Yonathan Shapira, an Israeli Air Force pilot, refuses to serve in the current northern military campaign. He was interviewed yesterday on CNN, and declared his sympathy for Hizzbulla and suggested that Israel is not a democratic state.

Dekel Shachrur, a millitary expert and a TV correspondent, himself firmly in the Left field of Israeli politics, writes in today's Ma'ariv:

Shapira is within his rights to express his views as he has been doing from “The Left Bank” a website which addresses itself to a narrow segment in the Israeli public where his ideas are well received. However, assisting the Hizzbulla in an interview broadcast in New York and Los Angeles is a cynical abuse of democracy.

As a citizen, I was worried by Shapira’s voiced position. National Security officials should also be alarmed. Israel ought to examine carefully whether alignment between an Israeli pilot (who is privy to military sensitive material), with Israel’s most vicious enemies, is not in direct conflict with state security. Pilots and gifted intelligence personnel are not allowed traveling to hostile counties. This prohibition, however, may not be enough in today’s realities, when they can still communicate the necessary information through CNN or via an Internet site.

[Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz] restricts and keeps a watchful eye over activists from the lunatic Right. He should also probe the damage that can be wrought from the lunatic Left. If I, the writer of these lines, were not a bona-fide Leftist, I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing these words. But we, on the Left, also have weeds.

In the digital era, subverting world opinion against us and publicly parading the internal contents of the Israeli Air force during a time of siege is at the very least injurious to the soldiers who are about to march off to do our battles for us. It’s high time Mazuz woke up to the damage done to Israel by some Israelis who seek to harm us.