seth J. Frantzman
Terra Incognita/JPost
04 May '10

The most common nervous reaction among a certain segment of Israel’s left is the refrain that Israel is always threatened by undemocratic forces from within. The Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University recently released a poll showing that the average adult Jewish Israeli believes “there is too much freedom of expression” and that many respondents “favor punishing Israeli citizens who support sanctioning or boycotting the country.”

Haaretz’s headline screamed “Israel’s Jews back gag on rights groups.”

The reaction was fast and furious from the academic establishment, which had commissioned the study. Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal of TAU claimed “Israelis have a distorted perception of democracy – most people are almost anti-democratic.”

David Newman of Ben-Gurion University and fellow Jerusalem Post columnist claimed the results were “very worrying.”

THE SURVEY was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Large segments of Israeli academia and various organizations like the Israeli Democracy Institute believe the public is anti-democratic and they craft surveys to tell them exactly that. The fact that the survey measured only Jewish members of society should have been a red herring.

It is no different from a survey by Ma’agar Mochrot in March that surveyed Arabs and Jews on “democracy” but primarily wanted to examine young people’s attitudes on the state’s Arab citizens. What about what the Arabs had to say about the Jews and the state?

Why is it assumed that the doyens of Israeli academia are necessarily democratic and good judges of the country’s democratic character? Bar-Tal, for instance, is on the editorial board of the Palestine-Israel Journal whose logo is a Palestinian flag and an Israeli flag without the Star of David and which routinely refers to Palestinian terrorism as “resistance.” When they “understand” Palestinian terrorism, support boycotts of Israel, the “one-state solution” or encourage soldiers not go to the army, are these “democratic” choices?

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Israel’s democracy wars

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The NIF Slogs On

The NIF Slogs On

Someone broke into the Jerusalem offices of the NIF. The CEO of NIF Israel, Rachel Liel, says she and Naomi Hazan are receiving threatening letters.

Assuming the burglary has anything to do with anything, these are disturbing developments, and must be unequivocally condemned, with no "ifs or buts".

Proportions, however, that's another matter. An unknown number of unidentified hoodlums, probably cowardly acting anonymously, remain unidentified and hoodlums until proven otherwise.

Daniel Sokatch, on the other hand, the CEO of NIF, is a public figure with some authority; people respect him, take him seriously, admire him for his commitment to Israel and its causes. (In America. In Israel no-one has ever heard of him). When he sends out a mass e-mail calling on America's Jews - or at least those of them identified by the NIF - to write large checks ASAP, because only the NIF can save Israel's soul, this is partly pure cynicism, and partly a demonizing of Israeli society, and largely breathtakingly arrogant, and above all a distorted falsehood.

We have our work cut out for us. Ha’aretz reported today that more than half of Jewish Israelis believe that the free speech rights of organizations like the New Israel Fund should be limited. The survey finds that a majority of respondents think there is too much freedom of expression in Israel.

Please make an urgent contribution to the New Israel Fund today. Your support will help us take a stand against extremism and protect democratic values in Israel.

This new demonstration of the decreasing commitment to bedrock democratic principles presents one of the most fundamental challenges in the long history of the New Israel Fund. We are committed to reversing this trend and we need your support to make that happen.

As profoundly disturbing as this news is, it should come as no surprise to us, in light of increasing efforts to stifle dissent within Israel. The attacks on NIF in particular have been exceptionally virulent. We continue to confront scurrilous public campaigns fueled by outright false allegations and willful misrepresentations of who we are. Our adversaries have gone so far as to call for people to pray for harm to us and our allies who dare to question government policy -- a truly despicable act.

The New Israel Fund is not standing idly by as freedom of speech and conscience are sacrificed to a dangerous political agenda. Our work in Israel is the single most important investment that you can make in democratic values and freedom and justice for every Israeli.

From a human rights march that drew thousands of ordinary Israelis to victories in the High Court ….from strengthening liberal voices in the Orthodox community to empowering Israel’s minorities to fight for their rights ….the work of the New Israel Fund family is the antidote to the creeping erosion of democratic values.

The ferocity of the attacks on NIF and the organizations we support demonstrate the fear and anger that underlie nationalist and religious extremism. Our adversaries know that we will not retreat from our vision of a Jewish and democratic Israel that actually lives up to its standing as the only democracy in the Middle East.

Thank you for your support, and please make a special contribution to allow us to build new programs to defend democracy in Israel. Together, we’ll build a Jewish and democratic Israel we can all be proud of – an Israel that rightfully keeps its place in the ranks of free and democratic societies.

Then there's this revealing little news item (only in Hebrew, obviously): The NIF's Palestinian program is calling for proposals to build programs that will reduce the level of violence in Palestinian society. Somewhere, deep down in the psyche of the NIF, someone seems to have at least some grasp on reality.

But don't expect Sokatch to be sending out e-mails about this anytime soon.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The NIF Slogs On

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Distorting Israel

Distorting Israel

One of the many ways our radical left uses to slander their country for the amusement of its enemies is by telling quarter-truths in a way that makes us look outlandish, while refraining from telling the three-quarters of the story (or the 95% of it) that would honestly explain what's going on. In the past I've mentioned their claims that we're passing all sorts of laws meant to shut them down and stifle free speech, end democracy and generally destroy the Zionist dream. The Guardian dutifully and gleefully runs with the story, of course.

Here's what I mean about dishonest lack of context. Yossie Verter, the top political correspondent at Haaretz, pokes serious fun at Netanyahu for blocking a law that's just beginning its meandering through the legislature. The sense of the fun is that everyone - even the legislators trying to push the law through - knows fully well that from here to there, from inception to law, the road is so long and twisted that the current stage is hardly more than grandstanding. Maybe it's a fine law, maybe it's foolish, but in any case, why in the world is the prime minster getting all worked up about it? He wants it stymied? Fine. Pull a string and have it die in committee. Or re-word it so it says the opposite of what it was intended to say. Or use any one of 3002 other tricks, all standard procedure, so that it never becomes law. Why squander political capital on making such a fuss?

That's the fist part of the article. The second says the same, from the opposite side. This time Netanyahu's bugbear isn't a talented lefty-MK, but rather a talented right-wing demagogue with almost no political base, whom Netanyahu just propped up by taking him extremely seriously, with no particular justification.

Now, take Verter's comments about Netanyahu and cut and past them so that it's the radical left, not the prime minister, and the acting out is happening in the foreign press, not in our internal discussion in Hebrew. Is there an occasional act of political grandstanding aimed against them? Yes. Is it likely to transform Israeli democracy into something not-recognizably democratic? Of course not. Do 100% of the participants in the grandstanding, from all sides, recognize this state of the matter? Yes. Is this the message being broadcast to the rest of the world? No. Rather the opposite. Is there any rational justification for spreading stories abroad which are palpably dishonest, in such a way as to besmirch your country? Not that I can see.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Distorting Israel

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Settler Violence at Yitzhar

Settler Violence at Yitzhar

If you've been reading this blog for at least the past day you'll be aware of my skepticism about the radical-left thesis that Israeli democracy is disintegrating, all because a majority of Israelis dislikes the radical left.

In this context, here's an item Alex Stein sent me yesterday, with the added comment that he was personally there. It's from the rather popular Nana website which is affiliated with Channel Ten, and it contains a Channel Ten news report about a recent incident near the settlement of Yitzhar. A joint group of Palestinians and Israelis set out to demonstrate near the settlement. At one point some of them got too close to some structure (Alex can tell us more about it, I expect), and IDF troops shot warning rounds in the air, at which point the demonstrators moved back. At this point armed settlers started shooting at the demonstrators, or anyway, near them. No one was hurt, but the troops stood by and didn't intervene.

Should they have? Probably not: IDF troops don't have the authority to arrest people, and given the range (watch the film) what is the expectation? That they shoot the settlers?

On the other and, the film eventually made it to Betselem, and from there to the army, and also - yesterday - to the media. Last night at 4am police raided Yitzhar and arrested seven settlers, though they seem meanwhile to have been released. As I was not in the interrogation cells, I cannot say what the arrests were meant to achieve.

So what does all this tell us?

1. The media seems to be dong what it should be, and no-one is shutting it down. Nor are there any complaints about its "disloyalty" or any such nonsense.

2. Betselem has a positive role to play in Israeli democracy, when it tries to fix things in Hebrew rather than run to tell the tale in English.

3. Yitzhar is and remains a serious blemish on our name, not to mention being a scandal. Someday there will be a showdown there and they'll be disarmed and disbanded; this day should have been many years ago.

4. Also someday there will be a joint demonstration of Jews and Palestinians in which both sides will recognize the wrong they've committed during this very long war, and both will commit to building a better future based on this mutual recognition. That day, however, is very far away; indeed, it's quite inconceivable. So in the meantime all joint demonstrations will have to get along with agreement that the Israelis have been bad.

Update: Alex e-mails to ask that I add that the demonstration was organized by his outfit, Combatants for Peace. So I have.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Settler Violence at Yitzhar

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Self Perpetuating Sanctimony

Self Perpetuating Sanctimony

Haaretz tells of a recent poll to be presented tomorrow at a conference about the public's support for democracy. At first glance, it's findings are troubling.

They found that 57.6 percent of the respondents agreed that human rights organizations that expose immoral conduct by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely. Slightly more than half agreed that "there is too much freedom of expression" in Israel. The poll also found that most of the respondents favor punishing Israeli citizens who support sanctioning or boycotting the country, and support punishing journalists who report news that reflects badly on the actions of the defense establishment. Another 82 percent of respondents said they back stiff penalties for people who leak illegally obtained information exposing immoral conduct by the defense establishment.

Lest we not appreciate how dire our situation is, the report offers the platform to some professors to clarify:

"Israelis have a distorted perception of democracy," said Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor at the university's school of education, and one of the conference's organizers. "The public recognizes the importance of democratic values, but when they need to be applied, it turns out most people are almost anti-democratic." Another conference participant, Ben-Gurion University's David Newman, called the polling results "very worrying," adding that there has been an assault on freedom of expression in recent years. "We say Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but in Europe they are beginning to think of us otherwise," he said.

Note Prof. Newman's point of reference, because it may inform us about his broader worldview: though not asked in this poll, it's unlikely most Israelis are in awe of European political opinions - which is fine, it's a free world.

Here's a suggestion not remotely hinted at in the news item, and probably in the poll itself. When Israelis express support for the principles of freedom of speech, along with simultaneous displeasure with some expressions of it, might this somehow be connected to the fact that much of the expression has been dishonest, fraudulent, and inadvertently played directly into the eager hands of our enemies at a time of war? Take the most recent concrete case, which had to be at the top of peoples' minds as they responded to this poll: Haaretz published a story based on stolen documents which proved that the IDF had been adhering to the laws of the land and the strictures of the High Court, yet Haaretz cast the story as proof of the opposite, with no factual base for this allegation beyond an ideological conviction that "it must be so". Or the steady stream of allegations last year that the IDF had engaged in massive and intentional war crimes or worse, for which no conclusive evidence was ever produced. Might it be that the run of the mill Israeli democrat dislikes being lied about by his compatriots to the court of international public opinion?

Admittedly, they are free to say whatever they wish, our homegrown critics - though stealing thousands of secret military documents may cross a reasonable line. Yet notice that no-one is advocating any real measures against these people. There's lots of kvetching, a bit of cynical political grandstanding, and that's it. The critics are as free to act today as they ever were, which is as it should be. That they are disliked for it is merely something they've honestly earned.

If one were truly to be interested in Israelis' support for practical applications of freedom of speech, it would be better to test it where it matters. I dare anyone to bring evidence that many Israelis would advocate shutting down of informants, internal or other, who informed us of unpleasant realities. Criminal activities by figures of power, say, or life-endangering idiocy in the armed forces, or massive corruption in the government, civil service and banks.... Wot, those are all reported on? Huh?

(My apologies that the sources are all in Hebrew, but that's the language we have our free speech in, not English)

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Self Perpetuating Sanctimony

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Spy Update

Spy Update

Has anyone heard of the return of Uri Blau? Way back two weeks ago when everyone was all agog about how Israel was blocking the media and persecuting journalists as part of a campaign to put an end to democracy, he was said to be holed up in London to protect his sources. Eventually Anat Kamm's lawyers announced that since she was his source, and she was interested in the documents she stole being returned to their owners, she was relinquishing her claim to his protection.

A day or two later that volcano exploded and it was hard to travel from London (this probably proves that the Zionists were not to blame for the event since it got in their way), but that excuse is growing a bit stale. So if anyone has heard that Blau came back and returned the stolen documents, please contact me, because it apparently happened while I was out walking the dog.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Spy Update

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Fanatics, Left and Right

Fanatics, Left and Right

Well, that was certainly fun, wasn't it.

I've been giving rather a lot of attention to the Israelis at the far left fringe who, intentionally or merely irresponsibly, aid and abet Israel's enemies in their campaign to bring it to its knees through lawfare, diplomacy, boycotts and other methods of delegitimization. This morning I thought I'd engage in a spot of even-handed balancing, so I criticized the fanatics of our political right. Had I given it much thought I'd have said I was (temporarily) siding with my lefty readers, of whom there are a number, including two who identify themselves.

It didn't work out that way. I was offline all day, but when I got back I found some 25 comments dissecting what I'd said from all directions.

First, my thanks to all the participants for the civil discussion. Blog discussions often don't remain civilized very long, and I'm honored that the ones on this blog mostly do.

The fact that our resident representatives of the hard left took umbrage at a post that was mostly critical of the far right is instructive. It rather reinforces my observation that the extremes are not only similar, they even feed off one another - which of course is not a new observation nor original, there are many historical examples. Fanatics will be fanatics; what makes them far from the mainstream is common to them all. So for those of you who questioned my use of the term "loonies", I was applying it as it usually is meant: folks who have severed themselves from the diverse perspectives to which a very large majority of their society adheres. When you've got a free and democratic society, with the diversity of opinion that such societies have, and then you've got small splinter groups of odd folks way off at the edge, I don't see the harm in calling them loonies.

Alex and Didi engaged in a spot of sleight of hand. They claimed I had said that the extremes of left and right have in common their eagerness or willingness to be violent; then they got all worked up about this accusation, though I hadn't actually said it.

So first, to be clear: yes, there are elements in Israel's looniest left who engage in violence against Israeli security forces. Not in murder, nor in terror as in random attacks of civilians, but low-level violence against officials of the state going about their legal and reasonable actions? Yes. Some of it has been reported in the media, some of it I take from the stories of my son Achikam who has been at the brunt of it as a soldier doing his job near Bil'in last year.

The reason Alex and Didi tried that rhetoric trick is that while political life-endangering violence in Israel has always been extremely rare, there has been a bit of it from right on left, and almost none from left on right. This gives the left a feeling of moral superiority. Yet the whole phenomenon is so limited and rare, that this is more sanctimony than plausible political reasoning. I can think of two political assassinations in 60 years, and a handful of attempts that may or may not have been intentionally unsuccessful. Tarnishing an entire camp with that thin a brush isn't reasonable, and exonerating the other camp for being the victim is feeble reasoning.

Anyway, it's a red herring, as Gavin calmly explained. Our loony left and frenzied right don't engage in the exact same activities: that's obvious. The right attacks innocent Palestinians, while the left undermines Israel's legitimacy as a democracy; the fanatics to the right are thugs, while their counterparts to the left are well-heeled academics, legal types and journalists; the ones to the right look outlandish in almost any setting while the ones on the left could easily melt into the background at a posh European conference - but that's the point, not an exoneration.

One of the most peculiar things about our loony left is how extraordinarily thin their skin is. They dish out barrels of filth, much of it either dishonest, downright false or at best tendentious, and they do so ever more often in foreign languages for the gleeful consumption of our enemies; yet whenever anyone calls them out for doing so, they shriek to the high heavens that democracy is being tortured to extinction. Jest yesterday we had yet another example.

Amir Benayoun is an orthodox singer who uses Arab forms of music. It was my intention to slow down the shirim ivri'im thread now, but sooner or later I'll obviously need to discuss the Sephardi music and its great contribution to Israeli music. I presented Benyoun briefly the other day.

This week Benayoun recorded a sing called Ani Achicha, I am Your Brother. The Hebrew lyrics are already up at shiron.net, here; there's no English translation up, nor am I convinced there will be. Im Tirzu posted the recording on You Tube.

What the song is about depends, apparently, on the beholder. The lyrics themselves express anguish. They are sung from the perspective of a young reservist, calling on his lefty brother to desist from hating him since they're brothers. I defend you, you spit on me; the enemy doesn't manage to kill me but you're trying to; as I charge forward my back is to you, but you're sharpening your knife; I'm your brother you're the enemy; I love you hate.

It's not a nice song. Nor is it fair, since there are soldiers of both political camps in the same combat units, and both camps have their share of shirkers. The most potent line in my opinion is Ata mosser oti le-Zar, you're turning me over to foreigners - except that the term mosser has centuries of baggage to it, and is a devastating accusation. (Jews who have betrayed their brothers to persecution are, alas, not as rare as we'd like).

Having read the lyrics over and over, and watched the video repeatedly, it seems to me a song of anguish, not hatred. In no scenario is it a threat to democracy.

Unless you read Haaretz. They put their story about it on the front page of the Hebrew paper edition (alas, not on their English-language website). The item uses all the tricks of the trade, telling of "enormous anger" but without any quantification and citing two excitable sources as if they're vox populi in classic Guardian agitprop style. Since these are quotations you can't quite attribute them to Haaretz itself, which is merely reporting. Of course, no quotations of supporters are forthcoming.

The final paragraph offers the observation of one Igor (no last name): "Benayoun stole his lyrics from the songs of Hoerst Wesel".

I don't think there were songs (plural) of Hoerst Wesel, only one - but that one was the Nazi battle song. So Haaretz has cast Amir Benayoun as a Nazi. Because he doesn't like the NIF.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Fanatics, Left and Right

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Religion or Nation

Religion or Nation

The Jews are so old as a group, they may be the only ones left still embodying the ancient combination of religious group and nation. Spending centuries dispersed among other nations played up the religious aspect. The ability to live on equal terms (well, sort of) as members of European host nations (though never in the Muslim world) encouraged some Jews to reaffirm their nationhood, and create the political movement of Zionism. Having a national state adds further complexity to the story.

The non-Jewish Israelis, be they Russian speakers who arrived as descendants of Jews, or African, Asian or South-American laborers who came to replace Palestinians too busy with intifadas to be reliable workers, there's a largish number of young people who have grown up in Israel, speak Hebrew as their natural language, and regard themselves as Israelis. Unlike the fanatics at either end of the political spectrum, they join the large majority of their peers as proud Zionists, eager to serve in the military and then live their lives here.

It's my opinion - not shared by all - that people such as they, obviously members of the Jewish nation, should be accepted fully, and we'll have to find a reasonable solution to the entry on the religious track.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Religion or Nation

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: A Plague on Both Their Houses

A Plague on Both Their Houses

I've been giving rather a lot of attention to the tiny group of Israelis, a few thousand at most, who systematically spew out lies about their country for consumption by millions worldwide who lap it eagerly up.

There is of course another group of fanatic extremists at the opposite end of the political spectrum, violent chauvinists who attack Palestinian villagers or IDF troops sent to preserve order with equal moral obtuseness. Yesterday they celebrated Yom Haatzmaut, for example, by rampaging.

As so often in these matters, the longer you observe them the more these groups begin to resemble each other, the more they feed off one another and encourage each other, and the more they need each other to justify their own actions.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: A Plague on Both Their Houses

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Mother of all Shirim

Mother of all Shirim

Naftali Herz Imber, a Romanian Jew, wrote Hatikva, The Hope, following a visit to Eretz Israel in 1878. It was popular among the early settlers of what eventually was called the first aliya, 1882-1904. Seen in historical perspective, it was an expression of the sea-change in Jewish history that was beginning at the time: the sentiments of Jewish aspirations to rebuild a national center in the historical homeland was not new - on the contrary, it was banal. Yet articulating it in a secular poem, putting it to music and singing it by people who took the concept as a practical guideline to be enacted by secular Jews, that was novel, and soon proved to be profoundly revolutionary.

Interestingly, Hatikva first took on the status of a quasi-anthem at the sixth Zionist Conference in 1903. Herzl had tabled a suggestion that the movement consider a British proposal to move European Jews to eastern Africa (the Uganda Plan), and the majority of delegates, who unlike him understood what Judaism was about, were horrified; they resoundingly sang Hatikva to make clear their point that their aspirations were about the national homeland, not some African backwater. Thereafter the song became the de-facto anthem of the Zionist movement, being officially adopted in 1933.

The melody derives from the same Romanian folksong which inspired Smetana when he composed Moldau.

Interestingly, while the song was always the national anthem of Israel, this was explicitly enacted only in 2004. The song in its present form is a slightly modified and shortened version of the original.

A German colleague who once happened to be visiting Israel during the week of Yom Hashoah-Yom Hazikaron-Independence Day pointed told me the Israeli national anthem is the only national anthem he's aware of which is a sad song: mostly they tend to be triumphant or martial or both.

כָּל עוֹד בַּלֵּבָב פְּנִימָה
נֶפֶשׁ יְהוּדִי הוֹמִיָּה
וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח, קָדִימָה
עַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה -

עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ
הַתִּקְוָה בַּת שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם
לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ
אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם

As long as deep within the heart
A Jewish soul stirs,
And forward, to the ends of the East
An eye looks out, towards Zion.

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem

Here's a recording without words, and a recording sung by Rivka Zohar.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Mother of all Shirim

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Story Keeps Coming

The Story Keeps Coming

The Anat Kamm story continues to supply interesting insights, so I'm still on it; apologies if I'm boring you.

A friend told me today that during a recent visit to Tel Aviv she saw graffiti from the gag-order period,encouraging pedestrians to "Google Anat Kamm": a way to spread the word as widely as possible. Yet it's becoming increasingly clear that the original story was false: long long ago, say, early last week, the line was that the entire story was well known outside Israel but gagged at home. By now it's clear that what was widely known abroad was a selective, carefully tailored story disseminated by Kamm's ideological fans, who were feeding foreign sources with the story they wished everyone to believe; once the authorities began releasing their version the story changed significantly.

Yesterday we saw the publishing of a court decision from February, when Kamm was sent to house arrest. This document contains various points of interest. Kamm is under mere house arrest, for example, not because the allegations aren't serious but because the assumption is that shorn of her special access to secret documents she isn't dangerous. If she's eventually convicted, she'll go to jail. She made two disks of copied documents, one of which she lost, and the other someone else lost (we aren't told who). The security measures in the general's office were so shabby as to be criminal; after having copied thousands of documents in a folder, Kamm simply asked a colleague to burn them onto disks, and it was done.

On the matter of her intent, it seems I was wrong. My initial reading was that she was out to promote her investigative abilities; apparently, she really did see herself as a whistle-blower - though on this point the story still seems to support both versions.

Regarding the prosecution's contention that Kamm intended to harm state security, the judge wrote that a high probability of harm to state security was enough to attribute such intent.

This is an interesting comment: when the probability of an outcome is plausible, the law sees action towards it as intent. Ponder that for a moment, because it isn't obviously so; one could easily argue that a plausible outcome is not enough to tell of intent to reach it; nor is the matter trivial. Any criminal proceeding that requires intent for conviction - and there are many such - will be influenced by it.

On the other hand, the judge cites Kamm's own words telling about her intent to uncover wrong-doing:

Hammer also referred to Kam's testimony regarding her motives to give material to Blau. He quoted her as saying, "there were aspects of the [Israel Defense Forces'] activity in the territories that I thought should be brought to the knowledge of the public."

"[When] I copied the materials I thought that as far as history is concerned, people who have warned of war crimes, they are forgiven .... I hadn't managed to sufficiently change enough of the things that were important to me at the time of my army service, and I thought exposing them would bring about change, so it was important to me to bring the IDF's policy in the territories to the knowledge of the public."

She said she contacted Israeli journalists because she assumed the military censor "would not allow publication of any material that was especially highly classified or [involved] danger in their publication." The judge noted that under questioning, Kamm had admitted that she knew of the practice of Israeli journalists to circumvent censorship by leaking information to the foreign media. (My italics: so she gave it to an Israeli journalist, knowing full well it might not go through the censor. So much for that argument).

From Kamm's perspective, the tragic part of the story is that she broke the law to warn Israelis their generals were breaking the law, when they weren't, but she was. She was so immersed in the lefty political narrative whereby Israel's military authorities are mostly wrong when dealing with Palestinians, that she was incapable of understanding that the actions she was warning about were in no way illegal. On the contrary. She was merely supplying documentation that the IDF indeed is acting within the law. She's now facing jail for bravely warning us from a danger that was invented by her friends and political colleagues, but which was never there at all.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Story Keeps Coming

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Deporting Out of Context

Deporting Out of Context

Alex Stein asked me yesterday if Haaretz is lying about their new story, whereby a military order is about to launch the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians. The story was published by Amira Haas, here; it is based, apparently, on a story from Hamoked, an Israeli far-left ogranization, here; and today's editorial of Haaretz deplores it here.

I don't know if Haaretz is lying. Probably not: there's a limit to the amount of dishonesty a newspaper can engage in at once, and Haaretz is already in trouble on other matters. On the other hand, it may well be that they're not telling the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Were there to be an Israeli policy to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians - or even only hundreds, if they were innocent civilians, or even any innocent civilians at all - this would be wrong. I'll state that unambiguously, lest there be any misinterpretation. In the context of achieving peace I'm in favour of uprooting tens of thousands of Israeli Jews who have settled in the West Bank over the past 40 years. Not because of international law, which isn't relevant, but because a significant section of the Israeli political body always told them very clearly that given the appropriate context they would have to move. I do not however see a scenario in which Israel deports Palestinians by group. An individual delinquent, yes; many delinquents if they acted illegally, yes, but not a group arbitrarily defined by someone they have no control over. That's the important distinction: that the Israeli settlers participate in a political decision which will effect them; the Palestinians don't participate in the Israeli political discussions. (Well, not directly).

Yet in spite of the heat coming out of Haaretz on this new story, I doubt the events they are warning of are poised to happen. I'm going to wait a day or three before commenting further, so as to give the agencies who know, time to explain; later on I'll either return to the story or not, depending upon whether there is a story at all.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Deporting Out of Context

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Purveyor of Secret Documents

Purveyor of Secret Documents

Shamai Liebowitz, extreme-left-wing Israeli who moved to the US because he no longer felt comfortable being in Israel, found work translating Hebrew documents for the FBI. Not documents of the FBI, mind you: for the FBI. At some point he leaked five of them (5) to an unnamed blogger, who talked about them on his blog. Liebowitz is now looking at 20 months in jail. No-one seems to be claiming he was merely bolstering American democracy, as any good citizen ought.

(How far extreme, I hear you asking? Well, in 2002, when he was serving as Marwan Barghouti's lawyer, he told a court his client compared favorably to Moses, the fellow from the Bible. The judge wasn't amused).

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Purveyor of Secret Documents

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Ministry of Truth

Ministry of Truth

Yuval Elbashan is a lawyer by training. I dare you to find even the remotest vestige of respect for the law in his op-ed today, in which he castigates any and all journalists who didn't line up to support Uri Blau, possessor of illegally stolen documents, and perhaps obstructor of a criminal investigation. On the contrary: everything that has been written or said that does not support Haaretz, is cited as evidence of the failure of reporters and pundits to do their job.

An outsider scrutinizing their conduct in this affair will not be able to avoid feeling shame. Of all people, they are the ones who took on the role of spokesmen for the establishment, as if they were still conscripts. With enthusiasm they reiterated the claim that the material held by Blau has the potential to cause harm. They are the ones who disseminated the claim - without being able to check or verify it - that the case involves hundreds of documents that constitute state secrets. And they are the ones who volunteered the claim that the quantity of documents held by Blau is what makes him qualitatively different from them and their documents, and hence justifies his persecution.

- When did you last beat your wife?
- But I'm not married and never beat anyone!
- Aha! So you're also a liar, not only a wife beater!

Elbashan isn't on the payroll of Haaretz, so his position may be a sincere expression of a worldview. Back in the early days of this blog I created a tag called "Rational Discourse?", which I use to flag cases when such discourse is not possible. Maybe I now need to add a tag "Rational Discourse Not Possible!" Not because Elbashan isn't entitled to his own opinions or those of this groupthink colleagues; rather for his thought process. If anyone agrees with us, he's right. If they don't, it's further proof, not only that we're right, but also that the others are dominated by the Evil Ones.

The Evil Ones being the authorities of the State of Israel.

In a related matter, Anat Kamm's lawyers seem to have come to their senses. Rather than sacrifice their client for an ideal, they're bending over backwards to assist the authorities (or, as Elbashan might put it, the dangerous authorities). They have announced that Kamm revokes any claim she might have had to Uri Blau's protection of her as a source. On the contrary: her/their position is that he should return immediately to Israel and hand over to the authorities whatever documents he received from her. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Interesting, and instructive.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Ministry of Truth

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: "A Threat to Democracy"

"A Threat to Democracy"

Earlier this afternoon I was at a weekly gathering of some 15-20 friends. A judge, four professors, four mere PhDs (that's me), some attorneys, a few physicians, some highly successful business people. We convene for a Talmud study session led by the judge, but the participants are of varying degrees of religious observance, from not at all to rather strict. Our politics are likewise diverse. The consensus was that Haaretz has broken all the rules; three of those present said they were going to cancel their subscriptions. I can't remember the group ever being so agitated.

The Poles have far greater woes this weekend than the Israelis, as do the Thais. The Anat Kamm story which has us all worked up is not really important, and I hope to stop dealing with it very soon. Yet I do wish to summarize it as it looks after spending a few hours carefully reading Haaretz - where it was by far the main story - and some other papers, where it was major but not exclusive.

The story began when Anat Kamm allegedly stole 2000 classified documents from the office of her commander, CO of the Central Front, Yair Naveh, between 2005-2007. Allegedly, because she hasn't yet been convicted, let us not forget. The documents dealt with many matters, of varying seriousness. The security forces say that once they had figured out what had been stolen they had to make changes to operational procedures and change operations, out of fear their details had leaked. We're a country at war, people get killed in our wars, and this theft interfered. No-one's saying anyone was killed, but as we say in Hebrew, that was more luck than brains. Also: the documents are still out there. They haven't been retrieved yet.

The lesson to be drawn from this part of the story is that the counter-espionage folks better get their act together.

Kamm's upcoming trial may cast light on the matter of her motives. We know (because she has openly said) that she holds seriously Left political opinions. However, she tried to join pilot training when she was 18, and during her military service she tried to be sent to officer training; both would have meant adding time to her service, and neither indicate an anti-Israel position. It sounds like she was a Meretz voter, and those people don't engage in treason anymore than anyone else. I'm not a lawyer, but my sense is that they're doing her a disservice by playing up any ideological motives. Were I in their place I'd portray her as silly, unthinking, and hope for 3 years in jail rather than 20.

Some of Israel's critics are dong everything in their power to portray her as a brave whistle-blower. (Silverstone, Mondowiess). The problem with this story line is that she didn't blow any whistles while she was in a position to do so, and after she left the army it took more than a year before she found anyone willing to look at her documents. (A journalist at Yediot, Israel's most popular paper, seems to have refused to look). My sense is that she tried to show the whole trove, not a specific document in it - but I could be wrong.

Eventually Uri Blau at Haaretz was interested. That was the turning point which changed the story from minor to major, and will probably cost Anat Kamm an extra decade in jail.

Before picking up the Haaretz strand, a reflection on political theory. In democracies, the electorate is sovereign. It expresses its sovereignty by periodically electing legislators who then elect the executive (or the executive is directly elected, in presidential democracies). The executive operates according to the law, as legislated by representatives of the electorate, and within the parameters of the constitution, which is also ultimately subordinate to the electorate. In order to ensure that the sovereign electorate is well informed about what its various elected representatives are doing, in the legislature and the executive, it's important to have freedom of speech, and freedom of information.

I recognize that it's more complicated than that, but those are the outlines.

The press does not have exemptions from the law, though in practice the executive is expected to respect the crucial role played by the media (when it does its job).

Over the weekend I spoke to a number of attorneys, including attorneys trained outside Israel. All were emphatic that journalists are not allowed to break the law. Not in Israel, not elsewhere.

Uri Blau did, when he published a story based on Kamm's stolen documents. Moreover, his editors (stupidly, in retrospect), published full pictures of some of the documents, thus giving the counter-espionage people a starting point for their investigation - which they duly used.

Haaretz republished most of Blau's story over the weekend, to remind us that the real culprits are the generals who are not behaving correctly. In brief, the High Court of Justice ordered that Palestinian terrorists not be assassinated in cases where they can be arrested; Kamm's documents seemed to be saying the generals were disregarding this order. Since Haaretz was so helpful as to re-publish the story, I feel confident in saying it isn't convincing. The documents they cite seem to be saying that the terrorists must be arrested, but if the choice is between letting them get away or killing them, they should be killed. In other words, precisely what the High Court said. There was also mention of the fat that should there be a need to fire at the terrorists, this would be permissible even if there was one single unidentified individual with them - but not two, say, or four. We know that in the invasion of Iraq the Americans were allowed to assasinate identified enemies along with up to 29 civilians - so the documents Kamm stole seem to prove the opposite of what Uri Blau said they proved.

So Kamm wasn't a whistle-blower, and Blau wasn't uncovering an uncomfortable truth the IDF needed to hide.

Much has been made about the fact that the story was submitted to the censor, so it must have been OK. This is dishonest, as the purveyors of the line know perfectly well but their gullible audience may not. It could perhaps have been true back in the 1960s, when the censor had teeth and was active. Ever since then, however, the powers of the censor have been whittled away, by technology, by public pressure, by reality. Nowadays the censor blocks stories with the potential to cause harm to life in clearly identified ways, but that's about it. A story in November 2008 about a discussion between officers in 2006 about an event which has long since passed won't be blocked by the censor.

You don't believe me? Go to the archives of the Channel Two radio and see all the stories broken over the years by their fantastic correspondent on military matters, Carmela Menashe. Go to the archives of the newspapers and see the stories of reserve soldiers who reported - in real time, not two years later - that Israel's allies the Lebanese Phalanges were murdering people in Sabra and Chatilla in Septemebr 1982. Or go the the websites of Breaking the Silence, or for that matter, to the websites of any of the two dozen left-wing NGOs who regularly tell about all the awful things Israel does (or more accurately, often doesn't do but the stories are there anyway). Then ask yourself what sort of a censor it is who "allows" all these stories to appear, and if the Uri Blau story of November 2008 was so daring.

Since Haaretz had so helpfully shown the stolen documents, the counter-espionage officials came to talk with Blau. Had he been anything other than a journalist, he'd have been summarily arrested and facing many years of jail. But since he's a journalist, and democracy needs journalists to be able to act freely, he wasn't arrested. A deal was cut with him and he agreed to give back the stolen documents, so that they'd never reach someone more dangerous than Haaretz.

Blau returned 50 documents. When the investigators found Kamm independently of him, she told them there had been 2000 documents, not 50. The went back to Blau and his newspaper to retrieve the other 1950 documents, but he absconded, and his lawyers - who are the lawyers of Haaretz - have refused to return the documents.

All the attorneys I talked to over the weekend agree this is illegal. It's also stupid, I'd think. If I were in the Iranian intelligence services I'd be frantically looking for Uri Blau about now, obviously. Our counter espionage forces say this fear is what lead them to insist on that gag order until after they got the documents back, which makes sense but was probably a bad decision for other reasons. Yet if that's how it happened, Haaretz carries some responsibility for the gag order, too.

So far, Haaretz comes out of the story badly. Their Friday (weekend) edition made things much worse. The editor in chief collected his entire staff and told each and every one of them to write a story based on their particular areas of expertise, but the common line was to be that the State if Israel is wrong. It's laws are outdated. It's system of classification of military documents is designed to protect the generals, not to serve the security of the state. Uri Blau wrote about how he's the protector of our democratic freedoms. And so on and so on and so on. Importantly, the attack was not against the Netanyahu government: it was against the State of Israel, its laws and its institutions. All of the articles were translated to English, of course, and put on the paper's website:
Ze'ev Segal, the editorial, Anshel Pfeffer, Amos Harel, Uri Blau, Ron Leshem, Aluf Benn, Gideon Levy, Reuven Pedatzur, Akiva Eldar. Avi Issacharoff wasn't pulled into the morass, perhaps because no-one could figure out an angle to use his Palestinian sources to besmirch the country in this context.

For many years Haaretz used to advertise itself as "The newspaper for thinking people". This was an edition indistinguishable from Pravda. Every single one of the articles trotted out the party line; not a single journalist dared let out a peep of dissent. There was chattering galore about the freedom of press which is somehow under siege, and the sanctity of the High Court which was allegedly tainted, but not a single word about the bald fact that Haaretz has been and still is engaged in brazenly illegal actions. Silence, nada, nothing. Brezhnev would have been proud.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: "A Threat to Democracy"

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Anat Kamm and the Real Culprits

Anat Kamm and the Real Culprits

It took time, but eventually the court rescinded the gag order I related to earlier this week. Predictably, the fuller story that is now coming out is different than the one that swirled over the Web recently. That was about the benighted Israeli authorities who had made a young journalist disappear and then blocked the story, just like in Iran (really, that was the line. Go see Richard Silvestein's blog. He's been all over the story for weeks).

The story pouring out the past few hours is quite different. First, however, let's relate to the gag order. I expect when it was first given it was reasonable: investigators of leaks of large amounts of classified documents don't need thoughtless journalists second-guessing their every move and broadcasting the limits of the investigator's knowledge to possible unidentified culprits. This isn't because Israel resembles Iran, it's the nature of police work, anywhere. Eventually, however, selective versions of the story did reach journalists beyond the writ of Israeli gag orders; once this happened, allowing this slanted version to dominate the stage was poor tactics. Especially as we can now trace the time line, and the leaks to the press came late in the investigation. When former supreme court justice Dalia Dorner said this week that the order was causing damage, she knew what she was talking about.

Second, the initial facts. According to the allegations - which have yet to be proven in court, let us never forget - Anat Kamm stole thousands of classified documents from the office of a top IDF general during her military service. There's a long and detailed description of the case here, (only in Hebrew), and another long report, less extensive but in English, here. (The Hebrew report seems to be based on a six-page description sent out by the press office of the Ministry of Justice, but alas, they haven't posted their own press release on their own website, so I can't link to it. Lot's of bright light-bulbs in this story). If proven, Kamm will be sentenced to a long prison term for espionage (though being 23 years old she'll be out before she's 40), which is as it should be. Her acts could have lead to people getting killed: that's what top-secret military documents deal with. This isn't Enron, or Lehman Brothers.

Kamm's lawyers. There are two of them. Eitan Lehman is about 40, intelligent, probably a fine attorney, but not well known. He has no public persona. Avigdor Feldman, in his mid-60s, is one of Israel's most prominent criminal lawyers, and is arguably the single best known defender in politics-related trials from the Palestinian side or the Left. At this stage of the matter, lawyers are paid to deny all allegations and attack the prosecution: that's the way the game works. Interestingly, however, Eitan Lehman was sent to face the media and trot out the predictable lines about how his client is innocent and the prosecution is undermining democracy etc. Coming from Feldman, no-one wold listen; coming from Lehman-the-new-face, somebody just might. Nice touch, that. But then someone couldn't keep mum, and had to add that Ms. Kamm is a good person, who was motivated only by ideology, and not, say, money: "That's why she passed the documents to Haaretz and not to some foreign agency", according to her attorney Avigdor Feldman.

"Ideology", of course, means left-wing dissatisfaction with Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians and the way Israel defends itself from its enemies. Let us be clear about that. Yet another incident in which some people on Israel's Left cannot accept actions of its democratically elected executive or official organs.

According to the official description, Kamm tried to pass her documents to at least one (unidentified) media outlet before Haaretz, but that outlet declined to use them. Which brings us to the role of Haaretz. There seem to be a number of them. First, the fact that they used illegally procured documents for a story. I don't like it, not at all, but tend to the opinion that freedom of the press and the need to hold the authorities to the spirit and letter of the law in their activities may justify this. Or rather, in principle this can be justified; in this case: we don't know enough to say.

Journalists from other media outlets are saying that they've never seen a trove of 2000 classified document, ever. (Yoav Limor, channel one TV). I'm not certain what that tells us about the editors of Haaretz, but doubt it puts them in a positive light.

Then there's the matter of the negotiations with the police once the matter was under investigation. As far as I can tell, the behavior of Haaretz (and their lawyers) was wrong. They agreed to return the documents they had acquired, then returned a mere 50, not 2,000 - and neglected to tell that they had 2,000. The investigators only figured that out once they had arrested Anat Kamm.

Then there's the matter Uri Blau, reporter at Haaretz. He moved to London five months ago to escape the investigation (soft version), or arrest (hard version). He's living in London on the dime of Haaretz. As I write this Amos Schocken, proprietor of Haaretz, has just said on TV that the paper's attorneys are responsible for his staying there, and he (Schocken) supports this. So Haaretz is assisting a fugitive from the law in an espionage case. Looks very bad to me.

That's as far as I wish to take it right now. Perhaps in a day or a week I'll have more to say. Perhaps not.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Anat Kamm and the Real Culprits

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Striking Troops

Striking Troops

A group of soldiers affiliated with the Har Brach yeshiva have gone on strike. They're protesting that the army no longer recognizes their yeshiva as part of the Hesder program, in which soldiers may exchange part of their active military service for study time; the lost recognition is the result of positions taken by the head of the yeshiva against soldiers participating in the dismantling of settlements.

I have no patience for these fellows. Soldiers don't go on strike, nor are they allowed to participate in political acts. If they insist, they should go to jail. This is true when left-leaning soldiers put their opinions above their orders, and it's true when right-leaning ones do so. The numbers on either side have never been significant - a handful - but the symbolism is clear. In a democracy, the military carries out missions defined by the executive (in Israel the constitutional specifics are that the cabinet is the commander in chief, though there is often a special, limited group of ministers who are designated to make ongoing decisions), the executive is elected, and if the electorate wishes it can defenestrate the executive - a prerogative often used. Citizens are free to strive to change the executive; soldiers are forbidden to. Reservists are soldiers when in uniform. Not hard to understand and live by.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Striking Troops

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Capturing the Wind

Capturing the Wind

I haven't had anything to say yet about the Anat Kamm case. Nor do I have anything intelligent to say now, since too many important details are still unclear.

On the adjacent story, however, of how our court has allowed a gag order to be applied even as the story is swirling around the Internet, I'm going on record as agreeing with Haaretz: sheer idiocy. Nor does this make me a brave voice of dissent or any such tosh: there's no danger in my saying so, it's not brave, it's simply common sense.

(I can add one small piece of information no-one else knows: one of her lawyers was once a student of mine. But I can't take credit even for his role in the matter).

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Capturing the Wind

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Watchdogs Go Mad

The Watchdogs Go Mad

The New York Times supports the narrative that Israeli democracy is under siege. True, there's enough professional journalism in the item to pretend the journalist is merely reporting, not sharing the opinion, but just barely.

The evidence? One case in which the prime minister criticized an organization he felt was lying; one case of wrong arrest which was rectified the next day by a court; a single tax investigation which was then called off; the Im Tirzu campaign against the NIF (and note that Im Tirzu is now blandly described as "an ultra-Zionist nongovernmental organization", whatever that might mean); and worst of all, a parliamentary bill currently stuck and immobile which calls for transparency about foreign governments' support for political players in Israel (the horror!)

Here's a counter explanation. The people who staff the so-called "human rights organizations" at the far left of Israel's political spectrum - and they're political actors, there can be no doubt about it in spite of their endless protestations - are mostly thin-skinned partisans. They are deeply and profoundly convinced that their view of the world is the truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth, and that anyone who refuses to see the world as they do is either unintelligent, benighted, evil, or all of the above. Once you accept this rather strange axiom, you'll have no problem with identifying any counter claim or adverse position with the forces of evil, out to destroy the embattled and besieged voices of rationality justice and peace.

This explains how when they dish out endless fabrications, distortions, nasty allegations and radical positions, it's democracy at its finest; but whenever they're confronted it's a fundamental undermining of democracy, freedom, justice and all that is beautiful.

It's a frame of mind, not an intellectual exercise.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Watchdogs Go Mad