Challenge to All Who Think Judicial Reform for Israel is Dangerous

Just a simple challenge to help clarify what's happening in Israel. 

All I want to know from you...

Please list five 5 democracies, five democratic countries, that have a judicial system like Israel's is now. 

The points that have to coincide (be the same) are:

1- Sitting justices choose who will be new justices.
2- Justices can decide according to their concept of "reasonableness." This includes overriding all parliament decisions, total veto power.
3- Cases for the Supreme Court can go there directly, without first going through lower courts
4- Attorney General can veto all sorts of government decisions unilaterally. Again with the rationale of "reasonableness."

Israeli Flags waving at the entrance of Mamilla Mall, not far from 
what had been the border between Israel and Jordanian Occupied Jerusalem from 1949-1967

Migron, Still in "Transit," Waiting

2,243 Days 

Since the Removal/Evacuation of Migron

Still in "Temporary" Housing!

I took the picture a couple of days ago, so now you can add a few more to the number.

The community of Migron, north of Jerusalem, south of Beit El, was removed from its location 2,243 days ago and counting... They agreed to go peacefully because of promises of a new approved location nearby. Years have passed, and they are still waiting in their makeshift quarters.

The Israeli Supreme Court cares more for phantom nameless Arab landowners than Jewish rights and the law.

American Chutzpah! Damning Israeli Sovereignty

Jerusalem is and has always been the Capital City of the State of Israel! And Jerusalem has been the most important city for the Jewish People/Religion/Nation. It is well documented in the Bible, a document/testament recognized not only by Jews but by Christians and others, too.

So why has the United States Government, State Department and now the American Supreme Court refused to recognize this fact?

The US Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law that would allow American citizens born in Jerusalem to have Israel listed as their birthplace on passports, handing a victory to President Barack Obama's administration.
The Obama administration argued that the law unlawfully encroached on the president's power to set foreign policy and would have, if enforced, undermine the US government's claim to be a neutral peacemaker in the Middle East. (i24 news)

It is davka this continued American policy, from the day that the State of Israel was established in 1948, which is interference and shows that the United States is not "a neutral peacemaker," pure and simple!

The United States, regardless of the various presidents and their affinity or hostility to Israel, has never been anything close to neutral. Starting with Harry Truman who needed personal arm-twisting to get the State Department to vote in favor of recognizing Israel in the United Nations to Barack Hussein Obama whose obvious antipathy to Israel can't be hidden, there has never been an American President willing to do what they do for every single other country in the world and recognize its choice as Capital City. It's popular to promote transferring the American Embassy to Jerusalem when campaigning, but no president has ever done it after being elected.

Can you name me any other country that is snubbed and insulted like Israel is?

It is the right of a sovereign country to choose its own Capital City!!!

As I've written many times, the best response would be for Israel to transfer all of its embassies to cities of its choice. Do this for every single country that refuses to recognize Jerusalem as our Capital City.

There is only one logical reason for this horrendously insulting situation. Call a spade a spade.  It's ANTISEMITISM!!

The Awesome Hypocrisy Of Israeli Justice

Finally, a fawningly favorable article in the New York Times about Israel, and all I can think of is The Awesome Hypocrisy Of Israeli Justice, my term.

SERGE SCHMEMANN compared "Bush administration’s convoluted attempts to justify torture" with the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling twelve years ago. He was extraordinarily impressed by the then president of the court, Aharon Barak.

“This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it...”

I am still upset and traumatized by the treatment of the young Jewish teenage dissidents arrested by Israeli "security" prior to Disengagement.

These innocent young children were treated like dangerous terrorists. Even if they were not physically beaten, the psychological torture showed a cruelty beyond anything Israel would dare do to terrorists and murderers.

Where were Aharon Barak and all the great Israeli civil rights advocates when those children were jailed?

...they were hungry in prison, they were not allowed to have books or packages from home and were never visited by social workers.

Chaya’s father, Moshe Belogorodsky said: ‘’What goes on here reminds me very much of what happened in Russia. If you’re a rapist or a drug addict, the court will give you every chance in the world, But if you’re an ideological criminal, you’re lost.’’ Indeed, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, told the Israel Bar Association: ''A fight that is ideologically motivated causes all parties involved to become more radical’’(Israeljustice.com). complete article

Where were the foreign human rights activists?
Where were the editorial writers of the New York Times?

There are things that some of us can never forget, nor forgive.

"Electoral Reform," Pandora's Box

The road to the hell of gerrymandering is paved with the best of intentions aka "electoral reform." Just because it works in the humongously large, stable super-power, the United States, doesn't mean that it would be good for tiny and realistically threatened Israel.

To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

A number of years ago, the Jerusalem Municipality decided that the then new Ramot neighborhoods should be governed by district councils. Contrary to the original plan and expectations of the municipality, more religious and chareidi had bought homes and apartments in the new neighborhood than secular Jews. They didn't want the minority of secular residents to be dominated by the more religiously observant, which would be the result if they allowed true democracy.

They studied the patterns of home purchase and saw that the secular dominated the low density, single-family homes, and the more religiously observant were in the higher story, multi-family apartment buildings. So, instead of dividing districts by population, so that there were approximately equal numbers of voters, families or residents in each district, they divided Ramot by buildings. Yes, a private home for one family was considered equal to an apartment house for forty families or more. Yes, that's gerrymandering Israeli style.

Every time I hear people say that Israel must have "electoral reform" and change to districts, I think of this and have nightmares.

There are many things that should be changed in the Israeli Government. Chief among them are the courts and the way the judges are appointed. There should be checks and balances. Today, the Supreme Court can overrule any law which doesn't suit the political and "moral" agenda of the justices.

And there's something that can't be legislated, the political sophistication of the voters. During the last elections, three years ago, the young Tel Aviv trendies voted for the Pensioners Party as a lark, and they became a political power in the coalition negotiations. They were a total farce and failure as Members of Knesset.

As a G-d fearing person, I know that democracy isn't a true G-d. It's just a tool we humans can use... for good or for bad. G-d willing, the people we vote into office next week will use their positions wisely. For this I pray, and I'll be voting for Ichud Le'umi.