Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Israeli Court Gets one Right for a Change
(Apologies to those who got the posting yesterday about Abe Lincoln's battle against the Two-State Solution carrying a long address list in the header. I had meant it to be in BSS, not CC. Sorry – I am getting old!)
1. Haaretz reports gleefully that the Israeli military command in the West Bank issued an order that any settlers who cuss at soldiers at checkpoints should be arrested.
Now, let's put aside the constitutional question of whether cussing at and insulting soldiers should be protected speech. I can live with a system that penalizes hooligans of any sort who cuss Israeli soldiers. But the real problem here is that, like so much else in Israel, the new order is being implemented in a discriminatory manner that coddles the Left and panders to the anti-Semitic "anarchists." While some guttersnipes from the Right do in fact cuss soldiers, vulgar and violent attacks on Israeli soldiers and police by the Left take place every single week in the West Bank. The Israeli leftists, with their Palestinian terrorist friends, joined by the "internationals" and "anarchists" from the International Solidarity Movement (or ISM, which really stands for I Support Murder), attack Israeli soldiers guarding the construction of Israel's security fence all the time. The army is under orders to coddle them and not arrest them.
And since the army is now going to arrest settlers who behave in an uncivilized way, when will the police and the University of Haifa shut down the "ALEF List." The "ALEF" list is a chat list of anti-Semites and Neo-Nazis that operates under the auspices of the University of Haifa. See this: http://isracampus.org.il/ALEF%20Watch.htm
A few months ago it circulated materials with the photos and addresses of Israeli army officers and with the caption "War Criminals." When someone circulated the photo of an Arab judge in Tel Aviv with his address, the police interpreted that as attempted murder. The ALEF list's distribution of the photos of army officers was even more clearly a call for murdering them. For details on this story, go here: http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Alef%20watch%20-%20Dorothy%20Naor%20-%20incitement%20to%20murder.htm
If cussing soldiers is criminal behavior, what is this?
2. Now as reluctant as I am to concede that the dual Israeli court system has done something proper and correct, I have to concede that it has done so this past week.
It seems that one Matan Cohen, a young "anarchist" from the above-mentioned hooligan gangs that attack Israeli police, suffered a serious injury to one of his eyes. Cohen sued Israel in Israeli court for millions of shekels, claiming that his eye was damaged as a result of rubber bullets being fired at the rampaging rioters in whose midst he was jihading. Cohen and his buddies went on a media campaign, appearing on Channel 10, and accused the soldiers of trying to murder him.
Just one itsy-bitsy problem. The judge, Dalia Ganot in Tel Aviv District Court, investigated and found out that young Cohen's eye was the victim of a rock being thrown by his jihad friends at the police and soldiers, a rock his trajectory his the wrong Jew (or – if you prefer – the right Jew) by mistake. Cohen was standing out of range of the rubber bullets and video film of the events showed that no soldiers were shooting anything at all when he was injured. The judge added diplomatically that Cohen is a person for whom the facts and the truth are never in danger of being found in his possession. She noted that Cohen had kept changing his version of his story.
And best of all, Judge Ganot hit Cohen with court costs in the amount of 50,000 shekels.
I would have preferred of course that the Judge had ruled that even if Cohen HAD been shot by a rubber bullet while assaulting the cops and the soldiers, he would STILL be un-entitled to any compensation. In fact, he should have been charged the cost of the bullet.
3. Long but very interesting read:
How to Fight the Campus Battle against Old and New Anti-Semites:
Motifs, Strategies, and Methods*
Manfred Gerstenfeld
