Israel minister drafts law to arrest citizens who ‘harm national morale’
Israel Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has drafted regulations that would allow authorities to arrest taxpaying citizens and seize their property for “harming national morale,” Israeli media reported Sunday.
According to the regulations titled “Limiting Aid to the Enemy through Communication,” members of the public or media who disseminate information that "undermines the morale of Israel's soldiers and residents in the face of the enemy" or "serves as a basis for enemy propaganda, including the spreading of the enemy's propaganda messages" or "aids the enemy in its war against Israel, its residents, or Jews" will be guilty of a criminal offense.
Regardless of the information’s veracity, the communications minister will be authorized to order the arrest of the information source and seize equipment used to spread the information.
The proposed regulations, which were drafted after consultation with Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, come as 80% of Israelis reportedly blame the government for the October 7th attacks in which Muslim invaders massacred over 1,300 Israelis.
Security analysts are baffled by how the attackers were able to cross Israel’s heavily fortified border unimpeded and why it took Israel’s highly trained security forces over six hours to respond to calls for help. As we go to press no official investigations have been launched and IDF officials have said “now is not the time” to investigate what went wrong.
“In the 40 or more years that I’ve been following Israel one way or another, I’ve never seen this happen,” commented Trump-appointed former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. “I’ve never seen the border breached in this manner. Usually, even one person from Gaza gets close to the border, they’re intercepted and neutralized long before they can do anything. This is just something I’ve never seen before. It’s of course a large intelligence failure.”
Israeli officials have also not addressed how hours after the attack began and Israel’s forces had been alerted, the invaders were able to return the way they came, taking hostages on dirt bikes back to Gaza.
“It is almost inconceivable how they missed this,” said CIA counterterrorism veteran Marc Polymeropoulos.
Security experts are also stymied over how Israel’s intelligence network, which includes the feared Mossad and the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, could have been ignorant of the operation.
“I’m truly astonished for something of this magnitude to go down and for the Israelis to have no clue that this is about to happen. I’m just speechless,” said Senior Fellow Colin Clarke at the global security research tank Soufan Center. “They have had sources inside these Palestinian groups for years.”
“Israel has exquisite, world-class intelligence collection and analysis capabilities and would have a far better picture of what’s going on in its own backyard. This one falls squarely on the Israelis,” he added.
