Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy has a very selective memory (Hebrew). Only when he faces the case of suspected settler terrorist Chaim Pearlman, who has been denied access to counsel by the Shin Bet and was a no-show in court, does he say: “Never in my life have I seen such behavior.” Apparently, he’s forgotten the fact that the Shin Bet routinely treats its Israeli Palestinian suspects in the same fashion: most recently Ameer Makhoul was honored with such treatment. But then again, a Supreme Court justice can’t be expected to remember that they are citizens who should have the same rights as Chaim Pearlman or any other Jewish citizen. That’s what I mean by a selective memory.
Levy is also pissed that the Shin Bet refused to allow Pearlman to be present at his hearing–again treatment routinely accorded Israeli Palestinians (Makhoul among them). He’s ticked that Pearlman is also held in solitary confinement:
It is not possible that such suspects should be held in isolation from the outside world and unaware of the rights. I’ve never seen such treatment in my life.
Has he missed the case of Mr. X, the prisoner held incommunicado at Ayalon Prison? We don’t even know who he is, let alone what he’s done. And Mr. X has no access to counsel or anyone at all from the outside world including family. Apparently Levy doesn’t read the Israeli press or he might know what goes on in side the Israeli intelligence and justice system. I thought that was part of his job as a justice. I guess a justice can “hear what he wants to hear and disregard the rest.”
It is rather amazing though that the Shin Bet defied even a Supreme Court justice who specifically demanded that a suspect be produced for a hearing. I can understand their pulling that s(^t with a Palestinian suspect, who would be expected to be accorded lesser rights–but a Jewish one? Now that takes b(&^)s.
It’s also rather comical in a dark sort of way, that right-wing Jewish terror suspects start sounding precisely like Israeli Palestinian terror suspects. This is a comment from the brother of a second suspect accused of aiding Pearlman’s terror spree:
Sitbon’s brother, Menachem, said “the Shin Bet couldn’t care less about the judge’s decision. This is dictatorship.”
Another of Sitbon’s relatives said this:
…The Shin Bet’s conduct harms the values of democracy and human rights.”
When right and left agree about the nature of the Shin Bet I don’t know whether to celebrate or weep (or both). Of course the Israeli far-right believes in democracy–that is a democracy that accords them rights and deprives non-Jewish citizens of the same rights. So these claims ring hollow. But it is still interesting that at least nominally they are bedfellows, and strange ones.
That to show you that in Israel all terrorists are treated equally regardless of their ethnic origin.
thank you for proving the point, there is no preferred treatment for Jews, when it comes to braking the law in the state of Israel. actually there is one for the Israeli-Arabs.
zvi seems to prefer twisted logic in which the exception proves the rule.
how would you like me to react to such an empty statement ?
please examine how many Jewish people were arrested or interrogated by the shabak in the last 20 year for terror related suspicious, and than come back and claim your empty claims.
Are you saying that Israel has proven that Ameer Makhoul and Chaim Pearlman are terrorists? And w/o even the need of a trial? How convenient. This is yr definition of democracy. And even if what you say is true (which it isn’t) are you claiming that a Jew who murders at least 4 Palestinians is as much a terrorist as a man who the Shabak alleges w/o providing a single shread of real evidence is a spy for Hezbollah, & who hasn’t harmed Israel in any way?
RE: “Of course the Israeli far-right believes in democracy–that is a democracy that accords them rights and deprives non-Jewish citizens of the same rights. So these claims ring hollow.” – R.S.
MY CONTRIBUTION: Robert O. Paxton defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
SOURCE – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-1