The News Behind The News
July 14, 2000
Israeli Justice
On one day in the midst of a hot summer, July 12, 2000, it is reported that Aryeh Deri, the once favored-son of Shas, the growing Sephardic party in Israel, had lost his appeal and would go to jail after 10 years of investigation charges of white collar offenses. He was a sitting cabinet minister. On the same day, President Ezer Weitzman, technically a former president, and his wife Reuma, prepare to abandon their government mansion and servants for their private residence in Caesaria, one of Israel's richest resort properties. Much of the now deepening post-marxist intellectual and political corruption of the courts and of the Israeli judicial process stands exposed in these developments.
This NBN addresses only a small part of this corruption and turns aside from considering its source and leadership in Israel's supreme court. Chief Justice Barak and his cohorts on the Court should give even the most extreme of Western supporters of judicial activism pause. Israel's Supreme Court has made rulings sua sponte that spanking a child under any circumstances is illegal and indeed criminal; that making a distinction between Jews and Arabs in the Jewish State is discriminatory; that the question of the Jewish quality of the State is a matter left to the justices to recognize or not as they deem fit; that the moral qualities of persons fit to serve in office is a matter for judicial review. Note too the basis for this list, which extends ad infinitum, is Israel's Basic Law. Advertised by the State as a constitution, the Basic Laws are effectively a legislative committee grant of absolute power to the Supreme Court to make law at will.
This NBN limits itself to the Deri matter and its implications tending to show that Israel's courts are increasingly being used for political intimidation and criminalization by the police and the State. The legal technocrats who sit in the Justice Ministry and in the office of the State Prosecutor are political actors. Compare the treatment of a trusted player, Ezer Weizman, who has been known for years as a man with rich and powerful friends, with Deri. Deri is the leader of the much demonized "orthodox Shas Party." His crimes merit legal attention; however, it is transparent that it was he and his movement, not his crimes that got him in trouble. Weizman, on the other hand, was absolutely ignored by prosecutors and police until finally a newspaper maverick, acting apparently on his own, uncovered absolute evidence that Weizman received money gifts while serving in important government positions, money which he never reported to income tax authorities. He was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run on his alleged crimes. The question is why was he permitted years of silence? The answer is because the system trusted him as a player and refused to investigate him until it was forced to do so. The public outcry, itself an effect of Israel's politicized media, forced the issue -- although whether for purposes of its own or others is unclear.
Deri's crimes were of a lesser and more typically political nature. He did what most Israeli politicos do and wasn't powerful enough to put his enemies in jail as they are now putting him. The Shas party, itself an engine of deceits and corruption ran Deri against the powers and lost. They hunted him down and have now destroyed him as they have others. Thus, "the powers" and "the system." Deri was investigated like no man has ever been investigated in Israel, prosecuted and convicted. Another example, and of a much better man, is Yaacov Neeman.
When the system sought to destroy Yaacov Neeman's political career because he was set on doing something about the oppressive tax system in Israel, the "professionals" in the State Prosecutor's office brought criminal charges. After years of malicious journalism, Neeman was finally acquitted of all charges. By then the damage intended was accomplished: politically, Neeman was marginalized. And understand, these are themselves, Deri and Neeman, powerful men in the system. Not running it but threatening those who do, they are only slightly less vulnerable than the common Israeli in the street. Still another example is Netanyahu, the outsider who became PM.
When the system sought to destroy Netanyahu's political career, not that this system needed to help him in the job he seemed well suited for on his own, they initiated a "show pre-trial police investigation." The Israeli press was called in, perhaps among the most ideologically driven in the world, a discovery that the Wall Street Journal of Europe made to its shock some years back. Full of press releases of his obvious guilt, Netanyahu has been nearly destroyed. Now with Mr. Barak in power, the State Prosecutor is not yet willing to accept the recommendation of her senior staff in Jerusalem that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Accordingly, Netanyahu is now simply "hanging in the wind" until Barak can solidify his political position again. Presently running ahead of Barak in the polls it appears likely that the State Prosecutor will not allow Netanyahu to run against Barak in the next elections if held early. A final example, here an Institute project, the Free Processing Zone.
When in the process of the Finance Ministry's review of the Free Processing Zone's initiative, the head of the State Revenue Department, Yoram Gabbai, blatantly lied in his report to the Finance Ministry, no investigation took place and no criminal charges were leveled. Instead, a few years later, Gabbai "retired" to a very well paying job at one of the system's power brokers. Although he and others used the argument that the zone should not be allowed because of dangers of "money laundering," the fact was and remains that Israel is one of the main states permitting money laundering in the world. For more on Israel's money laundering, click here.
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