To its detriment, Israel became entangled in two separate arguments with the U.S., both of which erupted at the same time. The first, which revolves around the Iranian question, is less severe than the crisis over the difficulties that have emerged in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians. According to recent reports, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a hostile, anti-Israel briefing to the Senate Banking Committee. Nevertheless, America shares Israel's negative views toward the Iranian nuclear endeavor. Even if Washington doesn't accept Jerusalem's position on the matter, there is a good chance that it will, if and when the negotiations with the ayatollahs' regime fall apart. When it comes to the ongoing dialogue with the Palestinians, the situation is different. U.S. President Barack Obama and Kerry are more sympathetic to Palestinian demands as presented by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. For all practical purposes, they do not recognize the legitimacy of any Israeli construction beyond the Green Line, whether it is in Ma'aleh Adumim or Ramot Eshkol, near Jerusalem. On the Iranian issue, there is great weight to Israel's position, which is viewed sympathetically in many quarters not just in America but also in Europe. French President François Hollande will demonstrate this during his visit to the Knesset. This is not the case when it comes to the Palestinian matter. Kerry erred in stating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have kept his criticism toward any agreement with Tehran quiet until the deal is signed. This is not an intelligent line of argument. How could Netanyahu influence the outcome of a deal after it is signed? Kerry's threats, which he sounded during an interview with Channel 2's Udi Segal, in which he warned that Israel would be subjected to diplomatic isolation if it did not move forward on peace talks with the Palestinians, have widespread international support. Yes, there is disappointment in the Middle East over the U.S.'s softened positions. In light of the emerging Iranian danger, many of the region's leaders have moved closer to Israel. They see Israel as a central actor and vital counterweight to the expansion of Iranian influence, but they do not want -- and they may not even be capable of -- reconciling with Israel's position as it is reflected in Housing Minister's Uri Ariel's construction plans in Judea and Samaria. This despite the fact that in their heart of hearts they have no desire to see the establishment of an independent Palestine led by Abbas. Government ministers who are working to neutralize the negotiations with the Palestinians have yet to internalize the fact that all of the regional actors are also active on the Iranian matter. When a minister generates headlines,and not facts, over 23,000 new housing units in the settlements, he is making it more difficult for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs to cooperate with Israel on the Iranian issue. In the next few weeks, Netanyahu will wage a two-pronged campaign. He is holding his cards close to his chest. The degree to which he is willing to be flexible is known only to him and to his confidants, and there are not many of those. It is clear to all that nearly all of his attention is devoted to the Iranian question. When he was summoned to the Knesset plenum to give a statement on the housing shortage -- the premier is required to respond whenever 40 lawmakers sign a parliamentary motion -- Netanyahu began talking about the difficulties he has encountered in coping with the Iranian situation. The parliamentarians who witnessed this began to call out, "Talk about the issue at hand. Talk about the issue at hand." The present circumstances require Netanyahu to watch over what his government ministers do and, more importantly, what they say, even when it comes to matters that are light years away from Tehran. As things stand now, every remark made by the most distant fringe could be lumped together with the crisis over Iran. Every construction plan submitted could be used as a pretext for a verbal tussle with our allies. The next few weeks will be decisive, and it would behoove all to remain quiet, particularly the government ministers. There's no future If Yair Lapid did not request the chairmanship of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for his friend Ofer Shelah -- who is indeed well-versed in the issues discussed there -- he would have come out in full force against Avigdor Lieberman's reinstatement as a government minister without any quid pro quo. Five of the 11 lawmakers from Israel-Beytenu are ministers, while just three of the 12 faction members of Habayit Hayehudi are ministers, and five of the 19 members of Knesset from Lapid's Yesh Atid party have a seat at the cabinet table. Lapid once vowed that he would never agree to be in a government that exceeded 18 ministers. On this issue, he capitulated. Now, nobody bothers to even ask him. Perhaps it is because he is not taken as seriously now as he was in the past. Perhaps people are done making egregious "deals" with him. The last thing that the finance minister will do is refer back to his party platform and election promises regarding the size of the government. "Things are as they were." On this matter, there is no future. The first good guys I happily agreed to Dr. Simcha Golden's offer to deliver a lecture at an event honoring the famed historian Professor Shlomo Simonsohn, who celebrated his 90th birthday. He was being feted not because of his scholarship of Italian Jewry, nor because of his part in the establishment of Tel Aviv University, nor because of all the years he spent as rector. Long before that, he was one of a number of exceptional fellows who formed a "volunteer group" that ventured out to the transit camps holding newly arrived immigrants and taught them Hebrew without any compensation. These students wanted to be part of the melting pot of the Jewish people in its land. I asked to bring along to the event someone who was a good friend of his in those days, Elyakim Haetzni, who promised to come from Kiryat Arba. The two men have not seen one another for 50 years. When they met this week, Haetzni was emotional in recalling that "my wife remembers that you chain-smoked." Simonsohn replied that he quit 45 years ago. "Of course," Haetzni replied. "If you had continued to smoke, we wouldn't be meeting today." So what was it like in those days? In 1955, the "volunteer group" published a pamphlet which hinted that businessman Yeshayahu (Shaike) Yarkoni was suspected of cooking the books in order to get larger sums of money, which he was entitled to as part of the reparations agreement between Israel and Germany. But the deputy chief of police at the time, Amos Ben-Gurion, was his good friend, so the investigation was closed. Four of the "volunteers" -- Haetzni, Simonsohn, Hanan Rapoport, and Shimon Appelbaum, who is no longer with us -- were sued for libel. They were assisted by attorney Shmuel Tamir, who did fabulous legal work. Their fate, however, was sealed. The president of the district court, Dr. Zev Zeltner, despised them, and he accepted the police argument that the investigation should remain closed due to national security considerations. This lie was used by police officers who were asked to testify on Amos Ben-Gurion's behalf. Then-police chief Yehezkel Sahar, who claimed that Yarkoni was never a suspect, "God forbid," claimed that there was never any investigation to begin with, and that the trial was used to politically damage the government. He ignored the fact that the four "volunteers" were supporters of the ruling Mapai party, the forerunner to the Labor party. Those were awful days. As a young boy, I remember occasionally visiting the court, where I saw the top ranks of the police lie through their teeth with impunity. The local press lined up against the four musketeers, chief among them Haaretz and Davar. The Habima Theater signed on to the cause, staging a play condemning them. Appelbaum was evicted from his kibbutz and denied permission to continue his archaeological work at the Timna dig. The Shin Bet security agency persecuted Tamir and the volunteers. They also went after the only journalist who supported them -- Uri Avineri, who was a writer for Haolam Hazeh. Judge Zeltner went a step further, sending Haetzni to jail for 10 days for the crime of acting responsibly as a journalist and refusing to name the source of his information about Yarkoni and Ben-Gurion (to this day, Haetzni refuses to name the source). He remains the only journalist to have ever been incarcerated for refusing to name his source. The court imposed a heavy fine on the volunteers. It turned a group of young patriots into outcasts, even lepers. The group disbanded. Its youngsters were naïve souls who believed that Israel intended to be a "light unto the nations," but they were cut down to size by the elites, the government, and the press. Tamir and the members of the group did not give up, and they appealed to the Supreme Court. They demanded justice be rendered from the court's home in the Russian Compound. Time went by. It was only in 1961 that the legendary Justices Moshe Landau, Shimon Agranat, and Alfred Vitkon rendered their decision. They overturned the entire case. The volunteers were exonerated. Sahar was tried and convicted for perjury. This was how the original good guys were born. "Were it not for Landau's verdict," Haetzni recalled, "I could not have remained in the Land of Israel." This week, Haetzni and Simonsohn sat in a packed auditorium at Tel Aviv University. Those in attendance included highly accomplished professors, dignitaries, and the Italian ambassador. As someone who has taken a renewed interest in the fight against corruption this past decade and who has written about the likes of Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Gabi Ashkenazi, and other lesser players embroiled in scandal, I made it a point to retell the story of the volunteers and their war against the establishment. As I spoke in praise of the volunteers, I began to think of those individuals who this past decade have also joined the ranks of the good guys in the war against corruption. I imagined the likes of Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, Micha Lindenstrauss, Menachem Mazuz, Yaron Zelicha, Yaakov Borovsky, Eliad Sharga, and a few select journalists come up and congratulate these elder statesmen who were the first to light the torch and lead the charge, the founding fathers of the school of clean government. Rectifying the rabbinate Ministers Tzipi Livni and Naftali Bennett cosponsored legislation to merge the offices of the two chief rabbis into one job. For them, one is enough (though one wonders why they neglected to mention that they essentially copied the legislation originally proposed by Likud MK Moshe Feiglin? After all, it is customary to credit the author who came up with an idea). The law is a step in the right direction (Bennett has had a number of successes in the area of religion and state). I would propose that a clause be added -- 1.A. In the first election for the newly merged post, a rabbi from the Sephardi community should be elected. I would also add another clause -- 2.A. Only a rabbi who served in the IDF is eligible. Enough silence Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch acted with great haste, and that always backfires. He looked to the right and saw a frightened public in shock following the criminal rampage undertaken by underworld gangs that threaten the safety of bystanders. He then looked left and saw a police force that was worried it would be blamed for being soft. Then, he found a magic solution. To hell with civil rights organizations, from now on the men and women in blue will be free to place mob suspects in "administrative detention." In simple Hebrew, it means that whoever is suspected of being a member of an organized crime entity will be arrested and kept in custody for an extended period, even if the suspect is never brought before a judge. It is tempting to declare a quick, clean victory over violent criminal organizations. The perpetrators are held without trial, without appearing before a judge, without evidence being brought against them. No, this is like putting an itchy finger on the trigger. The justification used for administrative detention of terrorists is that they are not Israeli citizens, and that it is not realistic to collect evidence and testimony in the hostile environment from whence they come. That is not the case when it comes to Israeli criminals. As such, the solution is not administrative detention, but nullifying the right to remain silent in police interrogations. A suspect will be obligated to make a statement, and if it turns out that he or she was not telling the truth, then that person should be treated as if he or she committed perjury. At the same time, there need to be stiffer sentences handed down to those who perjure on the witness stand. That means double-digit-year sentences. That is fairer. It's also more efficient. The public's right not to know Eden Atias was murdered in cold blood by a terrorist while on a bus headed to his army base. The nation paid its last respects, and Nazareth Illit was awash in tears. His father is serving a prison term. He was brought to the funeral in prison fatigues. After all, he is incarcerated. There are facts and details that are best left unreported. That would not be an infringement on the public's right to know.
