SKEWED PRIORITIES IN THE ANAT KAMM AFFAIR
Editorial, Jerusalem Post, April 12, 2010

Perhaps the highest calling of a free press is to serve as society's watchdog through conscientious muckraking. In that spirit, Ha'aretz chose to publish articles based on classified documents that raised questions about the IDF's targeted-killings policy against Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Anat Kamm stole those documents, and many, many more, during her  army service from 2005 to 2007 in the office of the commander of the Central Command. The very fact that these documents had been stolen, and the indiscriminate nature of her theft, might have given the newspaper pause, but it acted properly within the framework of military censorship by getting approval from the censor before publishing specific articles based on particular documents. It argued that this material fell firmly within the definition of public interest. And it gave the IDF advance notice of the articles, to enable the IDF to respond.

From this point onward, however, Ha'aretz's behavior deviates from acceptable journalistic practice. Most troubling is the paper's willingness to back reporter Uri Blau, presently in self-imposed exile in Britain, if, as is alleged by the state, he is holding on to what may be some 2,000 sensitive documents, 700 of which are judged by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to be of a confidential or highly confidential nature.... Far less comprehensible than Kamm's alleged ideologically motivated decision to steal so many documents is Blau's refusal to hand them back. He's had the documents since at least October 2008, when he began publishing reports based on them....

According to Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, Blau reneged on an agreement to hand over the documents-under which he would nonetheless still have had the opportunity to write articles based on them-running off first to China, and then to Britain. His refusal to return the papers, and to return himself, implies he has something to hide.

The argument that Blau's refusal to hand over the documents lies in his desire to protect Kamm, furthermore, is no match for the wider national security interest, but it is also contradicted by the fact that Ha'aretz published potentially incriminating photocopies of documents taken by Kamm before she was arrested in December 2009.

The Kamm drama touches on fundamental ethical dilemmas that face the State of Israel as it strives to maintain freedom of press while fighting adversaries that couldn't care less about such an ideal. The success of Zionism is emphatically about nurturing the Middle East's only true democracy and ensuring freedom of expression as well as about providing for the physical protection of the Jewish people.

These two goals are not contradictory, they are mutually dependent: The knowledge that Israel fights its wars in accordance with ethical directives provides Israel's citizens with the conviction of the justness of its cause. A free, inquisitive press helps ensure that the IDF maintains those ethical standards. If the targeted-killings policy, or any other IDF policy for that matter, is out of line with the rulings of the Israeli judiciary, this requires our attention.

Regrettably, however, the unwillingness of Blau and his newspaper to meet the Shin Bet's demand to return stolen documents whose content would aid our enemies and render our people more vulnerable raises grave questions about the paper's priorities. Has Ha'aretz adopted the radical agenda of some of its writers, who focus obsessively in its pages on Israel's purported brutality while ignoring Palestinian terror, violence and incitement? Or is the paper truly interested in strengthening Israeli democracy via constructive criticism? The way to clear up the doubt would be to return the stolen documents to the Shin Bet as quickly as possible.

As the Jewish people gathers to commemorate the memory of the six million, this is an opportune time to recall the events that led to the creation of the State of Israel. The Jews returned to their land not out of a desire to wage war with the Palestinian people, but out of a realization that they could rely on no one but themselves to survive. Six decades and countless battles later, Ha'aretz would do well to remind itself what is at stake if the security of the Jewish state is needlessly endangered.

A NATION AT WAR AND STATE SECRETS
Moshe Arens
Ha'aretz, April 22, 2010

Israel is a nation at war, surrounded by enemies, some threatening to wipe it off the map, a nation in constant danger. Most Israelis are mobilized in one way or another in the defense of the country-some full-time, some most of the time and some part-time. That is Israel's secret weapon, the motivation and devotion of its people dedicated to its defense, which helps the country overcome unprecedented odds. Much of our security depends on keeping secret the information we receive connected to military strategy and tactics, weapon systems and operational plans. One of the prices of security is keeping this information from the enemy. This we have learned in the 62 years since May 15, 1948.

Most Israelis are privy to some state secrets because of their military service, their work in the defense industry or contact in some other way with matters that are best kept from our enemies. And they are prepared to protect these secrets. Some have even protected such secrets with their lives. The young soldier Uri Ilan, who had been taken prisoner by the Syrians in 1954, fearing that under torture he might reveal secrets, committed suicide. When his body was returned to Israel a note was found on it on which he had written: "I did not betray, I committed suicide."

Most of us, fortunately, do not face such stark choices and don't find it overly difficult to keep secrets entrusted to us. As parents whose children serve in the Israel Defense Forces know only too well, their children will not reveal to them secrets that are entrusted to them during their service. Don't mothers and fathers have a right to know what their sons and daughters are doing while away from home? But Israeli mothers and fathers understand that their children protect secrets, in the knowledge that the safety of their country, families and comrades depends on it.

An Israeli who has decided to reveal secret information can do it easily nowadays. He does not have to travel to London and approach an Arab embassy. Just put the information on the Internet and before you know it Israel's enemies will know about it. Not only disseminating information has become easy, but obtaining it as well. Just about everything is now stored on computer hard drives, and a push of a button will download many megabytes of information. While great progress has been made to safeguard secret information stored on computers, in the end a great deal depends on the personnel who have access to the computers.

With good reason do we trust our young people serving in the army, but as has been shown recently, a rotten apple appears every now and then, one that can endanger the safety of many. In the case of Anat Kamm, the danger might have been contained if the journalist to whom she transferred the vast store of information she had stolen from an IDF computer, realizing that he now held the keys to something that could endanger his country, had simply reported Kamm to the authorities and returned the information to the IDF where it belonged.

But the Ha'aretz reporter, Uri Blau, did no such thing. Keeping the information to himself, he began publishing some of it in Ha'aretz. This seems to have met with the approval of the newspaper and a number of journalists, who insist that it is the duty of journalists to stand up for the right of the public to know and bring to the public's attention information that comes their way even if it could harm the country's security. They surely must know that the vast majority of the Israeli public does not want to know information that is secret and whose disclosure might endanger the state, so the claim that they are serving the public interest is a fraud. They hide behind the claim that they rely on the censor to pass on the information they have submitted for publication, while complaining about the very existence of censorship in Israel.

Is it just possible that these "defenders of the public interest" are actually looking for ways to attack the Israeli government, even if by doing so they provide information to Israel's enemies? Is it possible that sometimes their sympathies are with enemies of Israel, and they are just looking for ways to give Israel a bloody nose?

HA'ARETZ COULD NOT BE MORE
WRONG -- OR MISLEADING
Ben-Dror Yemini
Jerusalem Post, April 20, 2010

Many in the media say that what Anat Kamm uncovered was an important revelation. The IDF, they claim, violated High Court of Justice orders, and conducted targeted killings while violating judicial guidelines. The IDF, they continue to assert, committed war crimes, and there is no journalist out there who would have remained silent, were he or she to receive documented proof of this.

Let us put aside the thousands of documents that have nothing to do with the leaks she gave to Ha'aretz journalist Uri Blau and which contain military information with no journalistic value. And let us put aside the fact that the IDF was forced to alter its military plans due to the stolen information. And the fact that the possession of such material constitutes a criminal offense, which an Israeli paper is aiding. Let us deal with the heart of the matter this time.

Were the documents revealed and brought before the public indeed proof that the IDF violated judicial orders? The headline, at the time, was "The chief-of-staff and IDF leadership authorized killings of wanted and innocent men." The word "innocent" appears almost 20 times in the article in which the documents were published. The impression is that the IDF has been committing war crimes, an impression Ha'aretz intentionally attempted to create. We should rise to the challenge, and examine what these documents show exactly.

The main argument was regarding the High Court of Justice and the legality of targeted killings. It was no other than former president of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak who made the determination in 2006: that it is impossible to determine a priori that all targeted killings are forbidden by international law, just as it is impossible to determine a priori that all targeted killings are permissible according to international law. This is a very clear statement that is somewhat at odds with the impression received when reading Ha'aretz back in 2008, when the documents appeared in Blau's article, and certainly today, as the paper attempts to hide behind the guise of exposing the truth.

The documents, it should be noted, deal with the need either to arrest or target an Islamic Jihad cell-clearly terrorists, who have committed acts of murder and planned more attacks. They consistently roamed the land with rifles and bomb belts. Any army of a democratic nation would regard their assassination as something both legitimate and desirable. This would not involve any troubles of conscience. According to Ha'aretz, however, it was more appropriate to arrest these righteous cell members than harm them.

The documents indicate that the IDF rigorously abided by the ruling. They reveal four matters.

First, that OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh ordered an arrest rather than an assassination.... [O]nly if events developed into a situation that both necessitates and allows [assassination], should they be killed. Second, it appears that the implementing force received an additional order: if there are women or children in the area, assassination must be avoided.... Third, it shows that the IDF places restrictions on the implementing force, in all things concerning the possible harming of innocent civilians. In the course of the meeting conducted by Naveh it was decided that only if there were as few as two unidentified men in addition to those that are wanted, could the operation take place. In a second meeting, this time under Gen. Tal Russo, it was decided to restrict this further and allow only one innocent individual to be accidentally struck....

In other words, if there are women and children, the operation is off. And if there are two unidentified figures, the operation is off. And it should be stressed that there was certainly no order to take out the unidentified figure. Does this violate the High Court of Justice's rulings? Let us examine. In the ruling, Barak states that "collateral damage in which innocent women and children are harmed shall be legal only if it abides by proportional standards."

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we are talking about the accidental killing of two innocent civilians, compared to the striking down of five murderers belonging to a terrorist cell. Is this proportional? The man who was in charge of targeted killings in the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco, a former defense intelligence analyst at the Pentagon-yes, he of the Nazi memorabilia fiasco in 2009-was interviewed on 60 Minutes, where he told interviewers that when it came to the assassination of a senior Iraqi terrorist, the guidelines were to kill as many as 29 innocent individuals, in order to take the man out. For them the U.S., it is one to 29 innocent men, and in Israel, permission is only given if there is one unidentified figure on the scene.... Garlasco, incidentally, is responsible for the killing of some 200 innocent civilians, as part of pursuits of wanted terrorists-all while no terrorist was actually struck. No international arrest warrant was issued against Garlasco. On the contrary, he later became a senior member of Human Rights Watch. These are the ratios. This is the proportionality. Ha'aretz has failed to explain what it regards as proportional. Nor will it ever explain.

Fourthly it appears that in order to authorize any operation against Islamic Jihad members, many deliberations across different echelons take place. In these deliberations it was determined that innocent civilians shall not be harmed. That arrests are preferred over assassination. That women and children must be protected. That proportionality must be rigorously defended.

And these were not merely debates, the OC Central Commander himself could not approve the operation, and the authorization of the chief-of-staff was required. Can this complex process, of wavering, of debate after debate, of orders to safeguard the lives of women, children and innocent civilians, of clear definition of proportionality, be called a war crime, or murder?

In the course of the mission discussed by the Ha'aretz article, two terrorists were killed, Ziad Tzubahi Mahmad Malaisha and Ibrahim Ahmad Abed-El Latif A'abad. The two, not only according to the IDF but also according to a statement published by Islamic Jihad, were killed as they attempted to resist arrest, and while they were armed with M-16s in the throes of a battle with IDF troops. Islamic Jihad regards them as fallen troops. Ha'aretz created the impression that they were victims of war crimes. In the very same article, the newspaper presents at length the views of three legal experts, Motta Kremnizer, David Kremnizer, and Moshe Hanegbi. They conclude, each in his own way, that the troops on the mission has violated IDF orders, and that their actions constituted war crimes.

Based on what? What evidence do they present? Any search would be in vain. Ha'aretz turned to three legal experts whose opinions it knew in advance. The aim was to implicate the IDF. The legal experts brought home the bacon.

But, there was one other opinion.... The attorney general at the time, Menahem Mazuz wrote in a reply: "the military sources in the IDF General Staff received constant legal council, were aware of High Court of Justice guidelines, stressed and executed this in every state of planning and approval of the mission."

Ha'aretz would not allow itself to be distracted by the facts. After all, legal advice is not an exact science. Therefore, the paper chose to approach legal experts who would recite exactly what it wanted to hear.... And now, in order to justify the view it has long held, Ha'aretz attempts to create the opposite impression, one of mass targeted killings and harming of innocent civilians, contrary to the High Court's ruling. Anyone reading the paper gets the impression that the IDF is deeply engaged in the criminal act of assassination when nothing could be further from the truth.

The demonizing, and delegitimizing of Israel got some help these past days thanks to Ha'aretz. The paper has the right to hold its views and run any story it pleases. However, this recent affair should be called by its name: a libel manufactured by Ha'aretz.

(Ben-Dror Yemini is a regular columnist at Maariv.)