1. We have often commented on Israel’s biased and politicized judiciary, led by Mister Judicial Activism, Chief Justice Aharon Barak, and on the dual justice system of Israel, in which two systems operate alongside one another, one for leftists and the other for everyone else. We have reviewed many cases over the years that illustrate this politicization.

   Now, one of the best analyses of the biased judiciary has been composed by Professor Eliav Shochetman from the Hebrew University’s law school. Shochetman in the past led the campaign against the misuse of the law criminalizing "failure to prevent a crime", used by the McCarthyist Attorney General to prosecute Margalit Har-Sheffi who was guilty of nothing except dubious taste in choosing her dates.

   Shochetman is one of Israel’s leading law scholars. Unfortunately, his new volume is only available in Hebrew, although English synopsies might be.

   It came out as a policy study with the Ariel Center for Policy Research, (www.acpr.org.il) The new volume is entitled "Justice Justice Shalt Thou Pursue".

   Shochetman’s study focuses on a judicial atrocity that we have also had occasion to comment upon over the years. The case involved one Nahum Korman, a 30-ish religious security officer at a "settlement" in the West Bank. One day in 1997 Korman was driving along next to Husan near Bethlehem, when a group of Palestinian guttersnipes were minding their own business and simply throwing rocks at cars with Jews inside, including Korman’s. Korman stopped, got out, and chased them. He caught one of them, an 11 year old (some say 12 year old) guttersnipe named Hilmi Shusha. He struck (or perhaps kicked) the child once. The child fell and died. Korman tried to revive him and called in an ambulance.

   Hilmi then became the poster child for the usual leftists intent on proving that Palestinians are the perpetual victims of barbarous Israeli "settlers" who have long noses and are greedy, backward, unhygienic, and reject the Oslo Messiah. The usual glut of "human rights" groups, those who think the Palestinians have a human right to murder Jews and destroy Israel, marched in also, led by Amnesty and Betselem, and practically deified the guttersnipe.

   Meanwhile, the Israeli Left and the politicized McCarthyists at the Attorney General’s office decided to make a political example out of Korman. They tried him for manslaughter.

   Among the problems of the McCarthyists was that the postmortem pathology report did not support their position. The State Pathologist reported that junior may have had a congenital problem with an artery, and so being slapped or just being scared by a raging settler he had just provoked might have caused the death. Similarly, he might have died when he fell and struck his head on a rock, and not because he got slapped by Korman. In any case, Korman’s behavior was that of a justifiably angry driver, not of a killer, and the fact that he gave the child mouth-to-mouth and called in an ambulance hardly shows the personality of a mad murderer.

   Korman was at first acquited, but Israel does NOT have protection against double jeopardy. With all the international hullabaloo, Israel’s official Leftists at the Attorney General’s office could not let the case go. They retried Korman, and eventually it went to the Supreme Court on appeal. Ultimately Korman was sentenced to six months and to pay 70,000 NIS to the family of the child.

   Now such a punishment would be a crime if Korman had really committed a crime and killed anyone. But it is just as much a crime if Korman was guilty of nothing other than slapping a brat who had thrown a rock at his car. Let us keep in mind that such Palestinian rock throwing has resulted in deaths and maimings. Just imagine what the US Marines in Afghanistan will do if any Taliban guttersnipes throw rocks at them!

   Shochetman analyzed the trial and appeal in his volume. While I cannot do it justice, it is an overwhelming indictment of the politicalization and bias of Israel’s Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ignored the official report of the state pathologist, who had concluded that there was no evidence that the child had died because he had been slapped by Korman, and the Supreme Court decreed in its fatwa that Korman HAD killed him. This was a total violation of the role of the Court. In Israel, like elsewhere, appeals courts do not change or add or challenge FACTS, discovered at the lower court level, but rather only review trial procedure and application of law. But not in the Korman case. The Supreme Court illegally overstepped its role and arbitrarily set aside facts and issued a judgement based on political bias and the desire to make a political statement and example of Korman.

2. It is by now fairly evident that - like its predecessors - the Sharon government has no serious intentions of protecting Jewish civilian "settlers" from attacks by the PLO Wehrmacht. Indeed, Shimon Peres has essentially given the PLO the Green Light to attack "settlers", saying on PLO TV that Israel would not regard two or three shootings a day to be a violation of any make-pretend ceasefire. The Israeli Left has always been not-so-discreetly pleased by shootings of "settlers", regarding this as their comeuppance. The Likud governments might pay lip service to the need to defend them, but nothing else.

   Meanwhile, the latest stage in the PLO’s peace process is to fire mortar shells into the homes of settlers (including in Jerusalem neighborhoods) while the Israeli government and military do absolutely nothing to stop this - other than occasionally shooting a mid-level terrorist, or sending in tanks for a few hours and then back out. Any suicide bomber attacking settlers is assured a grand pageant of a funeral, as Israel still hands back corpses of these to the PLO to be celebrated and beatified (like the bomber at Erez yesterday), rather than burying it in a pigskin in a landfill. Not a day goes by in which settler cars are not fired upon by the PLO’s "police".

   Since I am of a helping disposition, I thought I would propose a solution. Since Israel’s government obviously has no intention to defend the settlers, the only reasonable and moderate solution is to allow the settlers to set up their own independent army. The settler militia would be called the SDO, or the Settler Defense Organization, or - if you prefer a Hebrew name - El-Kasach. It would be armed with heavy artillery, concussion bombs, napalm, smart bombs, tanks, aircraft carriers, neutron bombs, you name it. But it would independent of Israel. Whenever the PLO’s stormtroopers fire mortars at a "settlement", the settler militia would open up with all weapons. Israel’s own government would say Tch Tch when all those BBC reports and EU protests arrive, but would point out that this militia is simply beyond its control and not sponsored by Israel, almost like the Hamas being independent of the PLO. The settler militia would decide on the appropriate response to attacks on any settlements by the PLO, not the Israeli Defense Forces.

   Now in fairness, since Israel would not be accountable or responsible for defending the settlers, the settler militia would not automatically rush to defend Israel if it would be attacked by aggressors. After all, fair is fair, and sauce for the goose is sauce for the lemming.

   Yes I know. You are asking yourself why such an obviously perfect solution has not been proposed long ago, and why we all had to wait for ME to propose it!

3. Important News, with snotty responses by your cyber curmudgeon inserted into text in parentheses):

   Sex in Israel: Now more (bragging -- cyber) than ever
   By Douglas Davis

   LONDON (November 27) - The collective Israeli libido (see, they seem to have mis-spelled lobotomy) has risen over the past year, placing Israel among the most sexually active countries on Earth, according to the 2001 Durex Global Sex Survey being published today. (Either that, or the Israeli penchant for juvenile bragging -- cyber)

   Not surprisingly, Israelis also rated lovemaking as their favorite pastime. (In the case of Meretz voters, their partner is made of vinyl and wears a kafiya --- cyber) The survey, which covered 28 countries worldwide, was conducted among 500 Israelis by the condom manufacturer.

   It found Israelis make love on average 110 times a Year (counting Shimon Peres meeting with PLO officials -- cyber), up from 105 times in the previous year. This places Israel in the top league of lovers, ahead of Britain (107), Germany (105), and Holland (94), but still behind the US (124). (Survey did not make clear if hands count as lovers -- cyber)

   Israelis also rated having sex as their favorite pastime. Some 23 percent of adults declared lovemaking was their top leisure-time activity, while 20% preferred socializing with friends, and 13% would rather watch television, . (Of course, if you could SEE what Israel has on its television, you would understand -- cyber)

   Israelis would most like to make love on a beach or in a whirlpool bath, spa or hot tub. (Members of the opposite sex need not be present -- cyber) While 10% of Italians would enjoy sex on the kitchen table, this was the preference of just 3% of Israelis. (Gotta separate the milk from the meat --- cyber)

   At the same time, however, the survey showed that young Israelis hold on to their virginity longer than youngsters in other countries. (And when they say HOLD on, they mean it --- cyber) While the average age for first sex is 16 years in the US and 16.7 years in France, average Israelis have their first serious encounter at 17.

   Israelis are also found to have fewer sexual partners - an average of 8.1 - than most other countries (an average of 14.3 in the US). But some 8% of Israelis surveyed have had more than 20 partners. (and 72% of Israeli men were found to be lying through their teeth -- cyber)

   On average, Israeli children are 13.8 years old when they receive their first sex education. (They are only 7 though when they are taught that Israel’s creation was a catastrophe for Arabs and Jews are to blame -- cyber) Fully 31% said they did not learn the facts of life in school. (They were referring to facts of life about the Arab-Israeli conflict -- cyber)

   Almost one-fifth of Israelis surveyed preferred to learn about sex from their partners (peace partners, i.e., the PLO -- cyber), while 15% would opt for sex education at school and 14% from healthcare professionals.

   The survey also found four in 10 Israelis were worried about contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, although 26% take no measures to protect themselves. (45% take no measures to protect themselves against PLO nazism -- cyber) Of those who insist on protection, only 18% use condoms for casual sex and just 11% would ask their partners about their sexual histories. (The Sharon government thinks condoms are the best way to stop PLO mortar shelling of "settlements -- cyber)

4. Rabbi Moonbeam comes out for easing the pain of terrorists: http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0111/article/011112b.html

   For a good response to this, see http://www.opinionet.com/commentary/contributors/ccsp/ccsp38.htm

Steven Plaut

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission