Top Secret Disc of Anat Kam is Lost

Anat KammPic: Anat Kam

The Tel Aviv District Court has allowed more details on the Anat Kam issue to be released on Monday. Kam is facing espionage charges for copying approximately 2000 classified military documents while she served in the IDF, and then transferring them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau.

Among the details published is that one of the discs burnt by Kam has gone missing and no one knows where it is. The Shin Bet's attempts to locate the missing disc have come up with nothing.

Justice Ze’ev Hammer who presided over the Kam hearings addressed the security failures at the GOC Central Command chief’s office and was quoted as saying that he was “shocked to learn of these incomprehensible failures and negligent data protection (protocols)”.

Hammer allowed the publication of the protocol of Kam’s interrogations by the Shin Bet. During the interrogations Kam justified her actions by saying: “There were some aspects of the IDF's operational procedures in the West Bank that I felt should be public knowledge. I couldn't make a big enough difference during my service. I thought exposing (procedures) would bring about a change… When I was burning the CDs I kept thinking that history tends to forgive people who expose war crimes.”

Hammer added that he found it astonishing that Kam was given access to classified information and addressed the fact that Kam disregarded security protocols, “As evident by the fact that she has apparently misplaced one of the CDs, and who knows where it is now. She also admitted to knowing that (Israeli) journalists often bypass the Censor's orders by leaking stories to the foreign media.”

Earlier it was published that Kam’s lawyers, Avigdor Feldman and Eitan Lehman had announced on Sunday that they were giving up on her immunity. They added that while they appreciate Uri Blau’s efforts to conceal Kam’s name as the person who leaked the documents to him, this is no longer required since Kam has admitted to stealing the documents.

Contacts are still being made between the Shin Bet and Blau, in hopes that he will return to Israel and bring back with him the documents that are still in his possession. Kam’s lawyers believe that this would help Kam’s legal situation and assist in putting together a plea bargain. Blau is currently in London on assignment from Haaretz and had fled there after the investigation began. Efforts by the Shin Bet to reach an agreement with Blau have been unsuccessful so far.

Israel’s Ministry of Justice, meanwhile, rejected the claims by Haaretz that the issues presented by Blau in his article of November 2008, which was based on the documents Kam had leaked, were never investigated. The ministry forwarded a letter sent in January 2009 containing a detailed response by the office of then Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. The response indicated that there is no basis for the claim that IDF forces were operating illegally or in contravention of the Supreme Court ruling and that there was no place to open a criminal investigation in relation to the claims presented by Blau. The IDF said on Sunday that the claims raised in the Haaretz article were based on partial information and on non-understanding of the operational circumstances and limitations set by the Supreme Court ruling.

Researcher Jonathan Dahoah Halevi wrote an article dated April 11 which appeared on News1,in which he outlined the line of defense used by Kam’s lawyers that Kam did not intend to jeopardize Israel’s security, and that she is a Zionist who, even prior to this affair, published articles condemning those who refuse to enlist into the army.

Dahoah Halevi emphasizes in his article that Kam only ever wrote one article about the refusal to enlist. He raises the question of why Kam, who claimed more than once that she is an extreme leftist, chose to attack in her article Sahar Vardi, a fellow extreme leftist that refused to serve in the army for reasons of “conscience” and went as far as to go on an anti-Israel campaign abroad. Dahoah Halevi’s hypothesis is that Kam’s article was written as a means of forming an alibi for herself prior to Blau’s publishing of the sensitive documents she stole. After checking the timeline of events as they appear in the indictment, Dahoah Halevi concludes that Anat Kam's article was published at the same time as she was looking for a journalist to which to transfer the documents, and likely already after she transferred the documents to Blau.

“Anat Kam is not stupid,” writes Dahoah Halevi. “She won acclaim for being gifted and for her sharp thinking. It is likely that she figured that a series of articles based on ‘explosive’ documents from Central Command could specifically point a finger to her (as indeed her mother immediately suspected according to reports), especially in light of her being known as holding radical leftist positions.

“A logical explanation of the article against the refusal to enlist may be her trying to build an alibi immediately after handing over the documents in order to remove possible suspicions of her being the one who leaked the documents.”

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