Amrousi - Trying to explain Planet High Court

Emily Amrousi
Israel HaYom
22 July '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=216

You’ve come a great distance. You need things translated for you, but I, myself, don’t understand. I won't be able to explain the ways of Planet High Court on Planet Earth, but I can pour you a drink. Are things like this where you live, too? On your planet, do you also stand, dumbfounded, with the TV remote in your hand, as you’ve found me now? I can tell you what I know – that’s all. I won’t be able to interpret it for you.

Mustafa Dirani is the Lebanese terrorist responsible for the kidnapping of Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad. In a complex, secret mission in 1994, Israel’s elite commando unit succeeded in capturing Dirani in Lebanon and bringing him to Israel for questioning. He was released in the prisoner-exchange deal to free Israeli businessman Elhanan Tenenbaum; he smiled at the cameras and announced that he was joining Hezbollah. It’s not like he belonged to the Pumpkin Growers' Association before that – he had Amal Movement symbols on his shirt in kindergarten. In 2000, this miserable man filed a NIS 6 million suit against the state of Israel, claiming that he had been tortured during interrogations here.

It is customarily illegal on Planet Earth for “an enemy of the state residing in a hostile country to file a legal action against the state.” But High Court justices ruled this week that the man who drove for years with Ron Arad alive in the trunk of his car could continue to sue Israel for damages.

The state’s representatives shouted in court that the man resides in an enemy state and is an accomplice in enemy operations. Yet the High Court justices are in one place, and the state is in another. In the past, we used to swoon from the dust of their robes alone -- but then their heads swelled and they grew full of hot air, and they lifted off the ground, like a drifting helium balloon. The justices went astray again this week, when they handed down a ruling, maintaining that their decision was based on the protection of human rights. Planet High Court got closer to your planet.

Are you following this? He kidnapped our soldier, whose fate is still unknown. When he was imprisoned here, his privileges included visits from the Red Cross and nature classes. He was released; joined a terrorist organization that is an Iranian proxy in Lebanon; and now he is suing us. Forget it -- there’s no way you could understand. Do you want other examples of the High Court’s alienation from the agenda of Israeli voters? How long do you have?

This week, there was a proposal to make the election of High Court Justices subject to a Knesset hearing. They immediately objected, saying that is tantamount to political appointment; they said what about democracy and turned up their noses. But that is precisely the question: What about democracy?

Israel is the only nation in the world in which the justices themselves control appointments to the High Court. They have a blocking majority in the Judicial Appointments Committee, making this a private club of friends who share the same ultra-liberal worldview and strive to forcibly re-educate the masses.

In civilized nations, elected officials appoint judges. Yes, they appoint judges with whom they share a common worldview, a worldview that suits the citizens who voted for them. Yes, that is a political appointment. That is the meaning of democracy. We have yet to talk about all the other things that shocked you here, including the tent protest against the destruction in Migron versus the tent protest for decreased rent prices. You saw for yourself the differences in media coverage.

Or the Pavlovian opposition to kindergarten children singing “Hatikva” once a week, so that we might prevent the next singer from making a mistake while singing the national anthem at the State Cup Final. Or the New Israel Fund, which barged in again – this time on Rothschild Boulevard. Even if you stay here for 30 years to understand, you won’t. But can I offer you something to drink?

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