Israel Hayom..
25 May '12..
The story of the disputed neighborhood of Ulpana is a test of loyalty for Likud. The greatly anticipated so-called arrangement law (which is supposed to retroactively authorize the construction of Jewish homes on private Palestinian land while awarding compensation to the original owners) does not bypass the court. As far as I can recall, the High Court of Justice is supposed to protect the laws of Israel. Now we find ourselves facing an uncompromising pursuit of justice (the High Court has ordered the evacuation and demolition of five apartment buildings in Ulpana after having ruled that they were built on private Palestinian land). Since the threat of destruction looms over Jewish homes, the decision is now back in the legislature's hands, and the legislature is the Knesset, not the court. What can you do?
Only in Israel can a law passed by a sovereign parliament be termed a "High Court bypass law." The people generating this kind of discourse are the same ones who support the court over the elected government. These people aren't standing up for the rule of law; they are standing up for their freedom to bypass both the legislative and the executive branches.
In any case, the motivation prompting left-wing organizations to support the court over the government is not the pursuit of justice for that Palestinian land owner — whose identity is unknown and whose land may or may not have been stolen. The individual plight of that one Palestinian could have been resolved years ago. The land on Ulpana hill, and in other areas, has greatly increased in value — it was rocky land that was good for nothing before, and now it is built up urban land. The compensation its private owners could get for it is far greater than the land's original value.
The real motivation is the destruction of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. These left-wing initiatives need to be stripped of their disguises, and their true meaning must be examined. The Left is making exaggerated use of the High Court of Justice as a means of circumventing the Knesset, and the will of the people as expressed in democratic elections. The overwhelming majority of the public opposes the demolition of homes. Most of Israel's ministers, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, oppose the demolition of homes. Their reasons aren't merely political — they are ideological, grounded in the belief that we have a right to this land. The homes in Ulpana do not have to be demolished for justice to be done.
Jerusalem and the media
Describing Israel Hayom's Jerusalem Day special, the Seventh Eye — a website that analyzes Israeli media — wrote "this double-page spread has nothing to do with journalism, and it does not even appear to be trying to comply with the rules of journalism." For the thousandth time, the Seventh Eye is proving that it is not an objective critic but rather a left-wing publication — and on the far end of the spectrum at that; the end that is abandoning Jerusalem under the auspices of the Israel De"mock"racy Institute.
So what exactly does qualify as journalism? On the day marking the reunification of Jerusalem, the daily Maariv decided to promote, in its front-page headline, the partition of the city — a well-known fantasy shared by a tiny but vocal segment of Israeli society, which apparently has a problematic relationship with its spiritual and ethnic roots. On Jerusalem's day of joy, the newspaper founded by the legendary Azriel Carlebach chose to serve as a mouthpiece for the former mayor of Holyland (former Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert who recently advocated the division of Jerusalem to achieve peace with the Palestinians), who also happened to serve as our prime minister. Since then he has not stopped shooting us in the foot with the surplus ammunition left over from the Second Lebanon War.
Olmert is doing this in hopes of gaining sympathy from the media on the day his fate is sealed and the courts send him to prison for corruption — where his only companion will be the prison walls, not the Western Wall that he is so eager to leave behind. Pretty soon no one will remember Olmert, and we will continue to cherish Jerusalem as our chiefest joy, as the Book of Psalm says.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1950
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