Last Sunday I posted an article about Daniel Seaman, the current head of the Israeli Government Press Office. While looking for more information about Seaman, I found his page on Wikipedia. The information there was about somebody who is proud of his career in the military and "security" agencies, but there was a factual error and an incorrect attribution to me. I tried to correct both, but several times my corrections were deleted. In fact, my last attempt at correcting a factual error - that Seaman does not live in Jerusalem but in the illegal settlement of Gilo, which is built on land stolen from its Palestinian owners in the districts of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and later illegally annexed by Israel - was deleted 4 minutes after I had submitted it. Now, after several rounds of censorship, his CV at Wikipedia looks like that of the unassuming civil servant of any country.

Who wrote the previous, original, CV about Daniel Seaman, the one which remained posted on Wikipedia between July 17 and my attempts at correction plus the publication of my article during last weekend ? Did Seaman himself publish these compromising biographical details, or was he a victim of his government ? Does he need my help to defend him ? Whatever are the backgrounds of this, the information about him was published from a computer at the Israeli government, and it caused damage to his reputation: as head of the GPO he should know about the consequences of either what he himself writes, or know what is written about him by others in the Israeli government. This affair is witness to his incompetence, as the revelations about him in Wikipedia reveal that he, a high officer in the Israeli government, is a violator of international agreements which his government has signed, is a perpetrator of grave crimes against humanity. As a professional journalist, regardless of having been a victim of his crimes, I have the right and duty to enquire about what his government posted about him for everybody to read.

Regarding my colleagues I must ask:

How is it possible that I was the first one to notice that these compromising details about Seaman had been published without anybody even taking interest in this ?

Why did everybody continue dealing with a person who can be suspected of being involved in murders in several countries, in torture, and who is known to all foreign journalists working in Israel as irrational and unpleasant in the extreme, to say the least ?

All the problems between Seaman and the journalists come from Seaman being ignorant of the work of journalists. As somebody who has a career in the military and worse, he has followed his natural instincts to destroy everybody who was against his diktat. Due to this, he has caused immense damage to the image of Israel abroad, even beyond the damage which the daily atrocities of the settlers and the IDF cause.

Most of the information in Seaman's Wikipedia page comes from a computer which belongs to the Israeli government. This would be normal, but what is not normal about Seaman's Wikipedia entry, is that there are several very compromising statements about him, posted from the same address at the Israeli government, which were only deleted after I published my article and I tried to correct the errors I found and published my last article.

The compromising statements posted from Israel are (quoted from Wikipedia)

1. "During his years in the USA he headed a Mossad hit squad that operated in Europe" (which is the subject of my last article).
2. "He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces serving in an elite paratroop unit in 1979 and is a veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War."
3. "Seaman is a Colonel in the Israeli secret security service the "Shabak" (originally incorrectly attributed to me).
4. "He was an interrogator and specialized in developing technics that bypassed the legal restrictions on torture."

Are these statements true ? This I do not know, but they are plausible, and, to the extent possible, it is necessary to find out if they are true. The Daniel Seaman which I and other journalists know cannot be called a friend of humanity in any sense. He took pride in treating people badly and making everybody feel his power. But after taking in account all these personal details there is a more grave question to be asked:

Is "Danny" Israel's torturer in chief ? Is he the secret "Minister for Torture" of Israel ?

There are many hints for this beyond the personal considerations. They can be found in the racist and supremacist culture of Israel, in Danny's surroundings, and in his known biography:

• All the quoted statements were posted from an IP address belonging to the Israeli government - this could be the ill-advised bragging, or it could be that somebody knew how damaging these revelations are and tried to damage Seaman. What is more, these compromising statements were deleted by somebody at the same IP address after I made corrections and after I published my article last Sunday. These statements had been there since July 17, uncontested and unchanged.
• He participated in the Lebanon war at a very early age, between 1979 and 1982. Many were tortured in Lebanon on all sides, but most of the torturing was perpetrated by the IDF and their proxies and fronts - it could well be that "Danny" learned this disgusting occupation there.
• Torture is common and everyday in Israeli jails and detention centers. Everybody who has been released by the Israelis has been tortured and treated in inhuman, degrading ways: men, women, children. The prisoners are given chemicals which have strange effects in their food and water : all men who come back cannot conceive children, the former detainees return sick and broken and do not recover,
  they are unable to work;
• The Israeli supreme courts have upheld the "right" and "necessity" of the secret services to torture Palestinians; fourth, non-Jews, Arabs, Palestinians are widely regarded in Israel as non-Humans and undeserving of just treatment, Danny has often shown that he is no exception to this racism.
• Seaman's alleged position as a Colonel in the Shabak. The Israeli secret police or "Shabak" is the institution widely known to carry out extrajudicial killings (murders) and torture under flimsy pretenses of "security". I knew Seaman as a Colonel of the IDF - this could have been a cover. It is also possible that his position as head of the GPO is a cover for other activities.
• Seaman has held his position under 6 Prime Ministers from different parties to date, the GPO (and Seaman) is under direct authority of the Prime Minister. That Seaman has held this office for so long may indicate that he fulfills other obligations beyond the responsibilities for Press (and censorship) affairs, which are competently carried out by the military intelligence (military censorship office), which is directly attached to the GPO and which is the actual department where foreign journalists (which includes Palestinians) must submit to censorship in order to be allowed to work in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Strictly seen, the post as head of the GPO would seem to be a redundant slot used for dispensing favoritism, or to serve as a cover for "other activities" of interest to the Israeli PM, the coordination of torture on an industrial level, for example.

If true, the fourth statement above, that Seaman "was an interrogator and specialized in developing technics that bypassed the legal restrictions on torture", confirms that Seaman has or had an important part in the torture apparatus of Israel. From some personal communications during the last months I have learned that there are many reports from persons recently released from Israeli detention saying that Americans "from the FBI" are participating in the torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention centers. Are these "Americans" there to learn some of the new torture techniques developed by Danny ? Are the techniques used in the American Gulag those developed by Danny ?

The answers to all these questions, the confirmation of this all will probably never be known, unless Danny himself makes a statement, or the Israeli media does their duty and checks this, some of the people who work with him speak out, or if victims of torture in Lebanon and in Israeli jails recognize him from pictures. And perhaps, with some luck and help, when Danny travels abroad in the future, the authorities of a country where murder and torture are illegal and where the Geneva Conventions are still respected, will invite Danny to answer some questions about his professional past.

At last, I sent the following Email to the GPO asking for a comment regarding my last article. I have not yet received any answer