Hagai Amir, accomplice in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was released in May after serving 16 years in jail. He discusses with +972 Magazine his pride in the assassin, his brother Yigal; his contacts with Hamas representatives in prison; his views on a binational state; and more.  My connection with Hagai Amir began in late July when I attempted to befriend him on Facebook. I wrote in this post about my deliberations over connecting with someone who had committed such a crime. A few days later, Amir accepted my request. Along with other people from the left, including mainstream media…

King Bibi, as TIME Magazine recently crowned him, the fiercest Zionist to ever lead Israel, will go down in history as the one who brought Zionism to its knees   TIME Magazine published a lengthy item on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, with a close-up photo of him on the cover so huge it left just enough room for the headline: “King Bibi.” It was a Hasbara official’s wet dream. No hard-hitting questions; but rather soft, caressing queries. As the cover said, the feature claimed to ask, yet not answer, the question of “Will Bibi make peace?” Well, for…

A comment on my last post refers to the much-quoted Al Jarida story about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to order an internal security service investigation that would trace the source whose leaks to the Yedioth Ahronoth daily started the public debate regarding a possible attack on Iran. How a Kuwait-based paper got a world scoop from the Israeli PM office is a different (and very interesting) story, but I would like to make a couple of remarks on the issue itself: First, Netanyahu is obviously playing a double game: he has been speaking of the need to deal with…

In the spring of 2010, it emerged that a young journalist had been under house arrest for several months for leaking documents that led to the publication of an investigative report on IDF misconduct. Thanks to an unprecedented media blackout, the case made headlines around the world. Anat Kamm is serving a  four and a half-year prison sentence. Uri Blau, the journalist behind the report, will stand trial. This is how the case unfolded. December 14, 2006 The High Court of Justice rejects a petition against the IDF practice of targeted killings of wanted militants. However, the ruling - former…

Jawahar Abu-Rahmah of Bil'in was rushed to Ramallah hospital last Friday during an unarmed protest against the fence in her village. She passed away Saturday morning.  Her death gained relatively  wide publicity, and the IDF scramble to  pushing its own version of the story, first claiming that Abu-Rahamh took part in a violent riot, and later saying she wasn't even there, and the whole thing was a Palestinian hoax. As it happens, I was in Bil'in on Friday, so I got the opportunity to compare the IDF's version with what I saw with my own eyes, and with what I…

Matan Cohen was informed he is classified as 'a suspect of hostile terrorist activity'; he was released after three hours Israeli activist Matan Cohen was detained by Israel's internal security agency (ISA, or 'Shabak' in Hebrew) at Israel's international airport yesterday. According to Cohen, his belongings were searched, and he was informed by a policeman that he is considered "a suspect of hostile terrorist activity." (מוחשד פח"ע) Cohen, 22, lost his sight in one eye five years ago after being shot by soldiers in an unarmed demonstration against the Separation Wall. He is active in the BDS movement and was…

Another activist received an invitation to a meeting with Shabak. After refusing, he was warned that it would be in his best interest to come Yesterday, I reported here on two members of the leftwing group Anarchists against the Wall that were invited to a meetings with a Shabak (Israel's internal security agency) operator calling herself "Rona". Apparently, this was the same person who conducted a political interrogation of former IDF pilot Yonatan Shapira a few months ago. Today (Tuesday), a third activist received a phone call from "Rona", asking him to report to a meeting with her. The activist…

The prosecution in Anat Kamm's trail admitted today that the Shabak (Israel's internal security service, formally known as Shin Beit), ignored the agreement it signed with Haaretz reporter Uri Blau in order to expose the source for a story he published. In a research article published two years ago in Haaretz, Blau reveled that senior Israeli generals, including chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, knowingly violated Supreme Court rulings by ordering the assassination of Palestinians militants even when they didn't pose an immediate threat or when it was possible to capture them alive. After the story was published, the army began…

The following is my English translation of Yossi Gurvitz’s latest post about the Shabak, the interrogation process, and the dying Israeli legal system. Haaretz has just published an article about the trials cited by Yossi here. (Joseph Dana) Small Jail Cell, Lonely, and Freezing I asked myself a couple of days ago about the working  methods of the Jewish units in the Shabak according to Haim Pearlman story. The Shabak arrested him and did not allow him to meet with a lawyer. The reason, briefly, why the Shabak did not allow him access to a lawyer was because he was between the ages…

Former Israeli air force pilot and conscientious objector Yonatan Shapira was summoned today to "a friendly talk" with the Shabak (formally known as "Shin Beit", Israel's internal security agency). This is Yonatan's account of the event, as posted on Facebook: Yesterday Rona from the Shabak called me and asked me to come talk to meet her in the police station on Dizengof st. (Tel Aviv). She refused to tell me what was it about, but made it clear I wasn't going to be arrested, and that this is just an acquaintance or "a friendly talk"… At five o'clock I got…