Speaking at an improvised press conference former Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert was obviously pleased. The Jerusalem District Court had just acquitted
him of bribery charges in two separate corruption cases. Not withstanding the
fact that the judges found him guilty in a third case on a lesser count of
breach of public trust while serving as minister of trade and industry, didn’t
mar his triumphant mood. In another
corruption case being heard by a Tel
Aviv court, Ehud Olmert was charged with accepting a bribe to promote the
construction of various housing projects, including the vast Holyland complex
in Jerusalem.
To a large extent the prosecution in the latter case relies on an unreliable
witness.
The Wall Street Journal considered Olmert’s exoneration
sufficiently newsworthy to deserve a detailed report.
The paper mentioned that, “Mr. Olmert's resignation in late 2008 led to
the cutoff of the last round of active peace negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians and forced a general election that brought Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government to power.” Let’s not rush to conclude that had he not resigned we
would be enjoying the benefits of a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Admittedly both Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas claim their talks had reached an
advanced stage, but Middle East analysts
conjecture that Abbas like his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat, wouldn’t
have gone the extra furlong.
At the extemporised gathering by
the Jerusalem district court Olmert
summed up the four year long trial quoting a onetime political mentor, the late
Menachem Begin, “ There are judges in Jerusalem! “ words Begin used in a
different context.
This week Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu probably wondered if he
would regret his decision to appoint an
investigating panel to examine land use issues in the West
Bank, .
The Prime Minister and his Likud
party sought legal authorisation for the settlement project in Judah and Samaria,
namely a counter to the Sasson Report..
Although the extant Sasson Report
on unauthorised settlement outposts has been gathering dust for the past
seven years, it still haunts the corridors of government.
The report commissioned by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a staunch
settlement champion, was compiled by former state prosecutor Talia Sasson and
presented in March 2005. It concluded that Israeli state bodies had been
discreetly diverting millions of shekels to build West Bank settlements and outposts that were illegal under Israeli law..
The report mentioned 150 communities in the West
Bank with incomplete or nonexistent permits. At the time the Sasson Report created shock
waves in Israel, for it
represented legal confirmation of Sharon’s
controversial political decision to dismantle the outposts erected during his
tenure as prime minister. In the end, however, virtually no outposts were
dismantled—despite a written commitment by the Israeli government to the Bush
administration to do so
Daniel Kurtzer a former United States
ambassador to Egypt and Israel, currently Professor in Middle Eastern
Policy Studies at Princeton
University's Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, saw fit to comment on the
findings of Netanyahu's "outpost
committee (panel)" in an article published in The National Interest.
He
noted that the three member panel comprising former Israeli Supreme Court
justice Edmund Levy, a former district court judge and a former
foreign-ministry legal adviser had conceded that a substantial amount of building
in the West Bank (Judah and Samaria), including the establishment of about one
hundred outposts between 1991 and 2005, was unauthorised. However, the
committee continued somewhat disingenuously, that since these illegal
activities were carried out “with the knowledge, encouragement and tacit
agreement of the most senior political level . . . such conduct is to be seen
as implied agreement.” "It seems," says Kurtzer, "The committee
has no problem with illegal actions by citizens as long as a senior government
official winks, nods and joins in the activity. So much for the rule of law."
"The committee has turned logic, law and Israeli Supreme Court
precedent on its head, declaring that Israeli settlement activity in the
territories occupied by Israel
since 1967 is not illegal and advising the Israeli government to legalize
retroactively settlements and outposts previously deemed to have been
constructed outside the framework of Israeli law. This is a stunning action
with enormous consequences, a serious example of “uncommon nonsense. ” A
reference to Lewis Carrol's "Alice
in Wonderland"
“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”
At this juncture I want to enter a middle of the page footnote. In this
country we have a tendency to label everyone making sure to stress his or her
political affiliations. Edmund Levy is a dyed-in-the-wool Likudnik. Talia
Sasson is a self-declared member of Meretz.
Neither expressed their political views while they were in public service.
Sasson’s left-wing sympathies might have influenced her approach to the
settlement issue when she prepared her report, but she was meticulously careful
to provide legal justification for her recommendations. On the other hand, Judge
Levy's recommendations appear to be made-to-order.
Kurtzer sums up the debate over the two reports, " There is a
saying in the Middle East that an issue is not dead until it is dead and
buried; Sharon’s government killed the Sasson report, and now Levy’s committee
has recommended burying it."
So far Talia Sasson has not commented on the Levy committee's findings,
however Kurtzer said, "Sasson has stressed, in private correspondence,
that the Levy committee has contradicted more than four decades of Israeli law
and policy, which has applied the principles of the Fourth Geneva Convention
and the Hague Regulations to the occupied territories, albeit stopping short of
formally recognizing their applicability.
The Levy committee’s assertion of 'administrative assurance,' that is,
the complicity of government officials in supporting settlement activity even
when that activity contravened the law, is one of the most troubling aspects of
the report. Under such circumstances, citizens in a democracy should expect that
government officials who place themselves above the law would be held
accountable, not that their activities would be explained away or condoned.
Equally, the Levy committee’s recommendation that the outposts and settlement
construction completed under these circumstances be legalized retroactively is
chillingly Orwellian—as though to say it was wrong and illegal
to engage in the activity, but it will now be made right and legal. One
normally expects better from an Israeli democracy that, in the past, has
enshrined the rule of law."
Kurtzer obviously senses Netanyahu's dilemma.
"Soon the Israeli cabinet will have to consider the Levy committee
recommendations, and it is coming under pressure from its right-wing base to
adopt the report as policy. This would be most unwise, not only because of its
impact on whatever small chance still exists to find a way forward to a
political agreement with the Palestinians but equally importantly for what it
will say about Israel’s commitment to the rule of law. Even before the
cabinet’s consideration, the Israeli attorney general must decide whether to
approve it, and this is not certain; when the committee was formed, Attorney
General Yehuda Weinstein reportedly warned the prime minister that he probably
would not approve the committee’s report. Assuming Weinstein follows through,
it would be a wise course of action to declare this committee’s report dead on
arrival and buried.
But the greater the
settlers’ victory, the less likely it is that anything will come of the report.
All the ministers affiliated with the right have been demanding that the report
be brought for approval to the Ministerial Committee on Settlement. But in the
two weeks since the report landed on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s desk, his
people have been trying to reduce expectations, with the excuse that “Netanyahu
is still studying the report.”
The primary problem facing
Netanyahu is to be found in the semantic debate over the concept of occupation.
Netanyahu can’t, nor does he want to, put forward a government resolution that Israel
is not an occupier of the territories. Such a resolution would have
far-reaching diplomatic consequences, while even those on the right know it
would not have any practical effect.
On the other hand, if he
divides the report into sections and brings only certain ones to the cabinet
for ratification, Netanyahu will be perceived by the right as accepting that Israel is an
occupying force. The main message coming from the top is that the report will
“inspire” certain changes, but will not be adopted in its entirety.
As usual there's no dearth of news in this country. Having to deal with
Ehud Olmert's acquittal and the ramifications of the Levy committee
recommendations in the same week is
time-demanding..
In addition we have plenty of unresolved open issues on the week's
agenda.
One of them that probably will remain with us for some time to come is the
military draft reform protest I mentioned last week. The demonstrators
assembled in the Tel Aviv museum square carrying placards, banners and signs of various shapes and sizes. Many of
them bore a clear blatant statement "We are not freiers." The Hebrew Language
Academy records the colloquial use of the word freier
but rightly denies it formal recognition.
According to Dr. Linda-Renee Bloch of Bar-Ilan University
the word was brought to these shores by
Yiddish speakers. She says the word has Germanic roots, exists in other
languages, including Russian, German, Polish and Romanian. In some of them, its
meaning is completely different. Even in other places where it describes
someone whom others can easily fool, the concept of freier is not a cultural
symbol like it is in Israel.
Even the English word "sucker" doesn't quite serve as an accurate
translation.
The demonstrators assembled
in the square ( as many as 50,000 according to The Times of Israel) and
the nationwide sympathy for their
struggle to bring about a fairer sharing of the defence burden caused the prime
minister to change his mind again regarding the Plesner report. Initially he
supported the proposal “ with minor changes.”
Leading Haredi (ultra-Orthodox)
rabbis and politicians continued their frontal assault against legislation to
conscript yeshiva students into the army, as the working group drawing up the
new law
prepared to finalise the draft bill.
The legislation, which
Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz, Kadima , Knesset member Yohanan Plesner and
Strategic Affairs Minister
Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) are drafting, may or may not be be presented later this
week. On the other hand renewed pressure
from the Haredi parties could cause Netanyahu to change his mind again. Accepting
the Plesner draft proposal alienates the Haredi parties. However, a Supreme
Court order requires that new legislation correcting the defence burden disparity
has to be presented to the Knesset by the end of the month. In the meantime
Netanyahu’s bureau chief is busy explaining his boss’ zigzagging
Have a good weekend.
Beni
12th
of July, 2012.
.
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