Four Jewish Journalists Convicted of Link with Terror Organization

Four editors of a left-wing periodical were found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization by a Jerusalem district court Wednesday.

They received relatively light sentences as a result of plea bargains, avoiding a prolonged trial that would have tested the limits of a free press in a democratic society.

The defendants edited Derekh Hanitzotz, a Hebrew publication the prosecution said was financed by the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Nayef Hawatmeh.

The magazine was ordered shut down last April on grounds that it was “receiving funds from terror organization.”

Its editors were arrested shortly afterward.

They are Ya’acov Ben-Efrat, editor in chief, who received a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence and a four-year suspended sentence; editors Michal Schwartz and Assaf Adiv, who each received one and a half years in prison and three year suspended sentence; and Ronni Ben-Efrat, former wife of Ya’acov Ben-Efrat, who got a nine-month sentence.

She will be released immediately, having already spent nine months in custody.

All four admitted to membership in the Democratic Front and providing service to “an illegal organization.”

The defense and prosecution agreed to reduced sentences instead of a trial that might have lasted many months, because each side planned to call dozens of witnesses.

Defense attorney Felicia Langer said, however, she had no choice, because her clients were sitting in jail and denied bail.

In related news, the controversial issue of contacts between Israeli citizens and representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization was debated Wednesday in the Knesset.

The subject on the agenda was the recent visit to Paris by four Knesset members to attend an international conference that the PLO also attended.

Israeli law forbids contacts with the PLO. Rabbi Yitzhak Levy, a Knesset member of the National Religious Party, accused his four colleagues of conducting their own foreign policy contrary to the law, the government’s position and the will of the majority of Israelis.

But Yossi Sarid of the Citizens Rights Movement called the restrictive law “null and void.”

Yair Tsaban of Mapam, who attended the Paris conference, said it “would never pass the test of reality.” He noted that “PLO missions are regularly accepted by international forums.”

Levy, however, insisted that individuals cannot decide “what is a legal law and what is an illegal law.” He said that is up to the High Court of Justice.