Marianne Azizi writes:

The State of Israel was founded on the theft of children. The Old Testament relates how children have been sacrificed: Joseph was sold, Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. Stories go as far back as history books began. Seventy years ago Yemenite children were taken to Israel for adoption or experimentation – this is still headline news as protesters demand apologies and answers.

Now in 2018 the practice of taking children from parents continues. In 2017, the Israeli government admitted to doubling the number of children removed from their homes from 10,000 the previous year to 20,000. Even more embarrassing is the admission that the authorities have actually lost some of the children, and hundreds are unaccounted for after being taken.

The lack of rights for children is astonishing in an allegedly democratic state, with a child being snatched every 30 minutes by the ‘Welfare’ authorities.

Lawyers who are fighting to save children in the juvenile system face daily struggles against the corruption of the courts – the collusion between doctors, psychologists, social workers and judges to keep children locked away from their biological parents. Experts have expressed concerns, claiming that a massive 80 per cent of children do not need to be removed from their homes.

One such lawyer, Meir Mickey Givati, has been fighting to save children for almost a decade. He sees abuse daily: children drugged on Ritalin and Risperdal, beaten, raped and brainwashed. As an Orthodox Jew with strong connections to Chabad, he can hardly be described as anti-Semitic. In the last 12 months, an unprecedented attack was launched by the Israeli establishment to destroy his life, in order to prevent him from continuing his work and exposing the illegal practices carried out daily against children.

The sequence of events is almost unbelievable, but the only surprise for him was the speed in which his whole life and family were dismantled.

There are insufficient words to properly describe how the Israeli establishment murders a man from within, first by taking his children, then his mind and his soul – a practice familiar in many communist and totalitarian states throughout history. It takes everything that creates a man, and systematically destroys it.

The warning of the attention he was under emerged when he was invited in March 2018 to the police for an investigation. Having an exemplary career and with no criminal record, he attended in confidence. After three hours, the police were unable to hold him further, because they needed special papers to hold a lawyer. However, within two hours they were back with the papers, and he was taken and held for six hours for interrogation.

He was told he could never emulate another human rights lawyer in Israel, a man already ‘removed’ by the state. He was also told that he must break off all connections with the author of this article. Then came a chilling warning, that as a man with five children he should reconsider his working practices in the interest of his family life. A No Exit order was placed him – without a judge. 

He realised that he had been under surveillance since at least November 2017, when he had been in New York visiting clients, with another separate trip to Italy in February 2018. 

It was to take only three further months before his entire life was shattered. First, he hired an expert in the field of computer hacking and was informed that his office had over 21 tracking devices in his computer systems, and printouts showed that he had over 20 computers linked to his router, with fake Google pages being planted into his computer to track the subjects he had been researching. It sounded like the stuff of James Bond movies.

I originally wondered if he was just being paranoid, but after a day of research, I realised it had been an understatement. His Facebook was being hacked almost hourly, with false posts being written. His WhatsApp was fully compromised, and even the call recorder application had phone calls with one side recorded and then disappearing on the second playback.

His router, laptop and mainframe computer were fully targeted, and even the lawsuits he had prepared were open to view by the malicious forces watching him.

Givati recalls a day when I went to his office to interview him, noticing that we had both been watched for almost the whole day. Originally, he had assumed it was social workers, but it later turned out to be special forces.

I laughed at the fact that I was ‘a person of interest’ – I had always known that being a juvenile lawyer meant I would be marked. I knew that I would be exposed to child trafficking, drugs that are forced on children, helpless families, the abuse of power by the ‘Welfare’ [authorities] over low-income families. I knew the judges would make it difficult for me to win, and for this reason I focused on the process, the procedures which were vital to fair decisions. I had been fighting arbitrary removal of children from their homes for years, and my own children are a priority for me to be kept safe from the authorities.

On 22 June, out of the blue, after an argument at home, he found himself at a police station, facing the second ever interrogation of his life. After waiting six hours, he discovered he had been accused of 15 false offences: beating his wife and children, aggression and abuse, allegedly for the whole 12 years of his marriage. Though accustomed to dealing with hundreds of men of similarly charged men as clients, he was unprepared for the events and what would come. Within 30 minutes of his own questioning, the police informed him the file would not be pursued, and he was free to leave – but ordered to leave his home for 30 days. 

Within three hours of his release, a file was submitted to the courts, with proof this had been written earlier and prepared. In messages to his estranged wife, she was informed that the court and judge had been selected, and the judgment already made – all of this confirmed to her while she was giving over five hours of unfounded and false evidence. A protection order had been placed against him, a No Exit Order to leave the country – preventing him from visiting his European clients, and thus preventing him from earning any money. The same judge who had known him as a fighter against child abuse, ordered judgments in line with the ‘Welfare’ authorities’ methods – assessments, keep away from children and home, etc. 

The authorities’ plans began to unfold: false clients, phone calls every minute. His own wife had been compromised, and had befriended various ‘Welfare’ people as well as activist friends of dubious reputation.

Mr Givati had been unaware, that while paying for an accountancy course, his wife had actually been secretly training to become a social worker.

Lifting his No Exit Order to enable his international work to continue, with a deposit of almost a third of a million in assets and a cash deposit, his Facebook hacked yet again with a death threat written on his page, Mr Givati decided to leave the country. However, upon arrival at the airport he was refused exit on suspicion of both attempted murder and suicide. Suddenly the tax authority showed an interest in his inheritances.

Held for over three hours, he was released after showing that his Facebook had been hacked and reported as such. He left the country the next day with full knowledge of the police. His was not an escape – he was merely leaving to continue his overseas work while the Israeli judicial system was in recess.

More files were created, including a ‘dossier’ from his computer with real file names and bank account information, but with fabricated information added – this time involving his family, particularly his father. Sent anonymously, it included his court applications regarding his wife and children, unfiled but ready.

A new file was submitted, claiming economic violence against his own family – despite paying over $5,000 in just three weeks to cater for his children. It appears that an overdose of money is also classed as violence, and a recommendation was made by the authorities to place his children in a shelter – from a luxury villa to merely one room. The Battered Woman Shelter programme is another shell scheme under investigation by several journalists. The hacking continued in his office computer, and Facebook Messenger. Every message was read and forwarded to his family, including his clients’ messages.

The bailiff office received six files to confirm a permanent No Exit Order, including a file for only six shekels for toll roads on Route 6, paid for within days. Yet that was enough to place a permanent No Exit Order on him! 

His address overseas was discovered, right down to the street name and number.  No privacy, no ‘escape’. The revelations of hacks and false files in court have been happening daily for over a month. Threatening calls were made, declaring he would face complaints in the Israeli Bar Association, with details given to him of goods he owned, and falsified letters written by him, in locations he had never been to.

The aim is to persuade him, using psychological warfare, that he is making it all up, or perhaps mentally unstable, framing him with false crimes. He is handling some high profile cases of people who have also been targeted by the Israeli state.

If there is such a thing as good news, the source of the hacking has been found. The message is that it is from a very high place, three organisations are involved, with experts now investigating whether or not the state is funding or sponsoring this takedown before it will be revealed. It is now a game of cat and mouse – with millions being spent on silencing him. 

Mr Givati is certainly not alone, but his associations with key high profile activists in Israel has made him a major target and only the publicity will help him.

It must also be noted that the writer of this article has also been targeted, both in Israel and in her own country – with a friend questioned and told by the UK authorities she is now a list of “suspect of terrorists known to the State of Israel”.