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President Katsav in the Dock "by HASHKEM your New Jewish Agency"
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President Katsav in the Dock: A Putsch in Disguise By Professor Yaakov (Jack) Golbert Phd., Advocate and Attorney Efrat, Israel The Israeli media and various Knesset members are clamoring for the removal of President Moshe Katsav because he stands accused by the criminal justice system of raping several of the employees of his office. In a normal democracy, under usual circumstances, that would be matter of course. In Israel, under existing circumstances, it is deeply troubling.
In every criminal case, the criminal justice system has to establish two things, not just one. Of course, it has to establish the guilt of the accused. Frequently forgotten, however, but of fundamental importance, it must also demonstrate its own innocence. It would be of small comfort to be reassured that the criminal justice system of Zimbabwe or Libya or Iran or any “People’s Republic” one can name had found someone guilty as charged. No reasonable person has any faith in the innocence of those systems and, therefore, in the credibility of their findings.
In Israel, demonstrable prejudice, bad faith and abuse of power on the part of the criminal justice system have been too frequent to act as if this were a normal democracy. Some specific cases come to mind:
Rafael Eitan was appointed the serve as Police Minister, with the intention of cleaning house in the police, which had already become tainted by a sense that it was corrupt and prejudiced. The State Prosecutor instituted an indictment against Eitan and his appointment was withdrawn. An ineffectual novice in politics, Avigdor Kahalani, was appointed instead and the case against Eitan evaporated for lack of substance.
Ya’akov Neeman, one of the finest and most respected lawyers in the country, was appointed to be Justice Minister. The powers who control the criminal justice system seem to have decided that he was too independent and too powerful. Criminal proceedings were instituted against him before he could take office. So Tsahi Hanegbi was appointed instead. He was under criminal investigation from the beginning of his term until the end and so, under threat from the very people he was supposed to control. The case against Neeman also quietly evaporated.
Haim Ramon was not sure that he would appoint Dorit Beinish to be President of the Supreme Court and was about to open the discussion to a public hearing on the issue. That was when accusations were raised about conduct on his part that would preclude his continuing in office.
As reported by Ben Chorin, more about these cases was discussed by as respected a lawyer and public official as Amnon Rubenstein, one of the founders and first dean of the University of Tel-Aviv Law School, past holder of several government ministries. See this important interview at:
The Attorney General and the State Prosecutor have arrogated to themselves the power to veto appointments to the cabinet and to control decisions and policy or force the resignation of sitting officials by means of indictments, whether founded or on trumped up charges. This is abuse of power and the free use of character assassination and oppression. Israel has seen the police employing agents provocateurs, which is a tool of totalitarianism. In America, it would be called “entrapment” which is a complete defense in a criminal case.
In fact, in Israel, the criminal justice system has been used as one gigantic agent provocateur to demonize entire segments of the population for political purposes. There was the “New Jewish Underground” involving the high profile arrests of about fifteen suspects, with full television coverage of each arrest and repeated explanation that the police had cracked a new Jewish terrorist organization. Finally, a young officer, Oren Edri, who was touted as the kingpin in the organization was brought into court because he had not confessed under intense interrogation and the judge refused to extend his remand to custody without speaking to him. He protested that he was an officer in the IDF and had done nothing wrong and was being appallingly mistreated for no reason. The judge ordered the prosecution to show cause why Edri should ever have been arrested in the first place. The case against the “New Jewish Underground” collapsed for lack of substance, quietly, of course. One judge behaving true to his calling exposed the whole episode as a Stalinesque show trial from the beginning, brought for political reasons.
Israel has seen the use by the Shabak Jewish Section of agents provocateurs such as Avishai Raviv, the agent who created the widely publicized “terrorist organization” Eyal and recruited and operated Yigal Amir. First, they denied he was an agent. Forced to admit that he was, he was passed off as a “rogue” out of their control. The media meekly went along but the Attorney General and State Prosecutor at the time, in order to deflect the investigation away from Raviv, instigated a prosecution of a man they knew to be innocent. The audiotape of their conversation was broadcast over radio when it was discovered. Raviv was just the visible tip of the iceberg but look where those two “public servants” are today. They sit on the Supreme Court. One of them is the Court President.
The courts have done such things as imprisoning 14 year old girls pending trial, which is illegal, and then berating the father of one of the girls for not accepting “the sanctity of the law.” The girls, by the way, were finally convicted of insulting a public servant. But insult to public servants is absolutely the stuff of demonstrations of such groups as Women in Black, Machsom Watch, Yesh Gevul, who are never prosecuted for it. In their case, it is regarded merely as free speech. Selective enforcement of law is also abuse of power.
In August 2005, nine thousand Israelis were expelled from their homes, lands, businesses, farms and towns. Their property was confiscated and they themselves beaten up, exiled and turned into helpless refugees. The Supreme Court admitted that it was a violation of their human rights but ruled that state policy could override human rights, a doctrine that even Hitler could have fully embraced.
All the foregoing has been in the media. There are no personal anecdotes. It should be far from the Knesset members or the media to suggest that the President should resign in the fact of accusations of so politicized a criminal justice system. The President, after months of silence, responded to the accusations against him by accusing the Attorney General, the State Prosecutor of pursuing a prejudicial agenda to take him down. He has accused the criminal justice system of abuse of power. Abuse of power is not the democratic process. It is the antithesis of the democratic process. In the circumstances, if anyone should resign because he stands accused, it should be the Attorney General and the State Prosecutor. President Katsav has done the country a service by raising the issue.
Is it not significant that of the ten or so women who suddenly remembered that the President raped them, not one complained to the police? Or to the union? Or to the President’s wife? Is it not significant that not one of them quit her job? They all returned to work for the man who they say raped them. And is it without significance that not one of the women claiming rape came forward until a week or two after the President delivered a biting criticism of unilateral surrender of territory for nothing?
At the same time that the orchestrated siege of the President is taking place, a serious effort was initiated to amend the governmental system to give the President dictatorial powers over foreign policy and the system of electing the President are being made altogether undemocratic, election by the Knesset without secret vote. This would openly usher in government by bribery, blackmail and intimidation. This was called the “Peres law” in the media. Plainly, the Powers That Be, the establishment elite, want no interference with their delivery of the country to our enemies dismembered and demoralized and they want Shimon Peres to be the President; Shimon Peres who has never won an election. One might suspect that the accusations against the President are really part of a putsch.
Nor is it a matter of politicization alone but also of corruption. The Vardi Committee has been created and empowered to investigate the involvement of the police in a matter of organized crime, even including collusion in murder.
Professor Amnon Rubenstein has called for an investigation of the State Attorney's Office and the police which he said could not be conducted by any existing branch of the law-enforcement system, including the Police Investigations Department in the Justice Ministry.
In order to avoid interference by law-enforcement authorities in such reforming the form of a police investigation, Rubenstein even called for a legal expert from abroad to oversee the committee. "The government is frightened of the State Attorney's Office, and even of its own shadow," he said.
Bottom line is that the Knesset is advised to heed Professor Rubenstien’s sage advice and appoint a special prosecutor with broad powers to investigate the police, prosecutors, judiciary including the Supreme Court and that this prosecutor take over the case against President Katzav. Until both investigations are complete it is patently foolhardy to attempt to remove the President. Of course, this will not be the first time that the Knesset publicly makes fools of themselves in front of the entire world.
"HASHKEM YISRAEL-WAKE UP ISRAEL"
AND TAKE CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY
Copyright © HASHKEM, A California Corporation 2007
Page last updated 29 Sivan 5767 - 15 June 2007
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