Almost 109 years after Hayim Nahman Bialik wrote On the Slaughter in the wake of the Kishinev Pogrom, Moshe Katsav discovered the daunting poem. At age 66, on the threshold of prison, he quoted some of its chilling lines, If there be justice-let her appear now! But if, after my extinction from the face of the firmament justice appears, Let her seal be overturned forever! Pathetic manipulation at its best. The only thing missing was settling scores with all those who had slandered him, as in the following line of the poem: Vengeance such as this, vengeance for the blood of a small boy, Satan himself has not devised. Theoretically, that could happen. There was Amos Baranes. There was Izat Nafsu [two men who were imprisoned and later found innocent]. There were others who were less well known. But Katsavs case was examined too carefully. His claims do not hold water. For example, he maintained that the judges based his conviction on their impressions of the testimony. True. Judges impressions of witnesses are central to any criminal trial, and that is fine. Likewise, his grievance that the hearings were held behind closed doors. True. But this did not compromise justice. To the contrary, if his complaint that the media hounded him is correct, preventing reports actually worked in his favor. His most ridiculous claim was that political motives made him the object of persecution. As if he forgot that he initiated the scheme against A., a former employee in the Presidents Residence. Had he not conspired against her and attempted to enlist former attorney-general Menachem (Meni) Mazuz in his fraud, there would not have been a scandal. Where is the political conspiracy against him? Meaningless rubbish. He has the right to fight to clear his name. That will help him withstand the hardships of adjusting to prison. Israeli society will leave him alone. They will not even hold him accountable for saying that they had buried a living man. Israelis are very forgiving people. They are not as he described them. A call to the faithful Turn back its dangerous. Ministers from Yisrael Beitenu will introduce a bill on Sunday to forbid muezzins from using public address systems in mosques. If things continue like this, Avigdor Lieberman and his flunkies will advise that Muslims be forbidden from removing their shoes before entering the house of prayer; that they be obligated to eat during the month of Ramadan; that they be forced to deny that Mohammeds horse, Al-Buraq landed on the Temple Mount Plaza and galloped skyward. They will not rest and remain quiet until they turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a religious war. Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King, save us from their hand. Not from the Arabs. From the Jews. A matter of common sense I watched the unrestrained exchange between Ehud Barak and Benny Ganz, and at first believed that it would be the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who would take them to task for the failure that is called, shirat nashim, womens singing. I realized that their statements comprised sarcasm and even ridicule of the prohibition on listening to a womans voice. Barak mentioned that a female citizen from a moshav who works in his office would be permitted to sing during the break in training exercises. But even before rabbis protested, activists in womens organizations and the MKs who represent them were roused, turning my interpretation of Baraks statement on its head [implying that on a break would mean out of uniform]. Fine, lets say it was that way. (In this context, Ganz demanded that Channel 2 and Israel Army Radio refrain from airing those statements. Whether he was joking or serious, the editors of the radio station erred in surrendering to his request.) At the heart of the matter, the exclusion of women singing or not from public domains is becoming a scandal that is harmful to Israels status around the world. Even Hillary Clinton addressed this. If it were up to me, I would forbid buses from driving through the Haredi neighborhoods in which women are separated from men. But the ripple described as a storm regarding shirat nashim prohibitions is silly and superfluous. The solution is clear: A wise rabbi would tell a soldier among his disciples that in comparison with insulting women, the Kashrut principle of batel b'shishim (nullified in sixty; that is, permissible so long as the forbidden aspect constitutes no more than 1/60 of the whole) applies to listening to a womans voice. That is in accordance with Jewish heritage, regardless of orders from the IDFs General Staff. Thus if a religious soldier finds himself facing women singing, he should shut his eyes and ponder the Halakha that determines that He who publicly shames his friend is as though he shed blood. After all, how strong is a yeshiva or religious high school education if a few notes of do-re-mi-fa-so and la could undermine a believing soldier and cause him to have passing thoughts about sin or heresy- In addition, a wise officer would employ dual measures: He would try to persuade the religious soldier to remain in place; but if it were proven to him that the soldiers desire to absent himself was an uncontrollable urge, he would assign the soldier a position beyond the auditorium, like helping in the kitchen or performing guard duty. And A Redeemer will come to Zion (Isaiah 59:20). Should a soldier who merely decided on his own to leave an unofficial ceremony rather than hear women sing, be expelled from the IDFs Bahad 1 Officers Training School or from another military course? That is mean-spirited. This column ends with a story about a wise chief of staffs handling of other devoted cadets who left their base without permission. We should learn a lesson from him. The Harpaz document report is pending The forged document that bears the name of Boaz Harpaz is about to awaken from its summer hibernation big time. Gabi Ashkenazis associates maintained during questioning that Ehud Barak was sick of Ashkenazis objection to attacking Iran, and that his objection negated the beliefs of his heir apparent, Yoav Galant. But the claim that the argument surrounded Iran, rather than the forgery and the motives that prompted it was hollow and lacked substance. Amos Harel and Tomer Zarchin wrote in Ha'aretz this week that Galant disproved the baseless claims of Ashkenazis supporters. He testified in the State Comptrollers Office to Major-General [res] Yaakov (Mendi) Or and his staff, saying that Barak never spoke with him about his Iran policy when he offered to appoint him chief of staff. That testimony may finally disprove the poor excuse offered by Ashkenazis camp. Israel Hayom readers have been aware of this since October, 21, when we wrote here that Barak and Galant never discussed this subject. The attempt to tie Galants appointment for chief of staff to the Iran controversy aligned with the diluted truth of the Harpaz document. It was all spin, an over-inflated balloon. That information has now been confirmed by Ha'aretz. It also means that the draft of Micha Lindenstrausss report will appear much earlier. Who told whom- The following section is presented as a public service. It is the major portion of a document written in Netanya in 1951 by a 38-year old man with a legal education. Acrobatic legislators Zeev Elkin, Yariv Levin, and Yaakov Neeman are advised to read it thoroughly: But I propose not being satisfied with independence of the judiciary but rather to engrave on our flag the supremacy of the law. The supremacy of the law how so?
Since, in such a case, the nation has determined for itself such a fundamental constitution, then all must fit and be adapted to the fundamental law. They cannot contradict it. The supremacy of the law will thereby be expressed in that a panel of independent judges will be granted not only the power to determine, in the case of a complaint, whether a rule or administrative statute of the institutions of the executive regime is legal or just, but also the power to decide, in the case of a complaint, whether the laws that are made by the house of representatives (that are made, as we have seen, through the pronounced or decisive influence of the government) abide by the fundamental law or contradict the rights of the citizen that are stated in the law. The right of presenting a legal complaint related to the laws must be granted to every citizen, whether he sees himself harmed by them directly or indirectly, and the word of law will come about. Why the supremacy of law we may be asked. In the name of democracy, of course. Is this the democratic way whereby five or seven or 11 people, who have not been elected by the nation, can abolish by their decision, which is called a legal ruling, a decision that was made in the form of law by the nation's elected officials? This is a thought-arousing question
We have learned that an elected parliamentary majority can be an instrument in the hands of a group of rulers and act as camouflage for their tyranny. Therefore, the nation must, if it chooses freedom, determine its rights also with regard to the House of Representatives in order that the majority thereof, that serves the regime more than it oversees it, should not negate these rights. It is possible to achieve this only through the supremacy of law
Of course, the judge is also but flesh and blood; he is liable to make an error or be bribed, or be afraid. But the decisive element in the function of the law in society is not the human weakness of one judge or another, but rather the psychological standing that is given to the judicial institution and to the person standing in judgment. History teaches that so long as a tyrannical regime does not succeed in eliminating the law, so long as it has not been able to turn the hall of the court into a hall of theatrical plays, in which behind the curtains it orchestrates the secret police; so long as there exists a public atmosphere for the benefit of the sacredness of the judge's conscience and the independence of the judge then judges will know how to comport themselves in the face of rulers and to prefer the command of their conscience over the government's pressure, or their hidden directive. They will know how to overcome fear of persecution, not to show favor, nor be goaded by approaches from the side and decide justice righteously. Signed, Menachem Begin, Translation: First English Annotated Edition (http://www.begincenter.org.il/uploads/Our%20World%20View.pdf) Published by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Jerusalem, Israel, 5767 2007 He seems to have predicted in advance the wave of anti-democratic bills and explanations for them that would flood the Knesset 50 years later. For more than two years, I have begged Minister of Education Gideon Saar to make this enlightened document required reading in citizenship classes, and I have yet to achieve that. I am now asking Dan Meridor to act in this regard. Perhaps the time has come to get MKs to sign a petition. Begin and the Supreme Court against anti-democratic legislators they can turn up their noses. P.S. I waited a year and 10 months for the original Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to take center-stage in the legal arena. I had already given up, but this week a glimmer of hope appeared - a real spark. The Attorney-General announced to Benjamin Netanyahu that he would not defend in the High Court the laws that would dry up the funding sources of leftist, non-profit organizations. Hooray, particularly because a certain success burgeoned at once. The Prime Minister blocked the initiative. Additional judgment is required. Have preparations to expel Weinstein already begun- A wise solution To commemorate the seventh anniversary of Rafael (Raful) Eitans death, a discussion about pidyon shvuyim, the mitzvah of prisoner redemption, was held at the Max Stern Academic College of the Jezreel Valley. That came on the wake of Gilad Shalits release. In attendance were veteran paratroopers, who cited their memories of Yitzhak Jiblis fall into the hands of the Jordanian Legion in 1954. Amiram Hirschfeld said that he and his friends had embarked on a mission in retaliation for the murder of an Israeli farmer. Jibli was wounded. Dawn was about to break. Lacking any choice, they left him under a tree. When they returned to Israel, the paratroopers started kidnapping Jordanian soldiers. That continued until they captured a member of Ammans royal family, and within a month they exchanged prisoners. When Jibli returned to Israel, former chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, threw a party at his home. Hirschfeld and one of his friends - who were in the advanced stages of an officers training course - longed to attend the party and they arrived at Dayans home in Tzahalah. Did you receive permission to leave the cadets course to come here- asked the chief of staff. They explained that they had cut out of Bahad 1. The ruling: The chief of staff cannot host soldiers who have abandoned their base in his home. My driver will return you to Bahad 1. My driver and I know where the breaks in the fence are. He will bring you to one of them, permitting you to sneak into the base and return to your tent without your commander discovering that you deserted to attend a party. And that was what happened. Dayan was smart. And also mischievous.
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On women's singing, Katsav's laments, and noise wars
How strong is a yeshiva or religious high school education if a few notes of do-re-mi-fa-so and la could undermine a devout soldier and cause him to have passing thoughts about sin or heresy?
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