That's the number of jumps needed to go from any individual to any individual anywhere: mathematically, any one of us can reach anyone else by going through no more than six acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances. Say I wish to reach some Argentinian cowboy in the Pampas: I write to Fake-Ibrahim, and he turns to a radical-lefty at the university of cowboys, and we've still got four jumps which will probably be two or three more than necessary.
Israel being the very small place it is, by late evening yesterday I had found a connection to Anat Kamm, which turned out to be very easy and required only two intermediaries, and neither of them were remotely as far-fetched as the above example. It's a solid path.
The acquaintance of my acquaintance, who has known Kamm for a number of years, insists she's an unintelligent person who thought she could leverage secret documents into a step on the ladder of journalism, perhaps by proving her investigative abilities.
This doesn't exonerate her of anything, but it does make some of the others in the story, first and foremost Haaretz, into greater culprits. I'm not going to take this further at the moment, as I need the time to read Haaretz of today, but I expect I'll do another round-up tomorrow or the next day - so feel free to stay away if you're bored by the story.
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7 comments:
The leftie handwringer in me feels sorry for her already. Stupid girl, she's thrown her future away for nothing. Some pretty nasty vitriol being sent her way in various blogs & newspaper comment sections, a reminder that the far right are just as bad as the far left. What do you do with people like her? They're like Peter Pan, they never grow up.
Gavin
Gavin, I'm a lefty, of a kind, but I don't believe Yaacov said she was retarded. She gets no sympathy from me whatsoever.
"The acquaintance of my acquaintance, who has known Kamm for a number of years, insists she's an unintelligent person who thought she could leverage secret documents into a step on the ladder of journalism, perhaps by proving her investigative abilities."
As I suspected (and commented). Even worse is that Blau realized he could take a "tramp" on her naivete in the hope of advancing his own career.
Its shocking to think we have two Israelis who hoped to advance their careers by betraying their country (and Blau even tries to make it sound as if he's performing a noble service in his article in Ha'aretz". In many ways, I think this makes them worse than some of Israel's previous woirst - Usi Adiv, Vannunu, etc.
I hope that Israel prosecutes Kamm to the full extent possible 15 or 20 years in prison - and if they catch up with Blau, the same. On Israel T tonight someone pointed out that he may now be a target for Iran, hamas and Hizbollah, who would love to get hold of the documents he is still hiding - he may realize he is safer in the hands of the Shin bet than those of the Iranian Secret Police.
She'll be a patsy A. Jay, they always are. Someone like that Haaretx journalist will have pimped her into it, she was too stupid & idealistic to realise she was being used. So yeah, I can spare some sympathy for people like that... after they've been nobbled. She'll get a prison sentence, waste 10-15yrs of her lif, and for what... so a user journalist could make a name for himself.
If, on the other hand, I read that someone gave said journalist a good kicking I'd be hard pressed to generate any synmpathy.
Cheers, Gavin
AKUS wrote:
"Its shocking to think we have two Israelis who hoped to advance their careers by betraying their country (and Blau even tries to make it sound as if he's performing a noble service"
Why shocking? You think ALL the Israeli academics who make a name for themselves in the English-speaking media by calling to boycott their own universities don't have their careers in mind? It is well known today that in British universities, some American universities, and entire departments in Israeli universities, you have (at least) to bash Israel and make yourself known as a radical leftist in order to get a position or even just an invitation. In Israel, in certain fields, one can be faced with the choice of either living a lie or abndoning one's dreams. Between someone who wrote hisa dissertation under #Edward Said, and another who wrote his under Bernard Lewis, which one of the two would get the job say, at Tel Aviv Univerty's History department? Merit has nothing to do with it.
So, in a sense, yes, Anat Kamm could be viewed as a victim of the system if indeed her ambition was to be a journalist (or an academic-she was a history student) in a major newspaper particularly if she wanted to end up working for "Haaretz".
if I think of myself at her age I'd guess any "Romeo" whether mentor or lover could have coaxed me into anything convincing me that it were noble.
that said should I have had to pay a very steep price for it? Of Course - should the "Romeo" pay one? of course but his misdeeds shouldn't diminish hers - she is a fully rsponsible adult and now is the time for her to live up to that.
Silke
PS: in case "Romeo" isn't internationally known - that's the nickname of the men who were sent from East-Germany to "cultivate" clerking maidens in Bonn
and another PS: Michael Totten has a piece on the Revolutionary Guards - very well worth a very frightening read http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/04/our-man-inside-irans-revolutionary-guards.php
for Sergio:
Totten also posts the English version of an essay by Pascal Bruckner which created quite a stir when it came out about 2 years ago when the "enlightenment fundamentalist" debate got kicked off
BBC Start The Week of March 22, 2010 goes talkwise into overdrive enthusiasm about a journalist who evaded censorship to tell the truth about a campaign back then somewhere he reported on
In the light of the Kam-story I realize that whenever we hear reports of scoops like that, the ambivalence of something like that is never ever even hinted at and if it is then only as examples of over-scrupulousness and lack of daring but we do get a lot of brimming with enthusiasm for their brave colleagues pundits ... Yeah they went for it, heroes, heroes, heroes
- that said I don't doubt that some of their daring exposures really turned out to be beneficial but I think it would be only reasonable if we would be told that there is some serious thinking to be done and that those journalists quite often erred at least a little bit on the side of treason.
Silke
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