Even Fox News’ Shepard Smith is disturbed by the Israeli crackdown on Haaretz for publishing an expose of killings of West Bank leaders. Judith Miller says of Haaretz’s presumed source, Anat Kamm, who is thought to have had access to military documents: "She may have done a very, very bad thing." But Shep Smith:
"This is very Fidel Castro, how does this happen in Israel?… We are broadcasting right now into Israel…we’re one of the highest-rated programs in Israel.. What is going on over there? This is the same government that chooses to announce settlements, against which the US was very firm… Now they’re censoring journalists? I don’t understand this…
"I’m guessing you’re getting hate mail? Because any time you say one single word that isn’t ‘we love you Israel’, you’re an anti-Semite. Which is disgusting."
Miller: "I’m expressing the views that a lot of Israelis are expressing." As Max Blumenthal wrote last night of Kamm, "She is a whisteblower in the tradition of Mark Felt and Daniel Ellsberg. In Netanyahu’s Israel, however, she is being treated as an enemy of the state."
Smart. I think the case bears comparison to the wikileaks scoop of the U.S. military video from Baghdad showing American Apaches killing several Iraqis, including a Reuters cameraman. Is anyone trying to prosecute the leaker, let alone the reporter? Blumenthal is right to point the finger at the character of Israeli society today.
