Showing posts with label judicial reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judicial reform. Show all posts

Thursday, September 21, 2023



Israel haters were given a huge gift this week courtesy of anti-government protester Shira Eting.

Eting, interviewed by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, said, "I was a combat helicopter pilot…. If you want pilots to be able to fly and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions."

The modern antisemites have been having a field day with an attractive and articulate Israeli woman matter of factly saying that Israelis knowingly shoot missiles into homes that kill children. Here we have proof of how monstrous Israelis are - even leftist Israelis!

A number of years ago, I looked at a B'Tselem report on families killed in their homes during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Even that incomplete report showed that many families were acting as human shields for the terrorists - sometimes the shields were the terrorists' own families, and sometimes the terrorists were sheltering in an innocent family home. 

I did further research and listed over a hundred children who were used as human shields to protect terrorists, often senior terrorists.

This is only what I could find out with open source research. But it proves the point: Israel is not going to bomb a house unless it has excellent intelligence that the house is a legitimate military target. Perhaps a senior terrorists is inside, perhaps a weapons cache is underneath, perhaps a command and control center is in the apartment next door. 

As long as the military advantage outweighs the collateral damage, this is a moral decision and also legal under international law.  While we are not privy to the specific calculus that Israel uses in making those decisions, it employs teams of lawyers to review every airstrike and goes to great lengths - never reported in the media - to ensure that it minimizes mistakes. Israel goes above and beyond the requirements of the Laws of Armed Conflict in its own policy decisions. 

Eting caused more harm to Israel with her out of context quote than the proposed judicial reforms she is protesting could possibly do. But she wasn't wrong in what she said: in the real world, in real wars, decisions must be made that sometimes mean children would die. 

In the case of Gaza, that is entirely the fault of the terrorists who deliberately choose to locate military targets in residential areas. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, August 31, 2023


Akiva Bigman in Mida writes that Ehud Barak had been planning to bring Benjamin Netanyahu down via mass protests long before the judicial reform issue was brought up.
Ehud Barak is a central figure in the protest movement against judicial reform. If you have been following the media, you may get the impression that although he is adamantly against Netanyahu and judicial reform, he is merely providing commentary and interpreting events. The reality is the opposite. Do not be deceived by his age or because he is a former prime minister and supposed elder statesman. At 81 years old, Barak is one of the main architects behind the current mass demonstrations. Yet, his involvement goes deeper. Barak is not only orchestrating today’s mass demonstrations, he has been integral in forming the anti-Bibi movement over the past seven years.

Recently, a chilling video of a Zoom conversation was circulated in which Barak describes a scenario of how he will return to power. He mentions that he has a friend, a historian, who told to him that he will become Prime Minister again when there are “bodies floating in the Yarkon river” of Jews murdered in a civil war. Barak immediately said that this should never happen. Yet, that he would mention such a grotesque idea, a truly horrifying scenario is disturbing. Moreover, this comment was made to a forum whose whole raison d’être is to get rid of Netanyahu and explore ideas on how to implement such a plan. Perhaps this was a slip of the tongue, or maybe it was said by someone whose purpose in orchestrating these protests is about his own return to power.

Nonetheless, the Zoom conversation video containing the “bodies in the Yarkon river” comment actually occurred in 2020 during the Corona pandemic, years before judicial reform became a legislative issue. Meaning, the notion that it is specifically judicial reform that is bothering Barak, or the people he is guiding, is bogus. And the fact that Barak was having conversations with those who raised the idea of mass civil disobedience only serves to reinforce Barak’s role in guiding these protests.  

Barak's words in the 2020 video sure sounds like a blueprint for the protests happening today, especially using the word "democracy" as a slogan. 

But he had been saying the same thing since 2016:

These are Barak’s words at the Herzliya conference, pay attention to the recurring motifs that he still talks about today:

“We have been led for more than a year by a prime minister and a government that is weak, limp and all talk, even according to senior members of its coalition, deceitful and extremist, that fails repeatedly, in guaranteeing security, undermining the fabric of democracy in Israel, failing in managing diplomatic relations with the United States and in stabilizing Israel’s position in the world… Here, I call on the government to come to its senses and immediately get back on track. If you don’t do that, we will all have to get up from our comfortable and less comfortable seats – and overthrow it, through a popular protest and through the voter’s ballot – before it’s too late.”

These are the components of Ehud Barak’s second political comeback: de-legitimization of the government, a deep animus towards Bibi and therefore the slogan ‘anything-but-Bibi’, and mass demonstrations.

Bigman's article goes on to bring  other evidence to bolster this thesis.

Could this be true?

I am reading a pre-release edition of "(In)sighrs: Thirty Year of Peacemaking in the Oslo Process" by Gidi Grinstein. Grinstein was the secretary and youngest member of the Israeli delegation at Camp David in 2000 and his book is an account of the negotiations at the time. He worked for the Barak government during his premiership and famously used the Heimlich maneuver when Barak was choking at Camp David. 

 Grinstein loves Ehud Barak. He was "blown away" by Barak's speeches. He describes him as "the smartest man in the room" who manages to break down complex problems into a "matrix" of small tasks. He describes Barak's political brilliance in building a coalition as well as in his ambitious attempts to accomplish three things in a short time period - a peace deal with Syria, withdrawal from Lebanon whether negotiated or unilateral, and then peace with the PLO, all before Clinton would leave office. 

But, whether Grinstein realizes it or not, Barak comes off as a jerk in this book. His "matrix" of things to be done were all in his head and he wouldn't share his strategy or plans with anyone. On the contrary, Barak would instruct his PLO negotiating team to continue their work even as he sabotaged their progress because he wanted to work on the other tracks first. Grinstein admits this: chief negotiator Dr. Oded Eran was a serious expert who led the team, but he was a "pawn in Barak's masterplan" whose hands were politically tied by Barak, and Barak then built his own secret negotiating team, completely leaving Eran out of the loop.

This was hardly the only example where Barak would throw people under the bus because he thought he was the only one brilliant enough to see the big picture - and to maintain his power. There was no chain of command in Barak's government, and the only possible result in such a system is chaos. Grinstein himself admits that one day Barak asked him to leak information to the New York Times, bypassing his boss, and leaving him in an uncomfortable position. Official positions were circumvented by Barak's personal backchannels. No one knew their real roles.  Everyone working for Barak was a chess piece for his ambition, not a human being. Barak comes off as a paranoid, power-mad Machiavellian far more than the wise peacemaker Grinstein tries to position him as. 

The theory that Ehud Barak is the force behind the protests today in a bid to regain power, when he cannot hope to do so by democratic means, is entirely consistent with the Ehud Barak described in a book that adores him. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, July 24, 2023

Palestinian news site Amad as well as other sites have an opinion piece by Jordanian Ibrahim Abu Atila that asks Arabs to stop being coy and admit that their enemy is Jews, not "Zionists."

Those of us who speak simply and who do not know theorizing and embellishment of speech and those who are not affected by what the media promotes say that those who are hostile to us are the Jews.. while those who assume in themselves culture and openness to the world say that those who are hostile to us are the Zionists... Both of these statements are true...
He then goes on to say that while Israel was founded by secular Zionists, now it is run by "Talmudists." And now the judicial reform debate in Israel is between the seculars and the "Talmudists."
And now, as we are on the verge of approving those laws that diminish the role of the judiciary and increase the control of religious Jews over the occupation entity, a major conflict has begun between the two currents.

Although the existence of the two currents depends on the Talmudic approach, and that both of them are considered a real enemy for us, our enemy is the Zionist in both its religious and secular forms. It is necessary and necessary for us to return to the conviction of the simple and elderly among us that the Jews are our enemies, no matter how hidden they are and whatever clothes they wear. 

Then, somehow, he says that both sides are really Talmudists anyway.  

Finally, he expresses his fervent wish for a civil war that will wipe out Israel and allow the Palestinians to take over.
We hope that the conflict will intensify and escalate openly so that we will reach advanced steps in it, leading them to a civil war that will help us get rid of both streams and liberate the entire Palestinian land from them....
This has been a popular theme, as the Palestinian and other Arab media have been closely following every Israeli news story that predicts doomsday is imminent. They just have to wait, they believe, and then allow the Jews to destroy themselves.

According to Jewish tradition, the major reason the Temples were destroyed was "sinat chinam," baseless hatred between Jews.  It is saddening that we are seeing such baseless hatred today in Israel, and the judicial reform debate has been allowed by both sides to degenerate into an emotional fight between conservative and liberal, between religious and non-religious, and it is used as an excuse to widen fissures that have nothing or little to do with actual judicial reform. 

Take away the rhetoric and absurd name calling, and thoughtful people on both sides have a lot they can agree on. But those voices are being drowned out.  

I have my own opinions on the debate, but at this time judicial reform is not the debate anymore. Right now the enemies of Israel are the people who are eagerly widening the split between the two sides, and this is happening on both sides of the debate.

The way I see it, the two sides at this time are not the pro- and anti-judicial reform sides. The two sides are those who want to widen the split in Israeli society and those who want to narrow it: those who want to fuel sinat chinam and those who want to stop it. 

The Israelis fueling the baseless hatred on either side of the debate are the allies of the Arab antisemites like Abu Atila who are cheering them on.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, April 25, 2023




Something happened this week that completely contradicts everything you've been reading about the current Israeli government - and the High Court.

From Haaretz
:The Supreme Court should reject a petition demanding the eviction of residents of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, because the eviction involves “diplomatic and security considerations” that should be made by the Israeli government, according to a brief filed on Monday by Israel.

The government explained that it does eventually plan to carry out the demolition orders issued against the village, but wants to decide for itself when and how to do so.

Hold on.  Isn't this the "most right wing government in Israeli history"? Isn't the Supreme Court the last liberal holdout against total right-wing dictatorship?

As far as I can tell, over the years the Supreme Court has upheld the legality and importance of evacuating the illegal squatters on Area C land that was part of a military firing zone. And the governments of Israel have been trying to avoid that evacuation.

In other words, the exact opposite of what the narrative is. Not once since this whole thing went to court over the past ten years has the Supreme Court ruled that the residents have the legal right to remain there or that the State of Israel does not have the right to evict them from their illegally built homes. 

And the State of Israel has always petitioned to delay the demolition, at least until a plan is agreed to for the residents to move  - knowing quite well that the illegal squatters will never agree to move anywhere.

Meaning that Netanyahu is more left wing than the Supreme Court, and those who support the Supreme Court's independence should be supporting the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar - if they are being consistent, that it. 

Reality is a lot different from the simplistic narratives in the media. And politics beats out supposed "principles" every time.

 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, April 19, 2023


I want to talk about Noa Tishby. But not for too long. Because she doesn’t deserve that much attention and her story doesn’t deserve that much air.

Noa Tishby is an actress who used an official platform, granted her by an Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, to blacken the name of the State of Israel in the public sphere. She did so by writing a damning, nay treasonous article about the Netanyahu government in Ynet.

From the JNS:

Last month, Tishby wrote in a Hebrew-language article in Ynet of the reform initiative, “I will say it in the sharpest and clearest way: Diaspora Jewry and Israel’s supporters in the world are shocked. They are shocked.

“With great pain they look and see how the country they fiercely defended—in Congress, in the media, on the networks or in front of foreign—is changing its face.” This is “not a reform, but a coup,” she added.

Noa Tishby is entitled to her opinions, but not to air them. Because her appointment as “first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization” was to a diplomatic position. She was/is supposed to be speaking well of the democratically elected government of the Jewish State not only for the duration of her tenure as envoy, but forever after. Once a diplomat, always a diplomat. To be or do anything else is more than just bad form—it’s to betray your country and your mission, and show yourself a fraud.

She was always a fraud. A “defender” who hands the world moral permission on a platter to engage in “legitimate criticism of Israel” thus giving license to legions of antisemites to bash Israel. And if everyone can bash Israel, why shouldn’t she, Noa Tishby, in her capacity as “first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization?”

When I heard that she spoke out against judicial reform, calling it a “coup,” I said to myself, alone in the privacy of my bedroom, “FIRE. HER. A**.”

And that’s exactly what Netanyahu did. He fired an actress (Noa Tishby) who had been appointed by a high school dropout (Yair Lapid) to defend the State of Israel and the Jews.


 Yes, it was a tall order and no. Noa Tishby couldn’t do it. She’s an actress. Not a trained diplomat. Not some great thinker—no matter how hard the Lapid government tried to rebrand her as a “thought-leader.”

To be fair, the former envoy isn’t “just” an actress. Noa Tishby is also (if one might legitimately criticize her—it’s just an opinion, that's okay, right?) a traitor, a sell-out, and a latter-day version of Benedict Arnold. Only Jewish.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 



Monday, April 10, 2023



Back in January, Haaretz published "The American Billionaires Behind the Far-right Attempt to Destroy Liberal Israel." It highlighted the fact that the Kohelet Forum, a think tank that has influenced the judicial reform plan in Israel, is heavily funded by right-wing American billionaires which, of course, taints the entire organization. 

After all, why should Americans influence Israeli policy? Clearly something isn't kosher here.

Today, Haaretz has an article about another Israeli think tank, the Israel Democracy Institute, which it calls "The Think Tank on the Front Lines of the Battle for Israel's Democracy." It admiringly describes how the IDI has been working hard to fight judicial reform.

It doesn't mention that the Israel Democracy Institute's main funder and international chairman is also an American billionaire, Bernard Marcus. In fact, his Marcus Foundation and an anonymous American entity are listed as the organization's founders, and the majority of its major funders are from the USA, not Israel.



Where are the outraged articles that the think tank behind fighting judicial reform is founded and funded by American billionaires? Where are the intrepid reporters who are working to identify who the anonymous wealthy American co-founders of IDI is and paint them as nefarious opponents of all that is good and right? 

I have nothing against the IDI. It is an important part of the debate. It is an undeniably Zionist organization. Its funding sources are exactly as important as Kohelet's. Its budget is roughly the same as Kohelet's. And in both cases, the funders are American Zionists who care deeply about Israel's future.

Neither Kohelet nor IDI are anti-democracy. Neither of them are an enemy of Israel. 

Those who demonize either one of these are the real enemies of Israel's democracy. To them, partisanship and division are more important than having a fair debate about a crucial topic. Instead of encouraging people to read the articles authored by each think tank, they want to drown the opposing voices out. They want to replace reasoned debate with drama and protests. 

There is plenty of blame on both sides, but the stark difference between how the media treats Kohelet and how it treats IDI show that the media itself is often part of the problem, when its primary job should be to be part of the solution. 





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Abbas with members of the Supreme Constitutional Court that he appointed


During these tumultuous times of anger and angst over the future of Israel's judiciary, it is worth looking at recent changes to the judicial system under the Palestinian Authority that received next to no Western coverage.

On October 28, Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree creating the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies and Authorities. 

This Council has full control over the the Palestinian Authority‘s judicial system - the Supreme Constitutional Court, the Supreme Judicial Council, the Court of Cassation, the Supreme Administrative Court,  the judicial authority of the security forces, the Shariah Judicial Council, the ministry of justice and the attorney general.

The head of this council? Mahmoud Abbas, himself!

Abbas has complete and direct control over the entire Palestinian judiciary. 

A few years ago he created the Supreme Constitutional Court and handpicked all the members, he then used that court to dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council so he could be the head of the legislative branch of the government as well as the executive. And he uses his power to create hundreds of laws by presidential decree using the excuse that there is no legislative branch to do the job.

The media is silent. NGOs are nearly silent (Amnesty gave this a brief mention in their annual report, Human Rights Watch didn't mention it at all.) 

A website by the European Council on Foreign Relations, called Mapping Palestinian Politics, describes in detail how Mahmoud Abbas has complete control of nearly every important Palestinian institution.
Since succeeding Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader in 2004, Abbas has consolidated his grip on power within the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and Fatah. Over the years, Abbas has steadily purged or constrained his political rivals, monopolised the various Palestinian decision-making processes, and pursued increasingly authoritarian measures to stifle dissent and shrink the space for Palestinian democracy and popular participation. 
Why is there so much global criticism of Israel considering changes to the judiciary, and near complete silence when the Palestinian president rips up any pretense of a division of powers and installs himself as the head jurist as well as dictator? More importantly, how can anyone look at the Palestinian Authority and think that this should become an independent state when it its current state it runs roughshod over the rights of its citizens? 

The bigotry of low expectations hurts Palestinians. And it is ingrained in the world's psyche - mostly because the Palestinian leaders have encouraged this bigotry by blaming all of their problems on the Jews. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, March 26, 2023




Here is an editorial in the magazine "Civic and Social Problems," April 1, 1900:

Partisanship is narrow minded unreasonable adherence to a party or faction. That is its general significance. The man who clings to a party because it has a certain name, is, in these days, justly counted small minded and unthinking. He is not only unthinking and unprogressive. he is a dangerous man. There is no class in this country so dangerous as the partisan class. The partisan is the man who follows and fights for his party, "right or wrong." What safety has liberty in any land dominated by men of that stamp? Knaves and tyrants are wont to gain their ends by covertly substituting for partisanship the sacred name of patriotism. "Our country right or wrong", is as vicious as my "party right or wrong." What wars and endless infamies may not a people be led into under such a satanic slogan. 

And yet there is such a thing as proper partisanship. There is what may be called partisanship for a principle. Such partisanship is the emphatic need of our time. We need men who are honest enough and brave enough to rally around a cause that is just and to stand together for that cause till it be won. Give such men a party name if you will, but when the principle is gained the party Ind the name should vanish together. While it lives the principle should rule the party. If the name and organization be perpetuated after their initial object is obtained they become a bond by which men are duped and led and ruled. Party then becomes a tyrant, its members tools and subjects. What power in the way of progress to-day is so potent as the power of party name that stands simply for party. The "party in power" arrogates to itself ownership of the nation. "Our country right or wrong" means in most cases but "our party right or wrong. ....

If not partisanship what then should we have? Each day, each year, brings its own rallying cry for concerted, organized action by the people. Evils that should be eradicated, good that should be attained, these furnish continually new questions of public concern that call for discussion and decision at the ballot-box. For the time being two parties will arise, one for, one against the question at issue. When the vote is cast the issue is settled. The opposing parties have no longer a reason for existence. Their occupation is gone. Their names should also go. 

The partisan has always been the blind tool of despotism. He followed the king because be was the king, his king; followed him as a willing slave, even to the killing and plundering of his fellow-men, and the sacrificing of his own life. Today his king is the party name he swears by. Fortunately the number grows of those who have brains enough and manhood enough to cast off the shackles of partisanship. 
I think that things have gotten worse - because the animating emotion does not seem to be "my party, right or wrong" but "opposing the other party, wrong or right."

The positions of the opposing camps in both the US and Israel seem to make decisions more on disgust for their political opponents than on their own deeply held beliefs. Slogans replace respectful debate, prejudices are justified as patriotism, words like "democracy" are used to justify undemocratic positions, political philosophies are subverted for petty politics, and the desire for power subsumes the what is best for the nation.

If anything is going to destroy either the United States or Israel, it is division and partisanship. And there aren't enough people sounding this alarm.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, March 24, 2023

Richard A,. Posner

In 2007, The New Republic published an article by Richard A. Posner reviewing The Judge in a Democracy by Israel's former chief justice Aharon Barak, who had spearheaded the judicial revolution that many in Israel now want to turn back.

Posner is one of the most influential legal scholars in the United States and the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century.

It is worth reading his pretty scathing critique from 16 years ago, as the issues being wrestled with in Israel as the same that Barak justified in his book.

Enlightened Despot

Aharon Barak, a long-serving justice (eventually the chief justice) of the Supreme Court of Israel, who recently reached mandatory retirement age, is a prolific writer, and this is his most recent book. It is an important document, less for its intrinsic merits than for its aptness to be considered Exhibit A for why American judges should be extremely wary about citing foreign judicial decisions. Barak is a world-famous judge who dominated his court as completely as John Marshall dominated our Supreme Court. If there were a Nobel Prize for law, Barak would probably be an early recipient. But although he is familiar with the American legal system and supposes himself to be in some sort of sync with liberal American judges, he actually inhabits a completely different--and,to an American, a weirdly different--juristic universe. I have my differences with Robert Bork, but when he remarked, in a review of The Judge in a Democracy, that Barak "establishes a world record for judicial hubris," he came very near the truth.

Barak is John Marshall without a constitution to expound--or to "expand," as Barak once revealingly misquoted a famous phrase of Marshall's ("we must never forget it is a constitution that we are expounding"). Israel does not have a constitution. It has "Basic Laws" passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, which Barak has equated to a constitution by holding that the Knesset cannot repeal them. That is an amazing idea: could our Congress pass a law authorizing every American to carry a concealed weapon, and the Supreme Court declare that the law could never be repealed? And only one-quarter of the Knesset's members voted for those laws!

What Barak created out of whole cloth was a degree of judicial power undreamed of even by our most aggressive Supreme Court justices. He puts Marshall, who did less with more, in the shade. Among the rules of law that Barak's judicial opinions have been instrumental in creating that have no counterpart in American law are that judges cannot be removed by the legislature, but only by other judges; that any citizen can ask a court to block illegal action by a government official, even if the citizen is not personally affected by it (or lacks "standing" to sue, in the American sense); that any government action that is "unreasonable" is illegal ("put simply, the executive must act reasonably, for an unreasonable act is an unlawful act"); that a court can forbid the government to appoint an official who had committed a crime (even though he had been pardoned) or is otherwise ethically challenged, and can order the dismissal of a cabinet minister because he faces criminal proceedings; that in the name of "human dignity" a court can compel the government to alleviate homelessness and poverty; and that a court can countermand military orders, decide "whether to prevent the release of a terrorist within the framework of apolitical 'package deal,'" and direct the government to move the security wall that keeps suicide bombers from entering Israel from the West Bank.

These are powers that a nation could grant its judges. For example, many European nations and even some states in the United States authorize "abstract" constitutional review--that is, judicial determination of a statute's constitutionality without waiting for a suit by someone actually harmed by the statute. But only in Israel (as far as I know) do judges confer the power of abstract review on themselves, without benefit of a constitutional or legislative provision. One is reminded of Napoleon's taking the crown out of the pope's hands and putting it on his own head.

Barak does not attempt to defend his judicial practice by reference to orthodox legal materials; even the "Basic Laws" are mentioned only in passing. His method, lacking as it does any but incidental references to enacted provisions, may seem the method of the common law (the judge-made law that continues to dominate many areas of Anglo-American law, such as contracts and torts), except that common-law rules are subject to legislative override, and his rules are not. The significance of this point seems to elude him. He takes for granted that judges have inherent authority to override statutes. Such an approach can accurately be described as usurpative.

Barak bases his conception of judicial authority on abstract principles that in his hands are plays on words. The leading abstraction is "democracy." Political democracy in the modern sense means a system of government in which the key officials stand for election at relatively short intervals and thus are accountable to the citizenry. A judiciary that is free to override the decisions of those officials curtails democracy. For Barak, however, democracy has a "substantive" component, namely a set of rights ("human rights" not limited to political rights, such as the right to criticize public officials, that support democracy), enforced by the judiciary, that clips the wings of the elected officials. That is not a justification for a hyperactive judiciary, it is merely a definition of it.

Another portmanteau word that Barak abuses is "interpretation," which for him is remote from a search for the meaning intended by the authors of legislation. He says that the task of a legislature in passing statutes is "to bridge the gap between law and society, "and that the task of the judge in interpreting a statute is to "ensure that the law in fact bridges the gap between law and society." This is very odd--isn't the statute the law, rather than the intermediary between the law and the society? What he seems to mean, as further suggested by his statement that "whoever enforces a statute enforces the whole legal system," is that a statute should be interpreted so that it is harmonious with the spirit or values of the legal system as a whole, which as a practical matter means with the judge's ideal system, since no real legal system has a unitary spirit or common set of values.

This understanding of Barak's approach is further suggested by his statement that a judge, in addition to considering the language and background and apparent purpose of a statute, should consider its "objective purpose ... to realize the fundamental values of democracy." This opens up a vast realm for discretionary judgment (the antithesis of "objective"); and when a judge has discretion in interpreting a statute, Barak's "advice is that ... the judge should aspire to achieve justice." So a regulation that authorizes military censorship of publications that the censor "deems likely to harm state security, public security, or the public peace" was interpreted by Barak's court to mean "would create a near certainty of grave harm to state security, public security, or public peace." It is thus the court that makes Israel's statutory law, using the statutes themselves as first drafts that the court is free to rewrite.

Barak invokes the "separation of powers" as further support for his aggressive conception of the judicial role. What he means by separation of powers is that the executive and legislative branches are to have no degree of control over the judicial branch. What we mean by separation of powers, so far as judicial authority is concerned, is that something called the judicial power of the United States has been consigned to the judicial branch. That doesn't mean the branch is independent of the other branches. If each of the powers (executive, legislative, and judicial) were administered by a branch that was wholly independent and thus could ignore the others, the result would be chaos. The branches have to be mutually dependent, in order to force cooperation. So "separation of powers" implies "checks and balances," and the judicial branch has to be checked by the other branches, and not just do the checking. And so rather than our judiciary being a self-perpetuating oligarchy, the president nominates and the Senate confirms (or rejects) federal judges, and Congress fixes their salaries, regulates the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, decides whether to create other federal courts, determines the federal judiciary's budget, and can remove judges by means of the impeachment process. Moreover, the judicial power of the United States can be exercised only in suits brought by persons who have standing to sue in the sense of having a tangible grievance that can be remedied by the court. And because the judicial power is not the only federal power--there are executive and legislative powers of constitutional dignity as well--the judiciary cannot tell the president whom to appoint to his cabinet.

In Barak's conception of the separation of powers, the judicial power is unlimited and the legislature cannot remove judges. (And in Israel, judges participate in the selection of judges.) Outfitted with such abstractions as "democracy," "interpretation," "separation of powers," "objectivity," "reasonableness" (it is "the concept of reasonableness" that Barak would have used to adjudicate the "package deal" for the release of the terrorist), and of course "justice" ("I try to be guided by my North Star, which is justice. I try to make law and justice converge, so that the Justice will do justice"), a judge is a law unto himself.
None of this means that the judicial reform being pushed by the Israeli government is the correct response, but at the same time no one can argue that the status quo that gives unlimited power to the unelected Israeli judiciary is not in serious need of reform.
 
(h/t Alex)



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Wednesday, March 15, 2023


Polls can offer valuable insights on public sentiment. But when pollsters ask leading questions, there are no insights. The public sees only what they were directed to see: poll results that exactly mirror the bias of the poll’s designer. Take for example, a recent poll on judicial reform conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), the subject of a Jerusalem Post report: “Two-thirds of Israelis oppose Netanyahu government's judicial reform – poll.”

When the piece came out on February 21, I thought, “Oh, sure,” snorted and went on to read something else. Because I knew it was a bunch of crap. There’s no way that many Israelis oppose judicial reform. Israelis voted for the current government because they want judicial reform. We don’t want the court to have the ability to strike down legislation that reflects the will of the people. It’s undemocratic. It’s overreach. 

Despite my skepticism, not two weeks later, I was prompted to revisit that Jerusalem Post report. My token left-leaning friend had posted a photo of himself on social media getting ready to leave for a judicial reform protest. He was smiling and holding an Israeli flag. I glanced through the comments to get a feel for the pulse of this small group of virtual friends. What points were they arguing? How many were for and how many against? That interested me far more than my left-leaning friend’s joy in joining the “revolution.”

I found that just as in the recent election, my friend’s friends were, by far, in favor of judicial reform. I did note one dissenting voice: that of a writing colleague from my early Times of Israel blogging days. She very politely asserted that most Israelis are opposed to judicial reform, and cited the Jerusalem Post report.

That’s when I went to take a closer look. Not because I was looking for a reason to discredit the JPost piece, but because I became curious about the poll itself: there had to be something wrong with that poll. Because Israelis had voted for judicial reform.

The problem, if the first two paragraphs of the report are anything to go on, appears to be leading language. This definition of leading questions is as good as any other:

Leading questions are survey questions that encourage or guide the respondent towards a desired answer. They are often framed in a particular way to elicit responses that confirm preconceived notions, and are favorable to the surveyor – even though this may ultimately sway or tamper with the survey data.

Here’s that first part of the JPost piece (emphasis added):

66% of Israelis agree that Israel’s High Court of Justice should be able to strike down laws that are contrary to the nation’s Basic Laws, a survey carried out by IDI’s Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research found. Furthermore, the survey found that 63% agree that the current system requiring concurrence between MKs and justices for judicial appointments is appropriate.

The language is quite clearly culled from the IDI report on the poll, which begins very much the same (emphasis added):

66% of Israelis: Supreme Court should have power to strike down laws that are incompatible with Israel’s Basic Laws | On Judicial Selection Committee: 63% Support Current Principle Requiring Agreement between Politicians and Justices.

In both cases, there’s an implied threat to the language—if we don’t stop judicial reform, the High Court will lose its ability to curb the rash, illegal actions of the rogue Netanyahu/Smotrich/Ben Gvir government. This, the respondent is given to understand, would be bad, even disastrous.

More leading language from the IDI poll, here and below.

Well, most people are nice, and they want to please the nice poll people. So they say what they think the pollsters want to hear—even if they voted for and still believe in judicial reform. People like to comply. And that is the purpose of leading language and leading questions. Someone (or even a great many someones) are led to say something, but that something may or may not be true.

In a letter to Politico in 2007, the late MK Dick Leonard related the following anecdote:

On a famous occasion in 1970s, when Britain was about to join the European Economic Community (EEC), a survey by a leading polling organisation used a split sample, one half of the respondents being asked the following question: “France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg approved their membership of the EEC by a vote of their national parliaments. Do you think Britain should do the same?”

The other half were asked: “Ireland, Denmark and Norway are voting in a referendum to decide whether to join the EEC. Do you think Britain should do the same?”

Each half of the sample produced an overwhelming yes vote. It is because of this example that reputable polls long ago ceased to use leading questions and that is why I doubt the validity of the poll conducted on behalf of O’Brien’s organisation.

It’s a dirty and cowardly trick: the pollster elicits the desired answer with the specific intent of generating false numbers to be sensationalized in the news and in the bowels of social media. It’s not even about swaying those who sit on the fence, undecided.

It’s disinformation. And it’s born of exploiting people’s niceness; their desire to be kind, to accommodate, whenever possible, their fellow human beings.

Some people, of course, are swayed into changing course or becoming apologetic when the issue snowballs out of control. Those people would include, for example, Noa Tishby, and Miriam Adelson.

In reality, however, it doesn’t change a thing. Judicial reform was a key issue during the election campaign, and the final tally reflects the current will and voice of the people, vox populi. Israel voted for a right-wing government, and they want right-wing policy. They don’t want to be overruled by the side that LOST.

The side that the people did not vote for.




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Haaretz has a truly bizarre op-ed from a prominent rabbi, Daniel Landes, who should know better.
Some sort of compromise might be offered at some point by the Israeli government coalition’s minions to stop the unprecedented upheaval we in Israel are living through: mass streets protests, the hemorrhaging of high-tech investment money and pilots and other military reservists refusing on moral grounds to show up for reserve duty.

While over half of the country yearns for an end to our ever-growing, overwhelming existential anxiety, compromise offers must be greeted with skepticism.

Such admonition can seem surprising since we are used to compromise – pesharah – as a Jewish response to legal conflict.

But pay attention, the Talmudic enterprise also contains a warning: compromise is often not the answer.

...But then the question remained as to whether the court itself should invite a judicially mediated pesharah.

Many rabbis not only rejected that idea, but they explicitly forbade it. Evidently, the court was reserved for attempting to achieve absolute truth and was not the place for getting people to “just agree,” which would imply a tampering with rectitude to solve the situation.

Pesharah, compromise, was labeled as bitzu'a, signaling a truncated judgment, or even connoting a kind of swindle or profit. And thus they applied the verse (Ps. 10:3): "One who praises the compromiser despises God."
Clearly, Landes knows the Jewish arguments for compromise, but he argues that in some cases it is absolutely wrong. And somehow he determines that a compromise on judicial reform is in that category, seemingly because there is "profit" to the Israeli Right by such a compromise and profit, he claims, invalidates the reasons to want compromise.

The profit he defines is not monetary, but social - Haredim will continue to avoid army service, as they have since Israel was led by Labor; religious Zionists can build more communities in Judea and Samaria (ditto), and so forth.

For some reason he doesn't mention the "profit" to the Left of keeping the High Court as powerful as it is. Nor does he admit that pretty much everyone agrees that the judicial system in Israel has too much power, the only disagreement is how much it should have.

The crazy part is that this is not an issue for halacha (Jewish law) to begin with. It is political. Both sides have good points, neither has the monopoly on truth. The biggest danger to Israel isn't judicial reform, but the insane political split that this fairly complex argument that perhaps only 5% of Israelis (and far fewer American Jews) understand had prompted. 

Both sides have used this issue as an excuse for hardening their positions, for demonizing their opponents, and for splitting the nation. 

And this rabbi - who surely knows more about Judaism than I do - is arguing that such a split is Judaically preferable to any victory, even a partial victory, by his political opponents!

No, that is not the Judaism that I know.  

Moment Magazine asked a question of various rabbis recently: "Is Political Compromise a Jewish Value?" Nearly al the rabbis agreed, of course, political compromise is indeed a Jewish value!

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg (Modern Orthodox)

Political (also economic and social) compromise is prized in Jewish tradition. The Talmud states that a mediated settlement—that is, one in which both sides feel they have gotten some of their just due—is a better outcome than a strict judgment that hands a victory to one side (Sanhedrin 6b). Without compromise, the overruled side may feel alienated and left out. This undermines the will to live together that enables a stable, functioning, productive society (just as the breakdown of bipartisanship and mutual respect between liberals and conservatives in America today threatens the viability of our democracy)....Over the course of history, the covenantal halacha often prescribed not the ideal behavior but the best possible policy that kept people working together. 
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein (Orthodox):

There are times when compromise or appeasement is a desecration of God’s name, and other cases where a refusal to compromise brings disaster. There’s no formula, other than blunt honesty as to whether the decision to compromise reflects the honor of heaven rather than a personal agenda.
Rabbi Haim Ovadia (Sephardic):
I personally believe that compromise in any field, not just political, is a Jewish virtue, though any proof I provide could be contested. Many classic sources suggest that compromise is the ideal path when there is a dispute. ...When we insist on doing things our way against others’ will, we may win, but the others will be left with a sense of bitterness and animosity which could easily be later aroused. When we compromise, we may make more people happy, and that, I believe, is a Jewish virtue.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov (Chabad):
Political compromise, unlike religious compromise, is usually a wonderful thing.

While compromising halachic standards—even to address pressing needs—has almost always led to adoption of the more lax standard, and must therefore be avoided whenever possible, personal or political compromise, especially for the sake of peace, has always been lauded by the Torah and even by G-d.
...
Lately, conviviality is in short supply, particularly in the political arena. Whether in public policy, business, marriage or relationships generally, calming down and taking a respectful look at the other side is virtuous, even if you continue to disagree.

The country, the world and all of us would significantly benefit from seeing our leaders talk to instead of at each other, as was prevalent only a few decades ago. Don’t compromise who you are, but let who you are be one who is open to appropriate dialogue and compromise. It ultimately brings you greater strength.
Is Rabbi Daniel Landes motivated by what is best for the Jewish people and Israel, or by narrow political considerations?

The fact that he calls the people who are discussing compromise from the Right "minions" seems to indicate the latter. And that is very disappointing from a person who founded an institution, YASHRUT, that is  meant to "build civil discourse through a theology of integrity, justice, and tolerance."





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Wednesday, March 08, 2023

From Ian:

Overhaul protesters gear up for ‘day of resistance’ throughout the country Thursday
The protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plans was set to conduct a second major campaign to disrupt daily life in Israel on Thursday, in what activists are calling a “day of resistance.”

The day notably includes plans to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport in an attempt to make it difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get there for his flight on an official visit to Italy. This in addition to marches, temporary workplace strikes, the blocking of main thoroughfares, disruption of train services and rallies outside the homes of top government officials.

The protest events were laid out in detail on a dedicated website and map (Hebrew), with organizers promising “many surprises,” indicating there were more planned actions that had not been announced publicly.

“It is a civic duty to resist the dictatorship and this is the only way to return Israel to the path of democracy. This is a great battle for the independence of Israeli citizens against the tyranny that will destroy what we have built here for over 70 years. We call on the entire public to participate in protests,” the organizers said in a statement.

Protest heads have specifically called for demonstrators to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu and his wife are scheduled to depart on their flight to Italy. The trip previously faced setbacks when national carrier El Al was unable to find a crew to man the prime minister’s flight — an issue blamed on crew shortages but which may have also been affected by growing public anger at the government as it pushed forward with efforts to weaken the justice system.

Some media reports indicated Netanyahu was looking at possibly taking a helicopter to the airport to avoid the expected road disruptions.

A major rally in Tel Aviv was to set off from the city’s Habima Square. In addition, protests by workers from the tech sector were planned at 15 locations around the country.

Police said they too were preparing for the demonstrations, with 3,000 cops set to be deployed across the country.
Ruthie Blum: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi should call his troops to order
Those who defended Bar’s remarks (delivered several weeks before the Knesset election) did so on the grounds that terrorists apprehended by the Shin Bet told their interrogators that internecine strife in the Jewish state was bolstering their confidence and resolve. In other words, since perception influences enemy actions, security bigwigs have a responsibility to monitor and caution about pitfalls in this realm.

It’s a logical position, particularly in view of the gleeful way in which the international Arab and Iranian media outlets are depicting the present crisis in the country. That they’re being given a serious boost by the Israeli press may be extremely disconcerting, but it’s the price—and privilege—of free speech.

Soldiers don’t enjoy this luxury, however. On the contrary, their individual ideologies are irrelevant to the assignments they are charged to execute. Halevi has the duty to remind them of this in no uncertain terms. His failure on this score only encourages the very foes that the IDF, thankfully, is still fighting on more than one front.

“When we are on the battlefield, we don’t look to the right and left to discern the political views of our brothers and sisters,” said Netanyahu on Monday, after attending a Purim megillah reading at a Border Police base in the Jewish community of Beit Horon. “We [do it] with the knowledge that together, shoulder-to-shoulder, we are storming our enemies, in order to safeguard our security and future.”

This, he stressed, “is the first and most important foundation of our existence in our land. It rests on the deep understanding that whatever the controversies among us, we are always united against those out to kill us. This is how it was during all of Israel’s wars.”

He went on: “Refusal to serve threatens this existential foundation, and thus has no place in our ranks. Israeli society always condemned the refusal to serve.… We never allowed it a foothold—neither in the regular army nor in the reserves; neither in the security forces nor anywhere else. It had no place in the War of Independence, the Oslo Accords or in the disengagement [from Gaza]. There is no room for it now, nor should there be in the future…. because the minute that we give this illness legitimacy, it will spread and become systemic…in controversies to come.”

Netanyahu concluded with a Purim analogy.

“When Haman sought to find the Jews’ weak spot, he said, ‘There is one people that is scattered and divided.’ But…we rose as one; we banded together and achieved victory for generations. We will do it again this time, as well.”

It’s a message that Halevi would do well to hear, heed and repeat.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Leave the IDF out of the protest
This is one of the most legitimate protests in Israel's history.

Some have tried to quash it by pointing out a handful of Palestinian flags flown at rallies, but for every such flag, a thousand Israeli flags were raised, so that fell flat.

Others claimed the protest wasn't about the judicial overhaul at all but rather an attempt to overrule the will of the voter, but that too missed the mark. This protest's success lies in its expansion to more and more audiences, it's not merely a left-wing protest. Prominent religious and right-wing figures have also joined in, and while most of them don't take the streets, they make their voices heard by appealing for dialogue and broad consensus.

Are they too anarchists? Who are you trying to fool?

As for those screeching voices on the margins flying the BDS flag, let them, they clearly do not represent anything.

But the protest also brings the pain. The fissure is here. And 37 out of 40 pilots of the Israeli Air Force's elite 69 Squadron declaring they won't report for training is the closest thing to mutiny.

We must not allow this terrible scourge to become the face of the protest for there is a fine line where a protest shifts from an opposition to the government to an opposition to the state. There are too many elements on the left that had done so, there's no need for the protest to tread the same line.

Crossing that red line would only harm the protest since it draws its success from the fact that it has become a consensus in and of itself, and public opinion polls show as much.

As soon as the protest crosses these red lines, it will become a sectoral protest of the extreme left. This was not the intention of the pilots who declared that they won't report for reserve duty, but this may be the result. So yes, we must apply pressure to prevent harm to democracy. But there is no need for the protest to exacerbate that harm.


The Caroline Glick Show: Politics is poisoning the IDF
Mob violence against Sara Netanyahu; 37 out of 40 elite Air Force reservist pilots refusing to show up to duty. These are, but two of the most recent examples of the protests against the judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government.

To discuss the shocking turn of events and the leading role that retired leftist generals are playing in the left’s efforts to coerce the government to shelve its efforts to restore Israeli democracy, the guest on this week’s show is Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.

Avivi is the founder and CEO of the Israel Security and Defense Forum (Habithonistim), a social movement and think tank comprised of retired senior officers, soldiers and concerned citizens working to reinstate the Zionist ethos in the IDF. Glick and Avivi also discuss at length the issue of Iran, which the United States now acknowledges had become a threshold nuclear state..

In addition, Glick devotes her opening remarks to an analysis of the central (hostile) role the Biden administration is playing in the events on the ground in Israel.
Thomas Friedman in The New York Times writes an op-ed with the headline, "American Jews, You Have to Choose Sides on Israel:"

Ever since Israel’s founding in 1948, supporting the country’s security and its economic development and cementing its diplomatic ties to the U.S. have been the “religion” of many nonobservant American Jews — rather than studying Torah or keeping kosher. That mission drove fund-raising and forged solidarity among Jewish communities across America.

Now, a lot of American Jews are going to need to find a new focus for their passion.

Because if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds with his judicial putsch to crush the independence of the country’s judiciary, the subject of Israel could fracture every synagogue and Jewish communal organization in America. To put it simply: Israel is facing its biggest internal clash since its founding, and for every rabbi and every Jewish leader in America, to stay silent about this fight is to become irrelevant.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency just ran an article that offered a revealing glimpse into this reality. It quoted Los Angeles Rabbi Sharon Brous as beginning her sermon on Israel last month with a content warning to her congregants: “I have to say some things today that I know will upset some of you.”

Every American rabbi knew what she meant: Israel has become such a hot-button issue that it cannot be discussed without taking sides for or against Netanyahu’s policies.

As Rabbi Brous told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “You have a wonderful community, and you love them and they love you, until the moment you stand up and you give your Israel sermon.” She said the phenomenon has an informal name: “Death-by-Israel sermon.”

Death-by-Israel sermon. Never heard that before.
Unlike how Friedman portrays her, Rabbi Brous has not exactly been an "Israel right or wrong" leader before the current government. She wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2018:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition continues to recklessly enforce its ideological absolutes, passing an anti-democratic nation-state law, denying surrogacy rights to LGBTQ Israelis, escalating personal attacks against the New Israel Fund and other progressive organizations [Brous is a leader in NIF - EoZ], and detaining American journalists at the border, interrogating them about their political beliefs and associations. As an American rabbi, I can’t ignore the message the Israeli government is sending to diaspora Jews: Stick to the playbook. Send Israel your money, your youth, your tourists and your unquestioning loyalty. Don’t talk about the occupation (now in its 51st year) or the millions of Palestinians denied equal protection, freedom of movement, the right to vote for the government that dictates their daily lives. Don’t visit Bethlehem or Ramallah, where you might hear a Palestinian narrative. Pay no attention to Breaking the Silence, Parents Circle or any other group where Israelis and Palestinians speak frankly about the challenges and the possibilities for a shared future
The maddening thing about Rabbi Brous is that she positions herself as a lover of Israel, and I have no doubt that she believes this. This op-ed started off with her description of a tour of Hebron that her family took with Breaking the Silence, and she wrote, "My daughter loves the miracle of Israel. It was time for her to see the other side." And, "We witnessed the harshest effects of the occupation: roadways forbidden to Palestinians, abandoned blocks, Jewish settlements the world deems illegal. We saw the once-thriving Casbah, dead quiet now. All of this, the direct result of Israeli military policy."

Why does her narrative go back only that far? Why doesn't she mention the attacks by Arabs on the Jews of Hebron before Baruch Goldstein that prompted the IDF to divide the old city? 

This hints at the real issue.

The problem isn't that American Jews must choose to be either for or against Israel. The problem is not that one side wants debate about Israeli policy and the other doesn't. 

The problem is that partisanship is poisoning any chance for a real debate to begin with. 

The current discussion on judicial reform in Israel is a perfect example. Lahav Harkov described it very well from the Israeli perspective:
Reports of the demise of Israeli democracy are greatly exaggerated. The proposed changes relate to the balance of power between the judiciary, the legislative and the executive branches of government — a matter of usually staid debate among Israeli academics and wonks for nearly three decades. Today’s incendiary rhetoric on the issue says more about the vicious and polarised state of Israeli politics than the controversiality of the Supreme Court reforms.
People in Israel and Jews in America are looking for excuses to justify their politics and their hate for their political opponents. But the politics and partisanship is what drives the debate, not the facts. 

When Tom Friedman describes the judicial reform proposal as a "judicial putsch to crush the independence of the country’s judiciary" he is not engaging in a debate, but in mudslinging. When Breaking the Silence makes up fake stories of IDF soldiers mistreating Palestinians for no reason, they are not engaging in debate but anti-Israel propaganda. 

And when people like Sharon Brous claims that she is impartially weighing both sides and soberly informing her congregants that Israel is on the road to dictatorship, I somehow do not think she is giving them access to any articles that argue that the unelected Israeli High Court has been the side that has near absolute power over Israeli law. 

Part of the reason for that is that such articles are not easy to find in the American press, which prefer the narrative of a criminal Bibi who wants absolute power to the detriment of the State of Israel.

Not that Bibi isn't a political animal as well - he absolutely is, and his conduct during this supposed debate has also been guided more by politics than by doing what is best for Israel. 

So how can Jews - in Israel, America and Europe as well - act responsibly?

The answer is simultaneously simple, extraordinarily difficult and rooted in Jewish tradition.

The answer is to be dan l'chaf zechut - to judge our fellow Jews meritoriously.  

This is a fundamental Jewish concept with multiple sources and extensive commentary

We need to shed the partisanship and honestly believe that the other side is not evil, but that they want the best for Israel and the Jewish world. (This does not apply to those who are irredeemably evil, who in the case of Zionism I would define as anyone who never says anything positive about Israel. Those people, in my opinion, are not acting out of love but from hate. But that's me, and that is part of what makes this mitzvah difficult.) 

How many people know that the supposed anti-Arab racist Netanyahu has done more to improve the Arab sector in Israel than any other prime minister, by far?  How many American Jewish critics of Israel have spent more than two minutes seeking out the arguments for judicial reform? How many American Jews who have taken Breaking the Silence tours of Hebron have read the criticisms of that organization's methods? 

We need to go beyond the reporting of mainstream media - whose entire business model is based on eyeballs that follow controversy and partisanship - and instead do our own research with the assumption that our fellow Jews want what is best for Israel. That they are not terrible people because they voted for Trump or live on the east side of an imaginary line drawn in 1949, and neither are they bad people because they chose not to report for reserve duty or spend hours every week protesting the Israeli government. Assume that they, too, want what is best for Israel and the Jewish people.  

Thomas Friedman wants Jews in America to make a choice - love Israel or oppose Israel. That is a false choice, and one that is predicated on wanting to stoke division. The real alternative is to stop looking at everything through the primary lens of us vs. them, right vs. left, and assumptions of bad faith on the part of our fellow Jews who are of the "wrong" political party. Stop being defined by division and have an honest debate.

Moreover, if your political philosophy does not leave room for giving the other side the benefit of the doubt, than you should question that philosophy. (And look at the motivations of those who stoke division.)

"Tikkun Olam" as it is defined today is not a real Jewish tradition - but dan l'chaf zechut is.

People who take Judaism seriously, whether they are religious or not, must realize that dan l'chaf  zechut is a fundamental part of Judaism that can and should be embraced by every Jew from the far-Right to the far-Left. 

The future of the Jewish people is at stake.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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