The Discretion of Justice: “Ideological Danger” Through the Eyes of Judge Ayala Procaccia

Questions from Across the Globe, From the Cradle to the Grave

The refusal of Israel’s Supreme Court to incarcerate Anat Kam regarding charges of theft, espionage, and treason against the State of Israel has millions confused and seeking answers. Why is Anat Kam under house arrest while the three-month old trial continues?

As Jonathan Pollard sits in a jail cell in America for attempting to assist Israel why is Anat Kam enjoying the company of friends, family, and neighbors? As Gilad Shalit remains imprisoned by murderous Hamas terrorists for defending his nation why does Anat Kam enjoy the convenience of ice cubes and hot meals? As soldiers, every single hour of every single day uphold to protect their comrades through chilling cold winters and scalding hot summers why does Anat Kam enjoy the convenience of her iPod and the comfort of her couch?

Likewise where is Uri Blau and why has he not been extradited? Neither journalist nor politician, plumber nor mutual fund manager are entitled to live above the law, to receive or disseminate stolen goods, services, or materials, nor to commit treason. Ask Martha Stewart, ask Ehud Olmert, ask Richard Nixon, ask Nathan Hale, ask Mordechai Vanunu.

We recently mourned and celebrated brave souls who stood to defend Israel from attack and we danced at our independence. If civilians and soldiers had been carelessly massacred as a result of Anat Kam’s scandalous actions would she still be under lenient house arrest? Would Uri Blau be working, with salary, from a foreign country, while thousands recited kaddish? Would not the bereaved families of such thousands cry out for justice?

Anat Kam, The Rogue: Fare is Fair

The social contract, a theory derived from a broad range of perspectives by a variety of philosophers maintain that individuals choose basic compromises of liberty in return for the safeguard of essential rights within a nation-state. One accepts responsibility for following certain rules and codes, and punishment for violating such, in exchange for order and justice. In turn, society, managed by government, extracts a price from the individual, such as: taxes, compulsive education, regulation of commerce, and jury duty.

Anat Kam is currently being charged with stealing thousands of highly classified documents from the Central Command Headquarters where she served from 2005 to 2007. Anat Kam used her position and security clearance to attempt “civil disobedience”, but she was a soldier with responsibility to an elevated code of conduct.

With questionable intentions Anat Kam proceeded to pass stolen documents in her possession to Haaretz journalist, Uri Blau. Anat Kam made a choice based on ideology and she must learn, like any ideologue: there is a price extracted, for our convictions and for our actions. If a person violates the social contract often there is a price: fare is fair.

Unfortunately, each week hundreds of Israelis suspected of committing crimes are given a prison uniform, a cold steel cot, and jailhouse food. Some of these people awaiting trial are found guilty of the charges rendered, some are vindicated, but all are subject to the same due process as prescribed by law.

So why has Judge Ayala Procaccia, against the request by state prosecutors, refused to incarcerate Anat Kam? Why does Anat Kam remain under house arrest, a lead criminal suspect in one of the most serious espionage cases in Israel in the past 50 years?

Maybe Judge Ayala Procaccia has ideological sentiments similar to Anat Kam?

Abuse, Insults, Prison, and Freedom

In the appropriate context and in the proper setting civil disobedience can be a powerful tool of expression and momentum for change.

In mid-May 2005, Chaya Belogorodsky, attended a demonstration against expelling Jews from their Gaza communities and livelihoods and the violation of Jewish rights. Police soon arrested Chaya and twenty other demonstrators. Chaya and others were held overnight and released the next day charged with blocking traffic and disobeying the orders of police to disburse.

A month later Chaya joined friends for another demonstration during which her friends went to block roads. Chaya, due to her previous arrest, limited herself to observing the protest from the sidewalk. When a policewoman approached and ordered her to disperse Chaya argued her rights to support the demonstration from afar. After a brief exchange Chaya was arrested once again.

The charge against Chaya was “insulting a public official". The first five days she spent in solitary confinement. Chaya had no access to bathing facilities, no clean clothes, no call to her parents or, for that matter, a lawyer.

The court decided to remand Chaya until the end of the proceedings due to her “ideologically motivated” actions. Chaya’s parents pleaded her release to their custody and house arrest. The court responded by suggesting the parent’s were ‘irresponsible and unfit’. The Belogorodsky’s then appealed to the Tel Aviv Juvenile Court which emphatically responded that three-quarters of the country could be arrested based on “ideologically motivated” actions. The court ordered her released but was delayed by a prosecutor’s appeal.

When Supreme Court Justice Ayala Proccacia, received the case she ignored the order of the Tel Aviv Juvenile Court and demanded Chaya remain in jail. During the proceedings she accused the Belogorodsky’s of using their child as a pawn and referred to Chaya as “dangerous” and “ideologically committed to her cause” as reasons for her imprisonment. After public and political pressure Chaya was finally released after spending forty days in jail. She was fourteen years old.

Moshe Belogorodsky elaborates: “I am disappointed, more for my children than myself; I am bitter and hurt as a father raising them to do their best and be honest…and the country, the government, the corrupt destroy them[the children] in the process.”

The Israeli court system and the police do not see justice, or mercy, as the responsibility of the government to provide for the community and the individual as per the social contract. The utilization of justice is to propel the validity of a particular perspective or to intimidate opponents of a political agenda. This has become perfectly acceptable within court chambers and within public opinion. This must end.

In June of 2006 seven members of an Arab family were killed on a Gaza beach. An IDF spokesperson responded swiftly that the deaths were not caused by Israel Defense Forces. Dana Olmert(the former Prime Minister’s daughter) organized a demonstration.

Dana and company implicated the Israel Defense Forces in heavy-handed actions and arrived at the home of then Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, chanting slogans such as: "Beware! Murderer in the neighborhood!" and brandishing signs including: "Halutz is a murderer, intifada shall prevail!"

Dana was never interrupted nor threatened with arrest for "insulting a public official". Not one of thirty some-odd police at the scene made any attempt to curtail or stifle Dana and her supporters. Never was Dana denied her right of spewing venomous hatred and vile insinuations at a public official. I am not sure Chief of Staff Halutz was insulted, but did anyone bother to ask? Is Dana Olmert any less a “danger”, less “ideologically motivated” or less “ideologically committed to her cause” than fourteen year-old Chaya Belogorodsky?

Is it the very ideology to which she is committed that precludes her from arrest or incarceration?

Responsibility: Punitive and Preventive

As per the concept of the social contract society has a responsibility to individuals whom agree to a simultaneous protection and restriction of rights to implement punitive measures for wrong, but also preventive measures to anticipate and pre-empt such action.

Punitive measures include an appropriate punishment after an action, in breach of law, has been committed. Preventive measures anticipate tendencies, prior to breach of rule or law.

Education can help to produce an award-winning physicist, a suicide bomber, or a person seeking to undermine the institutions that order our society. Responsible education can assist an individual in gaining greater awareness of the decision-making process and serve as a critical medium in understanding the responsibility of choices and consequences of wayward action. Our youth must better understand the danger of radical thought or action on either end of the political or ideological spectrum.

For far too long the radical ideology shared by Judge Ayala Procaccia, rewarding the pre-meditated actions of Anat Kam and imprisoning conscientious objector Chaya Belogorodsky, of ignoring the incitement and slander by Dana Olmert, while charging Chaya Belogorodsky with “insulting a public official” has infiltrated our public educational system, our universities, the undiscerning and oft-irresponsible media, and even our Supreme Court. This radical ideology has gained cultural and legal “permission” to operate with impunity while being a catalyst for serious insubordination. With urgency, Israel requires a drastically improved system of checks-and-balances in our courts, the selection and promotion of judges, and defined boundaries of influence of Israel’s Supreme Court. The dispensation of justice without mercy, or mercy without justice, does strengthen our society, but rather, confuses us.

Ha’aretz, Blau, Kam and Crime

Ha’aretz is not abdicated of responsibility in utilizing stolen documents to reveal classified information. This action is neither a moral responsibility, nor victory, nor a “search for truth”. The proper obligation: refuse the sources, and the story, and report the incident to appropriate authorities-- to save lives. Ha’aretz represents an entity “ideologically motivated” and exponentially more powerful, and more dangerous, than Chaya Belogorodsky. Ha’aretz editors, with defiance and audacity, without reticence, have revealed not only their ideological, but continued financial support, for someone sought in a criminal investigation!

Why have the owners and editors of Ha’aretz not been charged with any crime?

Who is a greater threat due to “ideological motivation” or “commitment to ideological cause”: Chaya Belogorodsky or Uri Blau? Who greater challenges the basic code of conduct of our social contract: the civil disobedience of Chaya Belogorodsky or the flagrant disregard for national security by the editors and owners of Ha’aretz?

We Watch and Wait

The distorted and manipulative application of law, according to personal ideology, by Judge Ayala Procaccia is dangerous. The repression of the ideological opposition requires further investigation and serious reforms at judicial oversight.

Today, the world waits and watches. How many Anat Kam-wanna-be’s, potential ideological “superstars” with dreams of future book deals and celebrity-like spotlights wish to have their names etched in infamy across worldwide blogs, syndicated columns, and television news reels? Many young and impressionable peoples wait to see the treatment afforded Anat Kam: is she lauded as hero and royalty or does she face serious imprisonment and consequences? How many will be looking to this case for direction and discretion? How many Dana Olmerts will be continuously afforded rights beyond those of other citizens? How many Chaya Belogorodsky’s will be incarcerated, abused, and denigrated?

There is extreme danger in the hostile ideological manipulation of our education system, our media, and our social contract. Anat Kam, Uri Blau, Ha’aretz, and Judge Ayala Procaccia are rogues acting for self-interest with the aid of powerful allies. There remain appropriate vehicles and venues for the expression of ideologies, within the law, even outside of the law, that do not put the lives of the greater community at inevitable grave risk. Civil disobedience, voting, creation of non-governmental organizations, letters to the editor, movies, art, rallies, petitions, running for office, and boycotts are just several acceptable means to express or oppose an ideology.

Freedom and Independence

As we celebrate the State of Israel’s 62^nd year of modern-national independence we remember those who perished prior to realizing the dream, those who fought for freedom and lived, and those who fought for freedom and died.

Freedom exists in the nullifying of one’s own interest, even with respect to independent or personal perspective, for the welfare of others. In the context of our nationhood such selfless action secures order, survival, and growth. Even as an individual, independence means action, or refraining from action, with a responsibility to the many.

Anat Kam, Uri Blau, Dana Olmert, Ha’aretz, and Judge Procaccia do not act for the greater good of our community nor do they strengthen our social contract, rather they act independently, and selfishly, to undermine our community and our safety. They have violated our sense of order and justice and fomented doubt and uncertainty within the institutions of the media, the military, and the judiciary.

As this saga continues to unfold, it has revealed the following manipulations of freedom, power, trust, and purpose:

Anat Kam was "ideologically motivated” to illegally record and disseminate classified information.

Uri Blau was “ideologically motivated” to report classified and stolen information.

The editors and owners of Ha’aretz were “ideologically motivated” to publish classified and stolen information and to provide(continued) financial support to a fugitive.

Judge Ayala Pocaccia, as per public record, was “ideologically motivated” in her abuse of Chaya Belogorodsky.

In nine years Honenu has assisted more than fourteen-thousand Jews involved in such misguided prosecution by the State of Israel against such families as the Belogorodsky’s. Honenu helps all Jews regardless of political or religious affiliation.. www.honenu.org.il

Each Jew must know that they are not alone.