Monday, January 09, 2012
Only HALF Pusillanimous
speaking about. It seems that the head of the soccer association was
appointing biased judges and referees to soccer matches. He is being
indicted. Those "conscripted" game judges would make calls during the
game that reflected their personal bias. See this news story:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/sports/soccer-law-and-order-match-fixing-scandal-comes-roaring-back-1.406244
Now I mention this because it is in the headlines today exactly 24
hours after the appointment of OTHER biased judges in Israel – to the
Israeli Supreme Court. None of the same newspapers screaming in
outrage at the appointment of biased judges to referee soccer games is
also screaming against the appointment of biased judges to Israel's
Supreme Court. After all, the newspapers and most Israelis treat
soccer as an institution deserving of respect and honor! One in which
they expect fairness and integrity.
The head of the soccer association accused of making the biased
appointments is being indicted. The people involved in the
appointments of biased judges to the Supreme Court are not.
The Netanyahu people are patting themselves on the back for their
role of courage and integrity in the latest batch of Supreme Court
appointees. (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/four-new-israeli-supreme-court-justices-named-after-compromise-1.406029
) Of the four new justices, ONLY TWO are far-leftist anti-democratic
promoters of "judicial activism." The courage and integrity of the
government is manifested in the fact that not all four are. Judicial
activism is the doctrine that holds that it is the job of unelected
judges to serve as political mentors and nannies to us unwashed voters
and to educate us in the great enlightened and progressive ideas we
are too ignorant to appreciate on our own, by imposing those ideas
upon us in their rulings. The enlightened and progressive ideas they
seek to impose upon us invariably reflect the political agenda of the
Left, and range from affirmative action quotas to "rights" for
terrorist murderers to gay marriage to micro-kibitzing in the
decisions of the military in order to force it to toe leftist
ideology. And of course defending the position that freedom of speech
needs to be protected only for Arabs and leftist Jews.
The worst of the new appointees is Daphne Barak-Erez, dean of the
School of Law at Tel Aviv University, long a bastion of tenured
leftism. She is a passionate believer in "judicial activism." Her
appointment is already arousing squeals of delight from the tenured
Left. Naomi Hazan, the Madame Defarge of the New Israel Fund, issued
a rousing squeal of support for Barak-Erez. She and Zvi Zylbertal
from the Jerusalem District Court are the appointees of the "Beinisch
Clique" in this supposed grand historic "compromise." Of the two
non-leftists, one is an actual conservative, Noam Sohlberg, whom the
Left has been trying in recent weeks to "Bork." Sohlberg is
ideologically to the Right and lives on the correct side of the Green
Line (meaning outside Israel's 1967 borders). Showing their great
belief in democracy, some radical leftists petitioned Beinisch and the
Supreme Court to block Sohlberg's appointment on grounds that he is a
"settler," but their petition was rejected. I sure would like to see
what the media would say if someone were to petition the court to
block Barak-Erez's appointment on grounds that she lives in the
leftist suburb of Ramat Aviv, or to block someone else on grounds that
he or she lives on a kibbutz.
So when "only" half the appointees are leftist "judicial
activists," this represents a grand compromise? How about this for a
different alternative grand compromise: all of the judicial activists
in Israel are dismissed from the bench but as a compromise they are
NOT prosecuted and indicted for their misbehavior on the bench.
Israelis can comfort themselves with the thought that in THIS
instance, Netanyahu and his team were only half pusillanimous. And
only capitulated to half of the Left's agenda.
