There are two aspects to analyzing Anat Kamm's sentencing following her leaking of secret information to Ha'aretz reporter Uri Blau. One aspect is the professional (the media) and the other aspect concerns the content. It is a newspaper's role to protect its sources of information. This is an established rule in a democracy that is effective when there is proper balance between the government's ability to protect its secrets, and media leaks that reveal the government's maliciousness or its mistakes. Within this friction, which is desirable in a democracy, journalists have to be loyal to their sources. In former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir's book, "Eyes Wide Open," he says that Golda Meir agreed to testify before the Agranat Commission [National inquiry set up to investigate why the IDF was caught off guard in the Yom Kippur War] about her meeting with King Hussein of Jordan before the war in 1973. She agreed to do so, however, only after she was guaranteed that the things she revealed would be kept secret because she had promised the King that he would not be discovered as her source of information. The Commission agreed and even 18 years after the war, Judge Shimon Agranat denied that he knew about the Meir-Hussein meeting. He did this only because he had promised Golda that he would conceal the information. State prosecutor Eran Shendar announced that he would throw out the lawsuit against one of the country's top prosecutors, Liora Glatt-Berkowitz, who had leaked a document from an investigation against then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, if Glatt-Berkowitz was forced to publicly reveal her source, "Nesher," (Eagle) who had provided the evidence. Agranat and Shendar granted the appropriate confidentiality to their sources. In the Anat Kamm's case, Ha'aretz's protection for the latter's source of information definitely failed the test. However serious the media failed in this issue, there is still a more important issue. Kamm disregarded the law and passed state secrets to a journalist. The court strongly condemned her both for her actions and her motives. This is as it should be, even though the punishment she was given was light when compared with the wording of the verdict. Journalists possess classified documents, and a democracy does not put them on trial because it understands the need for this tension between the government and the media. At the same time, the government tries to capture those within it who leak information, breaching their obligations of loyalty and blurring the lines. It is not so nice, but it is understandable that there is a sense of a double standard. When Brig. Gen. (res.) Itzhak Yaakov [who once oversaw weapons development for the IDF] hinted at a problematic event in the draft of his book, which he distributed to a certain inner circle before it was approved by the military censor, he was prosecuted as well. This is also understandable. But at the time of that incident, the head of the investigation, Yehiel Horev [in charge of field security for the defense establishment], also had information about other senior officials who had leaked information, and no one said a word. It is one thing that Anat Kamm was caught and punished. But what about the anonymous former senior officials who are waging a campaign against Israeli actions with respect to Iran, based on information they obtained within their official capacities when they still worked for the government? This comparison purifies Kamm, who did something seriously negligent and perhaps deserved a harsher punishment. But she does put certain things into perspective within other contexts.
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