Once again Israel’s High Court hits a new low - by Ruthie Blum

...the Supreme Court is not supposed to base its rulings on the political bias of its judges. Sadly, however, many of these consider it not only their job to overturn government moves that they oppose, but their moral imperative to do so. Justice for the likes of Ben-Yigal and every other Israeli who daily risks his/her life for the country doesn’t seem to come into the equation.

Ruthie Blum..
JNS.org..
11 August '20..

The ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice against the home demolition of Palestinian terrorist Nizmi Abu Bakr is the latest example of judicial overreach based on political bias. Abu Bakr confessed to and was indicted on charges of murdering 21-year-old Israel Defense Forces’ Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Yigal on May 12.

Ben-Yigal, a member of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, was one of the soldiers involved in a raid on the Palestinian Authority-controlled village of Yabad in Samaria to apprehend four suspected terrorists. After completing their mission at around 4:30 a.m. on May 12, the troops began to exit the village on foot.

At this point, approximately one dozen residents of the area began pummeling them with bricks and cinder blocks from surrounding rooftops. Abu Bakr targeted Ben-Yigal, making sure to hit him at an angle from which his protective helmet would be of no use.

The 49-year-old terrorist’s aim at the young Israeli’s head was impeccable. Though Ben-Yigal was administered first aid on the scene, he was pronounced dead on arrival at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

He was the first IDF soldier to be killed in action in 2020, and was promoted, posthumously, to the rank of Sgt. First Class. He was killed a mere month before the end of his military service.

Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral some 14 hours later, weeping as his distraught divorced parents eulogized their son separately.

Calling him “mommy’s hero,” his mother, Nava Revivo, wept bitterly as she bid him farewell.

“My eldest child, beloved child,” she wailed. “Your sisters can’t comprehend what’s happening. We will keep your ember burning, your happiness, your love.”

His father, Baruch, who has no other children, bemoaned having given his son permission to serve in a combat unit—something that the IDF demands from parents of only children and from those who already lost sons or daughters to war or other tragedies.

“I signed [the permission slip] with this hand,” his father cried. “You told me, ‘Dad, don’t deny me this.’ I signed it and you celebrated as if you’d just won the lottery. You were supposed to bury me, not the other way around. God in heaven, give me a reason to wake up tomorrow morning.”

When the Shin Bet revealed that Abu Bakr had been arrested for and confessed to killing Ben-Yigal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that was ordering the IDF to demolish the terrorist’s home.

Enter left-wing NGO HaMoked, which promptly filed a petition on behalf of Abu-Bakr’s family against the home demolition.

(Continue to Full Column)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

If you are a believer in Israeli democracy, then stop trying to override it - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Those Americans who claim to care about Israel are entitled to their opinions about its policies, but they have no business declaring that they are defending democracy by essentially seeking to invalidate it. Israel has many problems, and there are valid criticisms to be made of its new government. However, the only real threat to Israeli democracy comes from those who are falsely claiming to be its defenders.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
04 May '20..

Israel’s critics talk a lot about threats to its democracy. When they use this phrase, they are generally referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, who are widely damned in the international media as would-be authoritarians with no respect for the rule of law.

Netanyahu bears his fair share of the blame for his country’s problems. But if there’s a real foe of democracy in the Jewish state, it isn’t him. It’s his opponents who want an out-of-control judiciary and foreign powers to override the verdict of Israel’s voters.

That became plain again this week when left-wing opponents of Netanyahu asked Israel’s High Court of Justice to invalidate the coalition government he forged with erstwhile rival Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz. The petitioners say the court should intervene in the process and declare that a person who is currently under indictment on criminal charges—as is the case with Netanyahu—should be ruled ineligible to be prime minister.

Irrespective of whether or not it would have been wise for Netanyahu to resign when he was indicted or his right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, there was no law in the books that compelled him to do so. Indeed, according to Israeli law, he can remain in office while being tried and even convicted until his last appeal has been denied.

Let’s hope it never comes to that. However, as the dialogue between the judges for the lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the opponents of the petition illustrated on the first day of arguments, there is no legal foundation for the court to declare that the will of a majority of the Knesset—the Netanyahu-Gantz coalition will command the support of more than 70 members of the 120-person parliament—is to be not only ignored, but suppressed in the name of an undefined notion of good government with no basis in law.

Chief Justice Esther Hayut made this clear when she demanded that the lawyers who were asking the court to declare that Netanyahu could not serve as prime minister to give her a good reason to do so:

“Show us something! A law? A verdict? From this country’s [history]? From [somewhere else] in the world? Something! After all, [you’re asking us to set] a global precedent? You want us to rule without a basis simply according to your personal opinion?”

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.  

Destroying Jewish and democratic values in one easy step - by Evelyn Gordon

The left’s subversion of language has thus wreaked long-lasting harm on both Israel and the Jewish people. And all of us will be paying the price for many years to come.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
10 April '19..

Distorting the meaning of language is a seductive but dangerous game. It’s seductive because it provides enormous short-term benefits. It’s dangerous because, as two recent examples show, it can ultimately eviscerate fundamental values.

One example comes from this week’s Israeli election, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party actually gained seats despite multiple corruption cases against him. A survey published in February by a Haifa University political scientist explains why: Most voters for Likud and allied parties don’t believe the allegations because they don’t trust the legal system. Fully 65 percent of Likud voters and 75 percent of haredi voters think law-enforcement agencies are simply trying to oust Netanyahu.

On one level, this is shocking. But on another, it’s not shocking at all because the Israeli left has spent decades successfully subverting the concept of “the rule of law” for its own political benefit.

For instance, Israel’s Supreme Court repeatedly overturns government policies not because they violate any law, but because the justices deem them “unreasonable.” Whether or not a policy is reasonable is a question other democracies leave to the voters. But the left has successfully branded all efforts to curb such judicial policy interventions as “contrary to the rule of law,” and thereby managed to stymie proposed reforms: Most legislators don’t want to “sabotage the rule of law.”

Moreover, in almost every Western democracy, the executive and legislative branches choose Supreme Court justices; only in Israel do sitting justices have veto power over the choice of their successors. Yet the left has branded every attempt to align Israel’s judicial appointments system with this Western norm as “contrary to the rule of law,” and thereby successfully staved off change.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? The Jewish Nation-State Law under attack by Haaretz's Amos Schocken - by Victor Rosenthal

...Schocken and the rest of the Israeli Left passionately hate the recently passed Nation-State Law. To them, the statement that “Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” is anathema. It is a statement of Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism. And they don’t care very much for either nationalism (except perhaps Palestinian nationalism) or anything connected with Jewishness. In fact, I suspect that they don’t care much for Jews either; but that’s another blog.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
31 March '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/03/the-nation-state-law-under-attack/

Amos Schocken is the publisher of Ha’aretz, the employer of Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, of Rogel Alpher and B. Michael, and other writers who pour out their hatred of the Jewish state both in Hebrew and English translation. To someone like me who believes that the battle to defend Israel in the information sphere is as important as the kinetic conflict on the battlefields, Amos Schocken is the devil.

Schocken and the rest of the Israeli Left passionately hate the recently passed Nation-State Law. To them, the statement that “Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” is anathema. It is a statement of Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism. And they don’t care very much for either nationalism (except perhaps Palestinian nationalism) or anything connected with Jewishness. In fact, I suspect that they don’t care much for Jews either; but that’s another blog.

For those who don’t know, Israel does not have a constitution as such. When the state was declared in May 1948, there was no time to create one in the midst of a war. The Declaration of Independence optimistically set a date five months in the future at which a constitution would be adopted. But the differences of opinion about the nature of the state, between religious and secular, socialist and capitalist, were so great that it was – and still is – impossible to develop a comprehensive document that everyone can agree on. Instead, it was decided on an incremental approach: to pass a series of Basic Laws that, taken together, would fully define the state. This task is still incomplete.

Question. Does Ofer Cassif belong in the Knesset? - by Victor Rosenthal

...Does Cassif meet the criteria for disqualification? It seems incontrovertible. He explicitly opposes the Jewish nature of the state, and the implications of his support of a right of return for Arab “refugees” cannot be imagined as anything but a call for the “negation of the existence” of the state. He supports terrorism directed at soldiers in the territories, which certainly counts as “armed struggle” by an enemy of the state. And yet, the Supreme Court – by a majority of 8 to 1 – does not feel that there is sufficient evidence to keep him out of the Knesset!

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
18 March '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/03/does-ofer-cassif-belong-in-the-knesset/

You shall do no injustice in judgment: you shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness. – Lev. 19:15

From Israel’s Basic Law: The Knesset,

1. A candidates’ list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset, and a person shall not be a candidate for election to the Knesset, if the objects or actions of the list or the actions of the person, expressly or by implication, include one of the following: 

2. negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; 

3. incitement to racism;  

4. support of armed struggle, by a hostile state or a terrorist organization, against the State of Israel.

a1. For the purposes of this section, a candidate that was at a hostile state unlawfully within the seven years preceding the date for submitting the candidates’ list, is deemed a person whose actions express support of armed struggle against the State of Israel, as long as he has not proven otherwise.

b. The decision of the Central Elections Committee that a candidate is prevented from participating in the elections requires the affirmation of the Supreme Court of Israel. …

The Elections Committee ruled on several petitions prior to the upcoming election. It rejected a petition against the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party which accused its members of anti-Arab racism, and it disqualified the Balad-Ra’am party, a joint list composed of the Balad (land) party and several other Arab parties. It also ruled against the candidacy of Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of the mostly Arab Hadash (Communist) party.

To nobody’s surprise, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the committee. It decided to disqualify Michael Ben Ari of Otzma Yehudit, and to reinstate Balad-Ra’am and Cassif.

The Supreme Court has always been loath to allow the disqualification of candidates, and has always reversed such decisions, with only a few exceptions. In 1988, Meir Kahane’s Kach party was disqualified for racism (as well as its successor, Kahane Chai in 1992), and in 1965 a far-left Arab party was ruled out for negating the State of Israel. On several other occasions, the Election Committee tried to disqualify various Arab or right-wing Jewish parties, but it was always overruled.

I’m not going to discuss the case of Michael Ben Ari in detail. He has certainly made anti-Arab statements, as Arabs often make anti-Jewish ones. But I believe the concept of “racism” is vague and unclear, especially in the context of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs (and I would have said the same about Meir Kahane, whose ideas Ben Ari embraces), and it’s unfortunate that it is included in the law.

I am also going to leave aside the case of the Arab parties, which do their best to skirt the letter of the law while at the same time vying with each other to present themselves to the Arab public as the most anti-Zionist. Balad, in my opinion, has crossed very far over the line, including having members of the Knesset who engaged in criminally subversive activities (and have even been imprisoned for it).

But I do want to talk about the Jewish communist, Ofer Cassif.

Cassif is a teacher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who also lectures at several other Israeli colleges and universities. He enjoys insulting his political enemies:

Cassif, who was one of the first Israeli soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories, in 1987, gained fame thanks to a number of provocative statements. The best known is his branding of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as “neo-Nazi scum.” On another occasion, he characterized Jews who visit the Temple Mount as “cancer with metastases that have to be eradicated.”

On his alternate Facebook page, launched after repeated blockages of his original account by a blitz of posts from right-wing activists, he asserted that Culture Minister Miri Regev is “repulsive gutter contamination,” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an “arch-murderer” and that the new Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, is a “war criminal.”

His insults may rise to the level of incitement to violence, which warrants criminal prosecution.

Trading Israeli sovereignty for PR - by Vic Rosenthal

...One usually sensible journalist praised the decision to allow Alqasem to enter, because “it proves that the system works” and “showed just how democratic Israel really is.” But in fact it proved the opposite: that the system of laws does not work, because it is often overridden by considerations of public relations. And it has absolutely nothing to do with democracy, unless the next step is to give Lara Alqasem citizenship because her grandparents were “Palestinian.”

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
21 October '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/10/trading-sovereignty-for-pr/

I live in a country in which everything is negotiable, everything is negotiated, nothing is final, and nothing is really forbidden, at least for our enemies.

Graduate student Lara Alqasem, the former president of a BDS-supporting, Israel-hating, university “Students for Justice in Palestine” chapter, was turned back at the border because there is a law that entry is forbidden to a non-citizen “if he, the organization or the body he acts on behalf of knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel.” If leading a chapter of SJP doesn’t fit this criterion, nothing does.

The decision of the security service to bar her was initially supported by an administrative court, and then upheld on appeal by the Tel Aviv District Court. But Israel’s Supreme Court threw out the earlier decisions and ruled that she could be admitted. The Court accepted her contention (possibly untrue) that she hadn’t engaged in boycott activity since April 2017, said that the SJP chapter she belonged to was small and unimportant, and argued that since she wanted to study in Israel, she couldn’t have really believed in boycotting Israel. And the justices wanted to avoid giving the impression that, God forbid, she was being excluded for her political opinions.

I could criticize the court opinion in detail, but I’m not going to do that. Just two points: first, even if her SJP chapter (at the University of Florida) was small, the national organization is one of the prime movers of the BDS movement in the US, having introduced countless boycott resolutions at American universities, organizing “Israel apartheid week,” and engaging in intimidation of pro-Israel students.

And second, one of the leaders of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, is a Ph.D candidate at Tel Aviv University. So the fact that Alqasem also wants to study here proves nothing.

I assume that since two lower courts supported the decision of the security service to prevent her admission, it was reasonable from a legal standpoint. The Supreme court rarely interferes in such cases. But this time it chose to find reasons to do so. In other words, it thought the political consequences of keeping her out were worse than allowing her in. And this is what I dispute.

The Court acted (quite predictably) according to the principle – also adhered to by the government in its dealings with the terrorists of Gaza, and illegal Bedouin encampments – that nothing is worse than looking illiberal. Its decision, which was probably intended to improve Israel’s image in the world, in practice eviscerated the law that was passed to prevent subversive activity inside our borders, and will encourage more activists to try to enter the country so they can participate in demonstrations and get street cred to help promote anti-Israel activity back home.

Coming Soon…The Latest Installment of the Khan al Ahmar Saga - Regavim.org

This week (Wednesday 1 August), the Israeli High Court of Justice will hear yet another round of petitions on #KhanalAhmar - a crucial test case of Israeli sovereignty.

Regavim.org..
30 July '18..
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc_1LHEXFCU









See also - Khan al Ahmar: The Real Story 11 July '18

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Bias and Israel's High Court: Much Ado About Something - by Michael Freund

...The court's methodical bias should concern all Israelis regardless of their ideological beliefs. When judges choose to interpret the law through the prism of politics rather than justice, then it is the country as a whole that suffers. And when the highest court in the land will not give petitioners a fair shake, it is a betrayal not only of our system of government, but of the very principles the institution itself is sworn to uphold.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
07 July '18..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/21363/israel-supreme-court-bias

For years, Israel's Right has asserted that the Supreme Court tilts sharply Left, treating Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria in an unfair and even unjust manner. Time and again, politicians and pundits have argued that behind their pronouncements of principle, the justices were in fact often motivated by political agendas.

Now, at last, thanks to a comprehensive report recently released by the Regavim organization, this anecdotal observation is backed by an array of cold, hard and deeply troubling facts.

The study, which examined more than 110 petitions filed between 2005 and 2017 by organizations across the political spectrum, decisively demonstrates that there is systematic bias against the Jews of Judea and Samaria, not only in the court's procedural handling of cases, but also in their content and conclusions.

Titled "Measure for Measure 2018: An Index of Judicial Parity," the investigation focused on cases concerning illegal Arab and Jewish housing construction in Judea and Samaria in which the Israeli Civil Administration had failed to enforce the law and tear down the structures in question.

Close to half the cases were filed by left-wing groups and Palestinians against Jewish homeowners, while the rest were submitted by right-wing groups against Arab housing projects. All rested on nearly identical legal arguments and contentions.

The question of the hour for many citizens of Israel: Why don’t we defend ourselves? - by Vic Rosenthal

The legal and diplomatic decks are stacked against us today, partly because of our own actions. We need to get over it and defend ourselves.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
18 June '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/06/why-dont-we-defend-ourselves/

Great swaths of land in the Negev desert near the Gaza strip, agricultural land and nature preserves formerly the habitats of numerous endangered plant and animal species, have been reduced to ash and smoke by Palestinian fire-kites and balloon-borne incendiary devices during the past few weeks. The entire area is blackened with the smoke from fires that are being set faster than Israeli firefighters can put them out.

Our powerful army dithers, ever pursuing its apparent goal of fighting wars without hurting anyone. Today I understand that a car belonging to one of the leaders of the bombing campaign was destroyed by an “airstrike,” probably a drone-launched missile. The car was parked and empty. That’ll teach him.

Israeli officials are afraid of the legal consequences of taking effective action against those who are launching the kites and balloons. They are afraid that they will be dragged into the International Criminal Court (even though Israel did not sign the treaty creating it and does not consider itself bound by its decisions), if the army kills any of the “civilians” that are burning our country. Those under the age of 18 are counted as “children,” and as you know one of the themes of anti-IDF propaganda is the false claim that we deliberately target children.

Purposely burning agricultural land is a war crime. Attacking from heavily populated civilian areas and employing child soldiers are war crimes. Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) don’t care, of course. Their whole strategic plan is to take advantage of the fact that Israel considers herself bound by the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions and other treaties, while they permit themselves to do anything that will kill Jews.

They don’t do it by themselves. They have help.

Israel is always required to fight an n+1 front war, with n representing the enemies that are shooting at us, Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, and the rest. The additional one is the international diplomatic and legal system, led by our “friends” in the European Union.

Israel's pressing need to restore the balance between the Knesset and the Court - by Vic Rosenthal

...A balance between the powers of the various branches of government is important to protect minority and majority rights. A comparison with the Supreme Court in the US will be helpful in understanding just how unbalanced the situation in Israel is.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
27 April '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/04/restoring-the-balance-between-the-knesset-and-the-court/

A hot potato today in Israel’s Knesset is the so-called chok hahitgabrut (literally, “the overriding law”) which would provide a way for the Knesset to pass a law over the objections of the Supreme Court. Various versions of such a law have been considered, which require larger or smaller majorities in the Knesset to override a Court decision to throw out a law. Another approach would be to require more than a simple majority of justices of the Court in order to reject a law passed by the Knesset. The precise form the law might take is still up in the air.

The issue that is presently driving the controversy is a series of Court decisions that have made it impossible for the government to deport any of the 38,000 African migrants that entered the country illegally since the early 2000s. Those who want such a law say that the unelected Court rides roughshod over the views of the majority of the citizens, which are expressed by the votes of their representatives in the Knesset. That’s undemocratic, they say. Opponents argue that in a liberal democracy it is necessary to protect minority rights, which is what the Court has done.

Critics of the Court have been complaining for a long time that it is biased leftward, and that it sticks its nose where it shouldn’t, like the proposed deal regulating the concession for the natural gas recently discovered off Israel’s shores; or the ownership of property in Judea and Samaria, decisions that forced the demolition of communities and the removal of people from their homes.

But the intricacies of the gas deal were understood by only a small percentage of Israelis, and the inhabitants of the razed settlement of Amona did not find a lot of empathy in the general population, many of whom thought of them as extremists. The migrant question, on the other hand, resonates more broadly. It pits the residents of South Tel Aviv – who say that the migrants who are concentrated in their neighborhoods have brought crime, dirt and fear to them – against a coalition of organizations that claim to be defending the human rights of the migrants. In fact, many of these groups are funded by unfriendly foreign governments, or groups with a political motive to embarrass our government (e.g., the Israel Religious Action Center).

A balance between the powers of the various branches of government is important to protect minority and majority rights. A comparison with the Supreme Court in the US will be helpful in understanding just how unbalanced the situation in Israel is.

(Excellent) Alex Stein, Haaretz and Gaza’s electricity - by Vic Rosenthal

...Alex Stein and Ofer Groskopf are first-rate legal minds that would add both intelligence and balance to the rulings of a Supreme Court that could benefit from more of both of those qualities. Stein is not an extremist or immoral because he happens to have a point of view that is uncommon in North Tel Aviv. The Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and the President of the Court, Esther Hayut, should be congratulated on reaching a compromise that will raise the status of the legal establishment in Israel at a time that it could definitely use some help.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
01 March '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/03/alex-stein-and-gazas-electricity/

Today was not the first time that I read something in Ha’aretz dripping with moral indignation, only to find myself wondering why Ha’aretz gets indignant about things that seem perfectly sensible to me.

The item in question is about the opinions of Alex Stein, a legal scholar who has recently been appointed to Israel’s Supreme Court, along with Judge Ofer Groskopf. Both are considered world-class jurists, but the Left, used to dominating the legal system in Israel, is nervous about Stein’s “conservative” leanings.

It seems that someone discovered that Stein once posted on Facebook his opinion that it would not contravene international law if Israel were to stop supplying Gaza with electricity. To me, it has always seemed reasonable that Israel shouldn’t provide the power to run the lathes that make rocket nozzles while Hamas is bombarding our civilian population with rockets propelled by said nozzles.

Here is the description of Stein’s positions that Ha’aretz finds so extreme:

Stein’s posts on Gaza were published during the 2014 Gaza war. He wrote that because Israel isn’t occupying Gaza, it’s [sic] only obligation while defending itself from rockets is to minimize harm to civilians. For the same reason, Israel isn’t obligated to provide electricity to Gaza, though it may choose to do so for humanitarian reasons.

His posts also criticized what he termed a misinterpretation of international law. The principle of proportionality dictated by international law must suit the reality of modern war and common sense, he argued. An interpretation which says that large countries attacking small countries must seek to maintain parity in the number of victims is ridiculous and unacceptable, he wrote, and it is not what the law intended.

These positions are not in the slightest bit controversial among those who actually understand international law rather than simply claiming that anything Israel does that they oppose violates it. Israel’s supposed “occupation” of Gaza is the only military occupation ever accomplished without a single pair of boots on the ground; limiting the importation of military-use materials and maintaining a secure border may not please the Hamas regime, but it isn’t “occupation.” And the principle of proportionality of attack in warfare means exactly what Stein said.

Lost deterrence thanks to the High Court, and those who pay the price are the terrorist victims and their families. - by Lital Shemesh

...As the Midrash says, he who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate. When will the government realize this? Demolishing the homes of terrorists is not just punishment and revenge; it is a way of preventing similar terrorist attacks in the future.

Lital Shemesh..
Israel Hayom..
02 January '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/lost-deterrence-thanks-to-the-high-court/

The slaughtering of the Salomon family members in Halamish last July will be remembered for many years to come. A terrorist killed three family members and wounded another woman. He wanted to kill everyone who was present in the home, including children, but was stopped.

Last week military prosecutors asked that the killer be given three consecutive life sentences for the murders and another life sentence for the attempted murders. At the sentencing hearing, the terrorist could be seen flashed a wide smile for the cameras. He is now going to get tens of thousands of shekels from the Palestinian Authority. His home is still standing, because the state has decided to destroy only one floor so that the rest of his family members would not be affected. But let's not forget that five of his family members were convicted of being an accessory to a crime because they failed to act despite knowing his plan.

The Salomon family petitioned the High Court of Justice and asked that the rest of his family home be demolished, but their request was denied. Yes, his family members should be treated with compassion despite his attempt to destroy an entire family, but we should also show compassion for future victims of terrorism.

Under Israel's emergency statutes, the military can demolish structures where terrorists had resided. Former Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein once wrote: "The defense establishment has shown that there is indeed a good reason to believe that such action does, in fact, deter terrorists from carrying out similar activity and the supporting evidence is overwhelming compared with other indications."

But the High Court of Justice has for years chosen to walk down a different path, imposing many restrictions on using this measure. This has undercut the state's deterrence and its efforts to fight terrorism.

Breaking Israel’s Imperial Court : The Imperative to Restore Israeli Democracy - by Caroline Glick

...if the Knesset and the government do not act immediately to end the Supreme Court’s escalating judicial coup, 10 years from now there won’t be a ceremony to mark 60 years of settlement in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley. The justices won’t allow it.

Caroline Glick..
Carolineglick.com..
29 September '17..
Link: http://carolineglick.com/breaking-israels-imperial-court/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an applause line that should have brought the house down in his speech at Wednesday’s official ceremony celebrating 50 years of settlement in Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu was speaking before a crowd of thousands in Gush Etzion, which was destroyed by the Arab Legion in the War of Independence, and rebuilt by the children of its massacred defenders immediately after the area was liberated in the 1967 Six Day War.

Netanyahu pledged to the audience: “There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the Land of Israel.”

He did receive enthusiastic applause. But he didn’t bring the house down. And the rest of his speech was met with a lukewarm reception overall, even though he hit all the notes.

And that makes sense. As much as the audience wanted to believe him and his pledges to continue to build in the biblical and strategic heartland of the country, they couldn’t.

They knew that under the current legal regime governing the country, it’s not for elected officials to say whether communities will be built or destroyed.

That’s up to the Supreme Court, whose justices have seized the power to determine any aspect of Israeli law and policy that they wish. And the Supreme Court, under retiring President Miriam Naor, was boycotting the official state ceremony.

Naor’s decision to cast to the seven winds official protocol, which dictates that a representative of the court is present at all state ceremonies was not automatic. First she had agreed to send a justice to the ceremony. But after she received a request from the radical Meretz party to reconsider her decision, she revoked it.

The ceremony, she insisted, was “controversial.”

And so, the same justice who participated both in the official ceremony to mark the reunification of Jerusalem earlier this year and in a conference sponsored by radical, anti-Israel groups last December, announced that no representative of the High Court would attend.

Naor’s decision to side with Meretz, with its five-member Knesset faction, and ignore 70 years of protocol, was not an isolated event.

Over the past several weeks, the court has published an avalanche of radical decisions that both separately and together represent what many experts are referring to as a second judicial revolution.

The truly anti-democratic revolution that has occurred in Israel - by Evelyn Gordon

...however, The Purse and the Sword offers vital insight into a powerful institution that has been disfiguring Israeli politics and society for the last three decades and is still at it today. If you want to understand one of the most egregious and deeply embedded threats to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, Friedmann’s book is a good place to start.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
08 December '16..

In 2015, following lengthy negotiations, President Barack Obama concluded an executive agreement marking the accomplishment of a cherished policy goal: the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA. Also in 2015, after similarly lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded an agreement realizing a long-cherished policy goal of his own: a deal enabling development of Israel’s largest natural-gas field by a private American company and its Israeli partner. Both agreements included a commitment by the respective governments to refrain from adverse legislative action over the next ten to fifteen years: in Obama’s case, action to reinstate nuclear sanctions against Iran; in Netanyahu’s case, action to alter the regulatory regime for natural gas to the disadvantage of the private energy companies.

As it happens, neither country’s executive branch has the authority to bind the legislature without the latter’s consent. But this didn’t trouble either the Iranians or the energy companies; they took it for granted that both executives would use all of the considerable power at their disposal to prevent such legislation, and that sufficed.

But what about the role of the third branch of democratic government, namely, the judiciary? That is where the two stories diverge. The Iran deal was never challenged in an American court. But in Israel, two left-wing opposition parties (Zionist Union and Meretz) and two nongovernmental organizations, alarmed by the encroaching specter of capitalist development, immediately petitioned the country’s supreme court (also known for some purposes as the High Court of Justice) over the gas deal—and won. The court struck down the agreement, saying the government either had to procure legislation enacting the prime minister’s commitment to regulatory stability or renegotiate the deal to exclude the commitment altogether.

A week later, speaking at a conference of the Israeli bar association, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked accused the court of wielding its power “irresponsibly” by intervening in “political and macroeconomic questions” that were better left to the elected branches. She also reiterated a longstanding pledge, in her role as head of the judicial-appointments committee, to seek the appointment of justices to the court who would respect the government’s “authority to act on political matters that don’t violate human rights.” For this effrontery, opposition members of the Knesset promptly accused her of undermining democracy and demanded her dismissal. MK Shelly Yachimovich of the Zionist Union, for instance, charged Shaked with “trying to destroy the legal system’s independence, intimidate judges, and threaten them,” adding that if this sort of behavior continued, “Netanyahu would no longer be able to boast that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.”

This was hardly the first time in recent years that domestic critics of Israel’s government have accused it of “anti-democratic” behavior that wasn’t actually anti-democratic at all. But such accusations have served to obscure the real anti-democratic revolution that has occurred in Israel over the last few decades: the judiciary’s steady usurpation of policy-making powers that were once reserved—as they still are in other democracies—for Israel’s executive and legislative branches.

(Continue to Full Essay)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Israel’s constitutional identity crisis - by Caroline Glick

...Opponents of the bill argue that the law undermines the power of the Supreme Court and endangers Israel’s international standing. Proponents of the bill argue that Israel needs to ensure the primacy of the Knesset. They further argue that there is no point in bowing to the will of an international community that is constitutionally incapable of ever standing with Israel. In case you were wondering, proponents of the bill have it right.

Caroline Glick..
Carolineglick.com..
02 December '16..
Link: http://carolineglick.com/israels-constitutional-identity-crisis/..

Israel’s coalition crisis over the settlement’s regulation bill is not a normal power struggle between overweening politicians. It is not popularity contest between Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and his Kulanu Party and Education Minister Naftali Bennett and his Bayit Yehudi Party.

It is also not about contenders to the helm challenging Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s political primacy.

The settlement regulations bill proposes to extend the authority of the Military Government in Judea and Samaria to seize privately owned lands. That authority is now limited to seizure for military purposes. The bill would allow the Military Government to seize lands for the purpose of private construction as well.

The political fight over the bill is not merely a fight over the community of Amona, which will be destroyed by order of the High Court if the law isn’t passed before December 25.

The fight over the law is a fight about the character of Israel.

Opponents of the bill argue that the law undermines the power of the Supreme Court and endangers Israel’s international standing. Proponents of the bill argue that Israel needs to ensure the primacy of the Knesset. They further argue that there is no point in bowing to the will of an international community that is constitutionally incapable of ever standing with Israel.

In case you were wondering, proponents of the bill have it right.

The settlement regulation bill is not a radical bill. It is a liberal reform of a legal regime that harms the civil rights of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Palestinians today are denied their full property rights. Shortly after its establishment in 2004, the Palestinian Authority made selling land to Jews and Christians a capital offense. Dozens of Palestinians have been murdered over the past two decades in extrajudicial executions by both Palestinian security forces and by terrorist militias working hand in glove with Palestinian security forces for the “crime” of selling their land to Jews.

Earlier this year, the Israeli group Ad Kan documented employees of the European financed far left groups Ta’ayush and B’tselem conspiring to hand over to Palestinian forces a Palestinian land owner who expressed interest in selling his lands to Jews. During surreptitiously recorded exchanges, they acknowledged that PA would likely execute him.

The settlement regulation bill empowers the military commander to seize privately owned lands and compensate the owners. In other words, it provides a means for willing Palestinian sellers to sell their property to willing Jewish purchasers without risking the lives of the owners.

As I noted in a column on the subject of the bill last week, the legal opinion published by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit opposing the settlement regulation bill included four arguments. Prof. Avi Bell from Bar Ilan University School of Law rebutted all of Mandelblit’s claims in an article published two weeks ago in Yisrael Hayom.

As Bell showed, Mandelblit’s claim that the proposed law breaches international law is both irrelevant – since Knesset laws supersede international law, and at best arguable.

That which adds to our enemies' motivation to continue against us with greater force - Mordechai Kedar

...The Supreme Court may not understand this, or simply may not take it into account. But it is important for us to know that destroying Jewish homes helps motivate our neighbors to continue to fight us - and results in pushing any hopes for peace much farther away.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israelnationalnews.com..
25 November '16..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19814..
h/t Sally Zahav - Middle East and Terrorism

Israel is getting closer to the time when, if no solution is found, Amona is going to be destroyed - and possibly homes in Ofra and other places in Judea and Samaria demolished - in order to carry out the decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court. A vociferous public debate is in full swing in Israel, with those in favor of the demolition and those against it arguing about the Regulation Law, the standing of Supreme Court decisions and on the status of the court itself. No one cares about how the "other side" sees the destruction of the homes, what the "other side" takes it to mean and the conclusions the "other side" - our enemies, draw from that destruction.

The Islamo-Arab side observes what is happening in Israel, hears the public debate and is astounded by the court's independence and its ability to force its world view on the entire Israeli government. Some Arab columnists openly wish for that to be the situation in their own countries, with a court that defends the ordinary citizen, and even those who are not citizens, from the arbitrary decisions of rulers and politicians.

The Arab side, however, also has a totally different view and understanding of the home demolitions. This is a religious narrative, one that sees religion as the source of the underlying explanations for everything that happens in the world and Allah as the causal factor in everything that happens each day. Allah's words are in the Koran, a book that is relevant in every place at every time and in every situation. The destruction of the Israeli homes also has an explanation in the Koran, to be found in a paragraph at the start of Chapter 59, the Exile chapter.

"It is He Who got out the Unbelievers among the People of the Book from their homes at the first gathering (of the forces). Little did ye think that they would get out: And they thought that their fortresses would defend them from Allah. But the (Wrath of) Allah came to them from quarters from which they little expected (it), and cast terror into their hearts, so that they destroyed their dwellings by their own hands and the hands of the Believers, take warning, then, O ye with eyes (to see)!" (translation: Wright-house.com)

According to Islamic interpretations, this paragraph concerns a group of Jews known as "Bani Nadir" who lived near the city of Medina. They refused to convert to Islam and Mohammed expelled them from their homes allowing them to take with them only the goods that could be carried by one camel. Instead of complying, the Jews destroyed their own homes and took the beams away so the Muslims could not make use of them. What is significant here is an instance in which Jews prefer to destroy their own homes when Islam is stronger than they.

Since what is in the Koran is relevant in every period, including the present one in which Muslims see Jews destroying their own homes, the above-quoted Koranic verse immediately comes to mind: "They destroyed their homes with their own hands" to explain what is going on, but the rest of the verse is no less important "with the hands of the Believers," meaning that believers, referring to Muslims - Jews are not believers to Islam! - have acted so as to cause the Jews to destroy their own homes.

The Necessity of Bringing Israel’s Supreme Court into the 21st Century - by Vic Rosenthal

...The Supreme Court is the most important and powerful institution in the state that is still firmly in the hands of the old left-wing elite. Even if you think it is a benevolent despot, it is still a despot. Shaked’s bill to end its incestuous means of reproduction is a good start to bringing it in line with the rest of the nation.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
04 November '16..

The latest battle in Israel’s ongoing struggle to define itself is being fought over the way Supreme Court justices are selected. The 15 justices are appointed by a judicial selection committee of 9 members:

- The Minister of Justice, who chairs the committee,
- One additional cabinet minister, chosen by the cabinet (i.e., the government),
- Two Knesset members, one from the coalition and one from the opposition,
- Two members of the Bar Association, selected by the association, and
- Three current justices of the Supreme Court, including the President of the Court (Chief Justice).

Presently, a super-majority of 7 committee members is required to approve a candidate. This gives the existing court justices a veto power, and – since the Court and the Bar Association lean leftward – gives left-of-center candidates a significant advantage. It also means that the Court is self-selecting and unaccountable.

The Israeli Supreme Court has far more power than the US Supreme Court. Rules about justiciability (what matters are in the purview of the Court) and standing (who can petition the court) are far looser than in other democracies; any citizen can petition the Court about any action of the government. It can throw out a law passed by the Knesset even if there’s no litigation about it. Or it can let it be known before a bill is passed that it will not approve it in its present form, and thereby force changes.

The Court greatly expanded its role and its power as a result of the activities of Aharon Barak, who was a justice from 1978-95, and its President from 1995-2006. The American jurist Richard Posner explains just how much power Barak placed in the hands of the Court (his hands!) in a review of one of Barak’s books. It is eye-opening.

Many Israelis feel that that it is unacceptable that in a democratic country so much power is held by an institution that is almost entirely not accountable to the people or its elected representatives. On the other hand, there is great respect for the Court and for the importance of having an independent judiciary and a rule of law.

The present Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, has submitted a bill to the Knesset to change the rules so that only a simple majority of 5 members will be required. This would eliminate the veto power held by the current justices.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Making use of a straw man to attack Israeli Supreme Court reform

...Judicial independence is indisputably essential; a country where courts merely obey government dictates is a dictatorship, not a democracy. Hence by claiming that Netanyahu’s proposals would undermine judicial independence, his critics seek to tar them as something no democracy could countenance. But what these critics are really trying to protect isn’t the court’s independence, but its excessive power – a power without parallel in any other democracy, in which justices first choose their own successors to create an ideologically-uniform court, then seek to impose this ideology on the country by asserting a right to overturn government decisions and/or legislation on virtually every important policy issue

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
08 May '15..

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his new government aspires to enact legislation to restrain the Supreme Court. But this weekend, his spokesman said Netanyahu “consistently championed the independence of Israel’s judiciary” for three terms and will “do so vigorously during his fourth term as well.”

So one of those two statements is clearly a lie – at least according to former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, current Supreme Court President Miriam Naor, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and President Reuven Rivlin, all of whom last week assailed the Likud party’s proposals as undermining the court’s independence and even democracy itself.

Yet in reality, both of Netanyahu’s statements are true. The only lie is his critics’ claim that the bills would undermine either judicial independence or democracy.

The first bill would alter the way Supreme Court justices are chosen. Currently, Israel’s system is unique in the Western world. Justices are chosen by a nine-member committee on which the legal establishment, rather than elected officials, constitutes the majority. It consists of two ministers, two MKs, two Bar Association representatives and three sitting justices.

Moreover, sitting justices have veto power over the choice of their successors. Supreme Court appointments need at least seven votes, so anyone the three sitting justices oppose has no chance.

No other Western democracy gives sitting justices any role in choosing their own successors, much less veto power. Indeed, most entrust Supreme Court appointments solely to the people’s elected representatives. In America, the president appoints justices and the Senate confirms them; in Germany, parliament’s upper and lower houses each select half the justices; in France, the president appoints nine of 15 justices while the head of each parliamentary house appoints three; in Switzerland, parliament selects the justices; in Sweden, the cabinet does; in Australia, Canada, Belgium and Norway, justices are appointed by the monarch but either nominated or approved by the cabinet.

Yet nobody accuses those countries of being undemocratic, or their courts of lacking independence. And for good reason: Once chosen, justices serve for life or until mandatory retirement; they can neither be dismissed nor reappointed. Hence they’re free to rule as they see fit without fear of consequences.

In Israel, justices similarly serve until age 70 and can’t be dismissed, making them completely independent. And the proposed reform wouldn’t change this.

What it would do is reduce the justices’ power to choose their own successors, by boosting the appointment committee to 11 members, with six politicians instead of four. The legal establishment would retain five seats, so it would still have more influence over Supreme Court appointments than other democracies allow. But politicians would constitute a narrow majority of the panel rather than a minority, and the justices would lose their veto, since seven votes would be obtainable without them.

This would not only bring Israel’s system more into line with Western norms, but would also reduce the court’s stultifying lack of ideological diversity. Currently, because justices essentially select their own successors, candidates who don’t share the majority’s views are rarely appointed. This has generated growing distrust of the court among Israelis who don’t share its dominant worldview: Only 56 percent of Israeli Jews voiced confidence in the court in 2013, down from 80% in 2000. And since few things are more corrosive to democracy than lack of trust in the judicial system, increasing the court’s ideological diversity would actually bolster democracy.

An elite out of touch with reality, the common touch and the common man.

The average Israeli is not a lawyer, nor someone who has cocktails at Yale, nor someone who can brag to have “Abu Mazen” as a friend. Still, most Israelis are reasonable people, and Israel’s supreme court and its president are usually bound by what is called “the reasonable man” standard.

Michael Widlanski..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
07 January '13..

Check the headlines and you see why we have lost faith in our most esteemed institutions – the Supreme Court and the presidency.

On the same day, President Shimon Peres and a unanimous nine-judge panel of Israel’s highest tribunal showed how completely out of touch they are with reality, the common touch and the common man.

The president – who is supposed to be as inviolable and non-political as the Queen of England – gave a partisan pep talk to about 100 Israeli ambassadors, condemning Israel’s elected government for not being more forthcoming with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader who pretends to be a moderate while stabbing Israel in the back.

“I have known Abu Mazen for 30 years,” declared Peres, using the affectionate Arabic kunya, or nickname, for the man he has actually known for 20 years. “He is someone with whom we can reach an agreement,” insisted Peres, describing the man who has repeatedly proven he will avoid any Israeli agreement like the plague.

“No one will convince me otherwise,” said Peres, reinforcing Einstein’s view that insanity is trying the same useless formula again and gain and ignoring the results.

Let’s remember this man has often bragged “I don’t read history. I make history.”

For the past 18 years, studies and polls have shown that most Israelis think the leadership of the PLO (the so-called Palestine Liberation Organization) and the Palestinian Authority are not trustworthy – from Mina Tzemah’s DAHAF to the Tami Steinmetz Center at Tel Aviv University.

Abbas – even if Peres and the Voice of Israel want to call him “Abu Mazen” – is not willing or capable of making peace with Israel. His negotiating positions are tougher even than those of his idol and predecessor Yasser Arafat, about Peres was also repeatedly wrong.

When Arafat called for “jihad” against Israel after signing the Oslo pact, Peres denied Arafat ever said it. When reporters played the tape for him, Peres claimed Arafat was only talking about jihad as a spiritual journey. But it is Peres who is still on some kind of journey. When he returns to this planet, we should greet him warmly.

Charcoal Kilns, the High Court, Risk to Life vs. Human Rights NGOs

Ari Briggs..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
15 July '12..

Illegal and unregulated production of charcoal, in some cases on government land, is causing severe health consequences for our children. It is illegal due to the fact that the businesses are not registered and take place on land zoned for agriculture. Most disturbing is that the government and the Supreme Court don’t seem to care.

Most of us, when grilling the meat on our BBQs, have no idea what it takes to make the charcoal fuel used to achieve that perfect steak. We would be surprised to find out that our insatiable appetite to BBQ is feeding an NIS 50 million a year underground charcoal industry that is totally illegal, unregulated and terribly damaging to the environment.

The massive amounts of air pollution released into the environment during the production of the charcoal has ruined the lives of many families whose only wish was to live in the pastoral northern Sharon region.

We do know that air quality is a high priority of the Environmental Protection Ministry. One only has to recall the hullabaloo caused by the smell of chlorine in the Dan region recently. Months ago, the smell of chlorine in the streets of Tel Aviv drew dozens of vehicles specially equipped to test the air quality out on to the streets.

The sight of the white-suited scientists doing their tests was proof of the seriousness with which the issue is dealt.

But this level of care is not being applied equally.