John wees me op het volgende bericht over de Israelische doodseskaders. Deze, volgens het internationaal recht, terreur wordt geaccepteerd door onze minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, Maxime Verhagen. Tot hij zelf het slachtoffer wordt van een terreuraanslag. Dat spreekt. Hoe zou men deze politicus op een andere manier aan het verstand kunnen brengen dat doodseskaders in strijd zijn met het
April 3, 2010
Israel arrests soldier Anat Kam over targeted-killings ‘leak’
Israel has placed a former soldier under house arrest for allegedly leaking details of a controversial policy to kill wanted Palestinian militants, and has slapped a gagging order on the national media to prevent it from covering the story, according to sources in the Jewish state and abroad.
The moves are being challenged by the media in a country that prides itself on its freedom of speech. An appeal is expected to be lodged this month by a television news channel and by the centre-left newspaperHaaretz, while the mass-market daily Maariv has satirised both the gag and the lack of media defiance by declaring: “Due to a gag order we cannot tell you what we know. Due to laziness, apathy and blind faith in the defence establishment we know nothing at all.”
The case centres on a 23-year-old former soldier, Anat Kam, who was arrested in December after finishing her national service, which is compulsory in Israel. She is reportedly charged with having copied classified documents that showed that Israeli troops had broken their own rules of engagement by killing three Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Six months earlier an Israeli court had all but banned the practice of so-called targeted killings, permitting them only in cases where the wanted suspects could not be safely arrested.
The story was subsequently published in late 2008 by Haaretz. The paper said that the military had apparently made a unilateral decision to relax its rules of engagement and returned to the practice of assassinating militants, a frequent occurrence in the early days of the second intifada, which began in 2000.
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According to the report, in March 2007 Major-General Yair Naveh, who was the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank at the time, allowed his men to shoot three leading Palestinian militants even though they did not pose a clear threat. The order was judged to be illegal by experts interviewed by the Haaretzjournalist Uri Blau.
Ms Kam, who worked in General Naveh’s office at the time the document was allegedly leaked, has reportedly been accused of passing it to the newspaper, which says that it received it from other sources. She faces up to 14 years in jail if found guilty of charges said to relate to espionage.
Haaretz has said that it intends to challenge the gagging order but, in the meantime, Mr Blau, who wrote the story, is said to be in London awaiting the outcome of the appeal.
While the story has buzzed around Jewish blogs, the gag order has prevented it from appearing so far anywhere except in the foreign media and in Israel-related news agencies, such as the US-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Some Israeli newspapers, such as Yediot Ahronot, have published links to the JTA’s story with the message: “What does the Shin Bet [Israel’s domestic security service] not want you to know?”
The Committee to Protect Journalists, also based in the United States, has also called for the gag order to be lifted so that the case can be properly investigated.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7086417.ece
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