By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–Israel returned from its Passover vacation, and unburdened itself of several files awaiting release from one official body or another.
The scandal of the Holyland apartment development gained more weight with the detainment of another real estate mogul, said to have bribed local planning officials with respect to that project, and officials of the Israel Lands Authority with respect to a project elsewhere. Like every other participant in the Holyland affair, he has been identified as a close associate of Ehud Olmert.
Where is Ehud?
Still overseas. The judges have suspended his trial on other offenses while officials sort out his involvement in these matters.
He is currently in Spain, protected by a diplomatic visa arranged by the Foreign Ministry that will keep him from being arrested on charges of war crimes. In Israel, a former prime minister has no immunity from arrest. He still has a bodyguard, but that person works for one of the security agencies, and is unlikely to offer protection from another law officer.
Holyland took second place behind a young woman, a former draftee who served as a clerk with high security clearance. She downloaded a couple of thousand sensitive documents, and gave them to a journalist who wrote up some of the details for Ha’aretz. Both the young woman and the journalist may have thought they were doing good by revealing a lack of justice in the actions of the IDF, but she has been charged with a security crime that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The journalist is somewhere in Britain, still on the payroll of Ha’aretz, but not returning home for the time being. He is said to have violated an agreement made with the security forces to return the material supplied to him in exchange for freedom from prosecution. One side says he returned only some of the material. The newspaper says he returned all that was important, and is standing on the side of journalistic privilege and the greater injustice of the IDF.
The journalist may be thinking of Mordecai Vanunu, who turned against Israeli policy (and Judaism) while working as a technician in the Dimona nuclear facility, photographed the workplace, and sold the pictures to overseas newspapers. Security personnel kidnapped him, brought him home to face 18 years in prison and a continued denial of permission to speak with journalists or to leave the country.
Israel may be sloppy in what it does, tolerant of extreme criticism, casual with respect to the implementation of its laws, and often seems passive in the face of violence. Yet when someone violates vaguely defined “red lines,” the response can be severe. The young innocent who stole classified documents may pay a heavy price, despite the claims of friends and mother about her idealism. The residents of Gaza suffered from a military onslaught and still from a blockade, which came after seven years of wondering if Israel would respond forcefully to rocket attacks on its civilians.
It’s a lesson that the American White House might ponder. Is it a good idea to be so flexible about the nuclear program of a country whose leader has threatened Israel’s destruction?
Another scandal would be front and center if it was not for the competition. A military hero from the Yom Kippur war is charged with the illegal purchase and sale of human organs. Among the juicier features of this story are reports that poor individuals offered considerable sums for their organs actually received only a small portion of what they were promised.
We are on the verge of Holocaust Remembrance Day. It may give us some quiet from current events, but items in the media will not be joyful.
Varda will light candles for her grandmother and uncle.
She spent her childhood hoping for news of them on a daily radio program that sought to reunite individuals separated by war and migration. Later she contacted the tracing service of the Netherlands Red Cross, and received the dates and places of their killing.
My American friends occasionally tell me they know a Holocaust survivor.
I know few Israelis of European backgrounds who are not Holocaust survivors, or the children, grandchildren, or greatgrandchildren of Holocaust survivors. And few Israelis of Middle Eastern backgrounds without family stories of persecution and being forced out of places they had lived for a thousand years or more.
Past suffering is not useful as a blanket excuse for actions that are controversial, but is essential for understanding. Mix fear of powerful others with the Biblical notion of Chosen People, plus the norms of the prophets and 2,500 years of commentary, and you may begin to comprehend the Israeli mystery.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.