Caroline Glick: Iran – where Biden and Israel's legal fraternity converge
Consider past efforts. According to a 2012 exposé by Israel's investigative journalism program Uvda ("Fact"), in 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF and Mossad to prepare plans to attack Iran's nuclear installations. Then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and then IDF chief of general staff Gabi Ashkenazy refused to follow the order. They claimed that Netanyahu and Barak lacked the legal authority to give such an order. At the time, current attorney general Avichai Mandelblit served as the IDF's Military Advocate General. In a posthumously broadcast interview, Dagan insisted that Netanyahu's determination to destroy Iran's nuclear program was driven by "political" considerations.Michal Cotler-Wunsh: 'Canceling' Human Rights
In 2016, Uvda broadcast an interview with Leon Panetta. In 2010, as Obama's CIA director, Panetta was Dagan's counterpart. In the interview, Panetta revealed that after refusing Netanyahu's order, Dagan travelled to Washington and informed Panetta about the order – thus alerting the US to Israel's plans.
Dagan's move was arguably treacherous, but more to the point, the fact that in 2010 he had faith in the Obama administration's commitment to Israel's security than he had in Netanyahu shows that at a minimum, Dagan had no understanding of international politics. The year before, at his address at the American University in Cairo, Obama declared before the world his intention to realign US policy away from Israel and the US's traditional Sunni Arab allies and towards Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Dagan clearly failed to grasp the implications of the speech. Netanyahu and Barak clearly understood them.
As Attorney General, the same Mandelblit who claimed in 2010 that Israel's elected leaders lacked the authority to determine strategic policy has even more aggressively eroded the governing powers of Israel's political leadership, while arrogating those powers and authorities to himself and his office. Just this week, Mandelblit took his legally ungirded efforts to new heights by declaring illegal a legal vote of the government which approved the appointment of a justice minister that Mandelblit didn't want.
In this state of affairs, with elected leaders hamstrung by unelected lawyers devoid of international political awareness or accountability to the voting public, the likelihood that Israel's elected leaders will be capable of conceiving and carrying out a policy to block Iran's rise as a nuclear power is not high.
The Israeli public discourse about legal reform generally focuses on the domestic implications of the legal fraternity's seizure of the political powers of elected officials. But as the episode from 2010 makes clear, the current power imbalance between unelected lawyers and elected politicians has acute strategic implications. Until Israel's elected leaders seize back their powers from the government attorneys, they will be unable to contend with the strategic challenge posed by the Biden administration's embrace of Iran and gutting of the US-Israel alliance.
After decades of "Israel apartheid weeks" on campuses around the world, the HRW report is a final nail in the coffin of the "apartheid" narrative. It is vital to identify and expose it for what it is—yet another manifestation of a systematic strategy to replace bullets with words, still intent to destroy the state of Israel. As the report indicates, the war rages on. There is, after all, zero legitimacy for a true apartheid state to exist. It cannot be repaired and must be dismantled. And erasing Israel from the map is the ultimate goal of the "industry of lies," perversely done in the name of human rights.JPost Editorial: Israel needs a Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Diaspora Jewry needs Israel
However, this war gnaws away not only at Israel's legitimate existence, but at the very foundations upon which democracy, international law and human rights rest. It is therefore not only the right and responsibility of Israel, but the imperative of all guardians of international law and human rights, to identify, expose and address the abuse and double standards that enable and empower this damaging process. Among its damaging lies, the HRW report strips Palestinians of agency; ignores the existence and responsibility of the Palestinian Authority; inserts the Oslo Accords, which merited Nobel Peace recognition, into the apartheid narrative; and erases the identity other minorities in Israel, referring to Druze, Bedouin and Circassian all as Palestinians. Overall, the report constitutes not only an obstacle, but an outright impasse to peace.
Robert Bernstein z''l, founder and CEO of HRW, understood the power of the tools he had championed in order to uphold, promote and protect human rights. He recognized that they were being weaponized to turn Israel into a pariah state. In his important New York Times 2009 article, titled "Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Middle East," he wrote: "Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world." He continued: "If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished."
How right he was. Much like what happened with Albert Einstein, the powerful tools Bernstein had helped develop, intended to be used as a force for good, have destructive potential and threaten not only the continued existence of Israel, but the foundational principles of democracy, international law and human rights. Left unchecked, these tools may end up empowering the continued culture of impunity toward the most truly egregious violators of human rights.
The HRW report can, and should, serve as a wake-up call. It underscores the imperative and collective responsibility of all trustees of real international law and real human rights. It requires we identify, expose and address the lies and double standards, demanding equal and consistent application of expectations and law, ensuring these powerful tools are not utilized to undermine peaceful coexistence. It necessitates an understanding that this is a war for our very collective survival, one that we can and must fight—together.
These programs are important, but they are not the only reason why a Diaspora Ministry is needed. An office dedicated to the Jews of the world sends a message to those Jews that Israel cares about them and that they have an address to come to discuss issues that concern them.Jerusalem's Old City lights up in solidarity with Mount Meron victims
As two distinct Jewish communities, the Jews of Israel and the Jews of the United States – the largest Jewish community outside of Israel – are never going to agree on everything. The simple fact that both communities live in different parts of the world and face different daily challenges will mean that they will almost always view situations differently and will have different perspectives on those experiences.
Nevertheless, the majority of Jews in the world recognize that there is more that connects them than there is that divides. A 2019 study by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that a third of Israeli Jews view US Jews as siblings; a third of French Jews consider Israeli Jews to be siblings and only a minority of French Jews (16%), and a minority of American Jews (28%) say they do not regard Israelis as “family.”
Studies like these show that the situation is far from being lost. Work is needed, but there is common ground that can be built upon to establish even stronger relations.
Since its inception 73 years ago, Israel has taken pride in being the state which all Jews can call their home. For this to happen, Diaspora Jews need to be made to feel that they have a home here, and that there is someone listening to them and thinking about them.
We understand the need to cut spending and establish a government with less ministries. But the Diaspora is not something to be sacrificed. Israel needs a Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Diaspora Jewry needs a strong Israel. Keep the ministry open.
The Jerusalem Municipality illuminated the walls of the Old City on Saturday evening in a show of solidarity with the families of the victims of the Mount Meron disaster in which 45 were killed and 150 were injured in a stampede during Lag Ba'Omer ceremonies. Speaking about the tragedy at Mount Meron, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said "this is the largest civilian disaster that the State of Israel has ever seen. The City of Jerusalem embraces the families of the victims and wishes all the injured a fast recovery." This is not the first time that messages of solidarity have illuminated the walls of the Old City. In 2018 they lit up with a message to the Jewish community of Pittsburgh following a deadly synagogue shooting. Other occasions that the walls have been illuminated include both Remembrance Day and Independence Day of this year.