Sunday, April 11, 2010

Kafka Lives

I dealt with the 'quality' of justice meted out to occupied Palestinians in 'the Middle East's only democracy' in a 21/7/08 post The 'Motiveless Malignancy' of Samir Quntar. In that post I cited a 2006 report by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, which showed that in Israeli military courts Palestinian defendants received near (97.7%) automatic convictions, 95% in plea bargains.

A further insight into such Kafkaesque matters emerged in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald in the case of Israeli whistleblower, Anat Kam, charged with espionage over the release of classified documents relating to the IOF's policy of 'targeted' assassinations of Palestinian suspects: "'This [case] gives us a rare peek into what is a daily reality in security affairs, most of which pertain, naturally enough, to Arabs: a request by the security establishment is given almost no serious discussion', said an Israeli analyst, Ofer Shelah. He added, 'The magic words 'GSS' [General Security Services] and 'state security' are enough for the judge to say Amen'." (Israeli reporter 'stole' 2200 secret files, Jason Koutsoukis)

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