Israel Matzav

A different perspective on the Anat Kam affair

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

You all remember Anat Kam the young woman who stole some 2,000 documents - many top secret - from the head of Central Command during her IDF service, and turned them over to a Haaretz reporter who is currently hiding out somewhere in England. Anat Kam has been under house arrest - and not i n jail - since last December. Here's a different perspective on that story (Hat Tip: Dani K).

I was puzzled, amazed, lost. I kept thinking there was some mistake. Surely there was a good reason why Shabak did not keep her in jail...That's when this story became personal for me, when my anger became real. I kept wondering: how did Anat's father, Mr. Kamm, pull it off? How did he succeed where I failed? What values did he instill in Anat that brought him victory where I tasted the bitter fruit of defeat? Or maybe it wasn't a questoin of values. Maybe it was his parenting skills, his superior pedagogical techniques that so impressed everyone?

You see, my daughter Chaya was also deemed a danger to public security and the State. Five years ago, at the age of 14, she was arrested during an anti-disengagement demonstration and accused of speaking rudely to a policewoman. She was brought before the juvenile judge in Tel Aviv, not far from where an 18-year old Anat was living at the time. The State prosecutor in our case asked the judge to keep my Chaya in jail until the end of the legal proceedings against her. On what grounds? Chaya was, you see, an ideologically motivated criminal. And because of her ideology she was unstopable. And dangerous to public and the State.

What was so dangerous about this girl? She participated in another non-violent civil disobedience demonstration a month before, was arrested, and released to yeshuv arrest, which forbade her from going to a similar demonstration. And now she disregarded that prohibition and refused to sit quetly while her friends were being thrown out of their homes. Thus, in the words of the prosecutor, her danger to the security of the State and the public was clear. Incredibly, the judge accepted this ridiculous argument.

In counter-argument I asked the judge to release my daughter to a full house arrest. I promised that we would keep her under 24/7 supervision. To no avail. The judge decided that we, the parents, could not be trusted to keep our dangerously criminal child from harming the Israeli public. She sent Chaya to jail, to await her trial. We appealed this outrageous decision, and our case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Israel. Ayalla Procaccia was the judge who heard our case there. When I found out that Ms. Procaccia was to be our judge, my heart fell. Ms. Procaccia is well known for her extreme leftist views, both before she came to the Supreme Court and during her work there. She accepted the prosecution's arguments. My 14-year old Chaya was indeed an ideplogical criminal. Her crime was "especially hard because it demonstrated utter disregard towards the law. Such behaviour cannot be treated lightly by the court, no matter what ideology stands behind such behaviour.

Read it all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:34 PM