I have been pondering – probably
more than is wise – what happened yesterday, when I lost control of my
computer for an hour shortly after I had contacted the Israeli prime
minister’s spokesman for a comment from the Shin Bet. I was working on a
story about the various ways the Shin Bet seeks to exert pressure on
Palestinians to recruit them as collaborators. For details of what
happened, you can read about it here.
Several people have pointed
out, following my post last night, that we should all assume that we
are being watched all the time, and especially people like journalists.
Much as I would be secretly flattered to think that I have my own
dedicated Shin Bet agent analysing my every keystroke, as I laboriously
tap out my stories, I am realist enough to know that is a little
unlikely. Even the Shin Bet must have worked out by now that it is
simpler to wait a day or two to read the posts on my website. The Shin
Bet has limited resources, and I and people like me are still a marginal
problem (though maybe not for much longer).
The thing that has puzzled
me most is the brazen manner in which this was done, while I was looking
on trying to regain control of my computer. No effort was made to hide
the hack. I and several other readers have speculated that I should
interpret this behaviour as a warning, or threat. As I explained
yesterday, one of the Shin Bet’s main goals in recruiting collaborators
is, in addition to gathering information, to sow fear and doubt, to
isolate people and dissuade them from working together – in the
Palestinian case, on resistance to the occupation.
Nonetheless, I don’t find
this explanation entirely satisfying either. I can’t believe that the
Shin Bet are so naive as to think that showing me they can watch me
whenever they choose will force me to pack up my journalistic bags and
take up another career, or tone down my reporting. After all, this is
all I know how to do.
So what happened last night?
As I was trying to clear my
mind to fall asleep, the penny dropped. In recounting the events
yesterday, I overlooked an important element. Shortly after I emailed
David Baker, one of the prime minister’s spokesmen, with my question for
the Shin Bet, he emailed back. This is what he wrote:
Jonathan, Please send me the names of those who asked for the permits and I will try to get you a response from the relevant authority.
Now, at the time I thought
this a ludicrous request. What journalist is going to hand over a list
of Palestinians who have complained to human rights lawyers that they
were pressured into collaborating after requesting permits for emergency
medical treatment? I ignored it and asked Baker just to get a response
to my general question about whether such techniques were used. Now I
consider his response both a little more sinister than I assumed and
also the clue as to what happened.
First for the sinister.
There’s a famous saying: to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
The Shin Bet’s main operational tool is collecting intelligence,
including human intelligence (i.e. collaborators, in all their various
guises). So I suspect that when they received my mail their first
institutional reflex was to try to ensnare me, clumsily, into
collaborating, whether inadvertently or not. When I refused to take the
bait, they started thinking along different lines.
I am guessing that when my
request came through, the assumption with some mid-level Shin Bet
officer was that I would have on my computer either my notes from
conversations with Palestinians complaining about the Shin Bet, or a
list from human rights groups of such Palestinians. Remember that the
effort to recruit collaborators is a violation of the Geneva
Conventions. In short, it’s a war crime. So I think we can safely assume
that the Shin Bet is understandably a little sensitive about this
aspect of their operations.
I am also guessing that
they were concerned I might start to worry and delete the information
from my computer. Time was of the essence: hack my computer quickly and
download whatever was on the hard drive for leisurely analysis. In
essence, what happened was the equivalent of the journalist or gumshoe
who returns home to find his apartment ransacked by the security
services. The only difference was that in virtual-world they can ransack
your computer while you stand there helplessly watching them do it.
I recount the above in this
much detail because one of the things that I find so irritating about
the Israeli documentary The Gatekeepers, and the general acclamation of
it, is the impression it has created among more naive viewers, including
most reviewers, that the Shin Bet’s recent heads have been sensitive
and liberal-minded individuals caught in an impossibly difficult
situation. That’s like thinking Mafia godfathers are really just nice
guys working in a tough world.
The Shin Bet is run by
people who have the minds of thugs, clever thugs, but thugs nonetheless.
If that has always been true, it is all the more so now. The Haaretz
newspaper recently revealed that three of the four top posts in the Shin
Bet are currently occupied by people who describe themselves as
national-religious – that is, the ideology of the extremist settlers.
That too might help to
explain the arrogance of ransacking my computer while I looked on. If
they do that to a journalist who has at least the odd feeble tool (like
this blog) to fight back, what are they doing to desperate, vulnerable
Palestinians who need permits to get emergency medical treatment outside
Gaza? I think we know the answer.
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ReplyDeleteWhen a PEOPLE can be made to decide in their head/brain/mind, to be SEPARATE from PEOPLE that the EARTH decides is 'power of spirit of nature', then we get a State such as I$ RA HELL.
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