Kamangir (Archer)

Reader's Comments

1. Carlos | December 20th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

   I posted this case in my blog.Good job.

2. Roman Kalik | December 20th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

   I wouldn’t make more of this than it really is. While I support Lisa in this case, she’s unlikely to require my support. The law that was used against her is rarely applied, if ever, but the problem with such laws is that they present a loophole to those wishing to misuse them, and in this case (as I suspected even before this article was published) some ranking idiot with an agenda filed an official complaint, and it’s not easy for the police to ignore such complaints once made.

   So yes, Lisa is under investigation. It’s annoying, it’s unjustified, but it’s not the great big hoo-hah that some want to make of it. This isn’t about preventing reporters from doing their job, or about political bias and manipulation. This is, if anything, little more than the kind of mess that can happen when the legal and government bureaucratic system aren’t built as well as they should be. Lisa won’t be prosecuted, because there’s no real case. The vast majority of Israeli judges would just drop such a case within minutes. Though I wouldn’t so easily discard the argument that Lisa could have been captured by Hezbollah while in Lebanon. That Sharon guy wasn’t at risk (he was arrested by the actual police, not Hezb), and was little more than an eccentric weirdo (not that it stopped Hezb from calling him a spy). But reactions in Lebanon after Lisa’s visit went public were much worse. If the Sharon kid was a maybe, Lisa’s case could easily be marketed as spying and humiliation (Hezb claimed that Lebanese security was lax if someone like Lisa could enter, thus bashing the elected government there yet again). Hezb was screaming about Lisa’s case, and had she been caught by them, Israel would have had to barter for her (unless the state could manage to let Canada handle it, much in the same way as it did with Sharon and Germany). The problem with signing a waiver of the kind Lisa mentioned in the article is that it’s purely a psychological ploy. The state would have to get her out anyway should she be apprehended, and anyone else in a similar situation, because the people in this country wouldn’t stand for leaving someone behind. I just wish that we could leave that blasted drug dealer behind though, instead of stripping him of his rank and decorations after the act. With *him*, I daresay that there was a good case that the state would have said “screw him” if not for what he could have revealed…
   But regardless, Lisa won’t be seeing the inside of an Israeli jail for this one.

3. leo | December 21st, 2007 at 10:26 am

   I remember Lebanese blogs at that time unfavorably going on about Lisa Goldman’s visit to Lebanon. But I hoped Israel would be smarter. Fat chance.

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