Column One: The free world’s Achilles heel

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Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 14, 2006

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Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair is Israel’s best friend in Europe. And he’s not a very good friend.
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global jihad. His success in convincing Bush of this distinction turned the anti-Semitic - not to mention strategically disastrous - view that terrorists who kill Israelis should be treated differently from terrorists who kill anyone else into one of the cognitive foundations of the US war on Islamic terror. This foundation was first enunciated in Bush’s address of September 20 to a joint session of Congress where he identified “every terrorist with global reach” - that is every terrorist who isn’t part of the Palestinian Authority - as enemies of the US.
Later, Blair was a principal force behind Bush’s move to abandon the guidelines for dealing with the Palestinians that he enunciated in his speech of June 24, 2002. In that address, Bush stipulated that the Palestinians needed to transform themselves from a society that supported terror into one that combated terror in order to receive US support for Palestinian statehood.
Shortly after Baghdad fell to coalition forces in April 2003, Blair convinced Bush to accept the road map plan for Palestinian statehood. The road map, which effectively locks in US support for Palestinian statehood irrespective of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, represented a practical abandonment of the positions that Bush set out in his June 24, 2002 address.
During his visit to the region this week, in keeping with his studied habit, Blair ignored the fact that the Iranian-backed Hamas government was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority by a large majority of Palestinians. He ignored the fact that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has voiced support for the abduction and continued captivity of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and for the continuation of the terror war against Israel. He ignored the fact that rather than working to overthrow the Hamas government, Abbas has begged Hamas to allow Fatah to join its government.
To this end, Abbas has accepted Hamas’s policy guidelines rejecting the possibility of recognizing Israel’s right to exist and committing all Palestinians to unite in the war against Israel. Ignoring all these inconvenient facts, Blair called on the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to renew negotiations with Abbas on the basis of the road map.
And yet, for all this, Tony Blair is Israel’s best friend in Europe. He is Israel’s best friend because, in contrast to all his colleagues in Britain and the EU, Blair at least recognizes that the global jihad is a threat to the free world and that the price of not fighting the forces of jihad would be the loss of our freedom.
Soon, Israel’s closest European friend will exit the world stage after being effectively sacked by his own Labor Party last week. British political commentators say the chances are slim that Blair will manage to hold onto the reins of power as a lame duck for the next 12 months, as he pledged. More likely, he will leave 10 Downing Street in a matter of months.
The two men most likely to succeed Blair - Chancellor Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron - will be more similar to French President Jacques Chirac than to Blair in their attitudes toward Israel and the US. This is the case first and foremost because that is what the British people expect of them.
British antipathy towards the US and Israel was clearly exposed in an opinion poll published on September 6 in the Times of London. The poll reported that 73 percent of Britons believe that Blair’s foreign policy, and especially his “support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the recent war against Hizbullah, has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain.”
More than 62% said that to “reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain, the government should change its foreign policy, in particular by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.”
The day after the poll was published, Blair announced that he would leave office in a year.
Also, on September 7, a committee of members of Parliament released a report on anti-Semitism in Britain. The all-party committee found that that since the Palestinian jihad against Israel began in 2000, anti-Semitism in Britain has become a mainstream phenomenon. Attacks against Jews in Britain were at an all time high over the summer.
In their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, the British, of course, are no different from their Continental brethren. And the situation in Europe is alarming. Writing in Frontpage magazine this week, Islamic expert Andrew Bostom reported that in November 2005, Stephen Steinlight, the former director of education at the US Holocaust Memorial Council, told a conference in Washington that on average, Muslims attack Jews in Paris 12 times a day. According to Steinlight, this means French anti-Semitic violence is approaching the level of anti-Semitic violence in Germany during the days of the Weimar Republic.
These attacks against Jews in Europe are accompanied by ever increasing official hostility towards Israel on the part of European governments. On the second day of the war with Hizbullah, Chirac felt comfortable alleging that “Israel’s military offensive against Lebanon is totally disproportionate.” Chirac then acidly asked, “Is destroying Lebanon the ultimate goal?”
Chirac’s remarks opened the floodgates for anti-Israel propaganda throughout Europe. They were followed by the barring of El Al cargo planes carrying weapons shipments from the US from European airports. That prohibition still stands.
From the moment Chirac launched this unjustified diplomatic assault against Israel, his government began acting as an agent of the Lebanese government, which itself acted throughout the war as Hizbullah’s mouthpiece. So from the second day of the war, the groundwork was already laid for UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which treats Israel and Hizbullah as equals and lets both Syria and Iran off the hook for their central roles in Hizbullah’s illegal war against Israel.
THROUGH THEIR behavior toward both Israel and the US, Europe’s leaders have made clear that they will do just about anything to please the Muslim world. Even though Iran has made absolutely clear that it refuses to end uranium enrichment activities, or even to suspend them, the Europeans continue to insist on negotiating with the mullahs and refuse to take even the smallest concrete step against Iran in the UN Security Council.
As for the Palestinians, the Europeans have made no attempt to hide their eagerness to renew their monthly transfers of tens of millions of euros to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas’s agreement to let Fatah join its jihadist government.
And in Lebanon, together with the UN, the Europeans have defined the rules of engagement for UNIFIL in a way that on the one hand protects Hizbullah, and on the other hand, prevents Israel from defending itself. Above all else, these policies clearly demonstrate that the Europeans have defined ingratiating the Muslim world as their primary geopolitical interest.
Seemingly unaware of Europe’s growing hostility toward Israel, the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has succumbed to the charms of the likes of Chirac, Romano Prodi and Javier Solana and is systematically abandoning Israel’s positions in favor of Europe’s pro-Arab stands. During his press conference with Blair, Olmert renounced his previous well-considered demand that Shalit be released before any meeting can take place between him and Abbas.
During her visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni emphasized Israel’s desire to renew negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of the road map, and the government’s continued support for Abbas. This, in spite of the fact that the government Abbas is forming with Hamas will not recognize Israel’s right to exist and will be committed to continuing its jihad against Israel. In so doing, Olmert and Livni are lending informal approval to the renewal of European funding of the Palestinian Authority.
Even more troubling is the government’s inaction, bordering on tacit support, regarding the radical Left’s campaign to transfer responsibility for Israel’s security from the IDF to Europe. The campaign, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman enthusiastically dubbed, “Land for NATO,” in his column on Wednesday, involves the adoption of the UNIFIL model in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. This newest messianic trend is based on the blind belief that Israel can continue giving land to the Palestinians in spite of the fact that the Palestinians are the most radical, pro-jihad society on the face of the earth, because Europe will protect Israel from them. Whether under the UN flag or the NATO flag, the new writ of leftist faith maintains that Europe can replace the IDF in defending the Jews.
Blair’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that just as the Iranians will not cease uranium enrichment because they want to build atom bombs, so the Palestinians will reject all offers of statehood because they prefer to destroy the Jewish state is infuriating. And yet the fact remains that he is the last European leader who truly believes that Israel has an inherent right to exist and bases his policies on this belief. It is absolutely clear that in the coming years, Europe’s hostility towards Israel and the Jewish people as a whole will continue to rise.
HOW THEN, is Israel to contend with Europe? As Israel’s largest trading partner, relations with Europe are vital to Israel’s economic well-being. So it is clear that Israel cannot simply turn its back on the free world’s Achilles heel.
At the same time, given Europe’s hostility, it is similarly obvious that the direction of the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government’s policies toward Europe must be reversed. Rather than enabling Europe to increase its influence in the region, Israel must take every step possible to minimize Europe’s foothold in its neighborhood.
Israel should use Blair’s exit from the world stage as an opportunity to lock its doors and shutter its windows before any new European friends can come inside.

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This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913631570&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

LEGAL PROSECUTION OR IDEOLOGICAL PERSECUTION?

Letter from Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem
September 7, 2006

Dear Friends,

I am starting this week’s Letter from Jerusalem by reproducing Caroline Glick’s article published in the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, September 5, in its entirety. Ms. Glick has won numerous prestigious awards for her integrity in journalism, not only in Israel but worldwide.

Our World: Shimshon Cytryn and Aharon Barak
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST
September 5, 2006

Sunday Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy presided over a hearing on a petition submitted by one Shimshon Cytryn requesting to be released from Dekel prison and placed under house arrest. Justice Levy deferred his ruling to a later date.

Cytryn, 19 a yeshiva student from the community of Nachliel in the Binyamin Region, is accused of attempted murder. Last June 28, two groups of teenage boys pelted one another with rocks on the Muwassi beach area in Gaza adjacent to the Israeli community Shirat Hayam. As the fight raged for three days without IDF intervention, the Israeli press set up shop near the boys and waited.

On June 28 the media sprang into action. Channel 1 filmed a series of narrow lens video clips which showed only the Israeli youths - including Cytryn — throwing rocks. Then Yediot Aharonot reporter Yitzhak Saban “heroically” inserted himself into the drama. He jumped before the cameras and “saved” a Palestinian youth whom he and his fellow reporters claimed had been critically wounded by the Israeli youths in a manner that recalled “a lynch.” The next morning a photo of Saban’s “intervention” was on the front page of Yediot. Television and radio news broadcasts led with stories about the “lynching” carried out by “right-wing extremists.” They reported that the Palestinian “victim” was hospitalized in Gaza and fighting for his life.

Yet that Palestinian “victim” was in and out of the hospital in the space of two hours. The picture of health, he gave multiple interviews to Arab and European reporters where he expounded on the “heroic battle” he and his friends fought against the “Jewish settlers.” The fact of the “victim’s” miraculous recovery from his life threatening wounds was not reported in the Israeli press until several days later and then the story was hidden in laconic reports on the inside pages of the papers.

The “lynch” story was manufactured against the backdrop of a steady drop in public support for the Sharon government’s plan to expel all the Israeli residents from Gaza and northern Samaria. Polling data showed that less than 50 percent of Israelis supported the plan. But the “lynching” story reversed the trend. In the space of 24 hours, the public’s support for the withdrawal rose to over 60 percent.

After the expulsions were completed last August, IDF commanders, including then OC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Dan Harel admitted that there had never been anything even vaguely resembling a lynching. But the crime’s fabrication did not prevent the police from arresting Cytryn nor did it did stop the state prosecution from charging him with attempted murder. So now Cytryn sits in prison awaiting trial for a crime that was never committed.

THE LEGAL environment that enabled situations like Cytryn’s to arise is part of the judicial legacy of retiring Supreme Court President Aharon Barak.

Barak has presided over the Court for 11 years. As a self-declared “judicial-statesman,” he used his position on the bench to reshape Israeli society and politics in his own image through his “constitutional revolution.”

Barak’s revolution placed the judicial branch above the legislative and executive branches. The elevation of the high court was enacted in four ways: First, the Court gave standing to petitioners who were neither directly nor indirectly affected by the matters they brought before the Court. Second, by cleverly interpreting a series of new Basic Laws to say something their drafters had never dreamed of, Barak was able to gain the power to overturn lawfully promulgated legislation. Third, the Court empowered itself to intervene in government decisions by raising the standards of “permissible actions” by the government and the Knesset in a manner that constricted the freedom of elected officials to set policy and legislate laws. Finally, Barak insisted that “everything is justicible.”

The consequence of all these actions was the effective transfer of executive and legislative authority to the judiciary. As a result, private and public behavior that has traditionally been seen as the realm of morality and prudence; military decisions regarding Israel’s national security that had previously been under the exclusive authority of the executive; ideological questions that had been the preserve of private citizens and state bodies; and religious questions that had been the exclusive reserve of religious authorities, now all came under the authority of the Supreme Court.

As he was establishing his power to overturn government and legislative decisions, Barak also consolidated his control over the judiciary. Using his control over the judicial selection process, over the past 11 years Barak transformed Israel’s judiciary into a near unitary organism whose members are overwhelmingly united in their support for Barak’s political agenda and his use of the judiciary as a means of forcing his political agenda on the Israeli public.

Barak’s political agenda is one of leftist, post-Zionist multiculturalism and radical secularism. Barak used various methods to advance his agenda. While refusing to ever consult Jewish legal traditions, he has given anti-Israeli, non-binding UN General Assembly documents and International Court of Justice advisory opinions the weight of international law and has incorporated these “international laws” into Israeli law.

HE PUSHED the idea that elected leaders are not allowed to make their best faith judgments about Israel’s defense, economy or ideological foundations. Working indirectly with far Left special interest groups that have eagerly embraced Barak’s throwing open of the Court’s doors to politics and flocked to the Court to gain through judicial fiat what they cannot hope to gain at the ballot box, Barak has ruled lawful, good faith government decisions regarding the defense of Israel and other national policy issues to be illegal.

Aside from that, through a legal precedent he himself established, Barak rendered our elected officials subject to blackmail by the legal bureaucracy. Barak’s Court ruled that all ministers indicted for any crime must resign their offices. As a result, the police and state prosecution, backed by the Court, can effectively fire political leaders by indicting them on the basis of flimsy or non-existent evidence. Such charges led to the resignations of Justice Ministers Ya’acov Neeman and Haim Ramon and former Internal Security Minister Rafael Eitan, all of whom expressed opposition to some aspects of Barak’s policies. Former Justice Minister Tzahi Hanegbi was neutralized in office by a criminal probe against him which remained open throughout the course of his tenure.

THROUGH HIS rulings, Barak made clear that some people’s human and civil rights are more equal than others. He barred the IDF from utilizing certain tactical measures that protect the lives of the troops because Barak said those measures impinged on the human rights of civilians who sheltered wanted terrorists. Barak ruled that Arab farmers’ free access to their crops outweighs the right of Israelis to defenses capable of protecting them from terrorist infiltration.

Retired justice Mishael Cheshin explained that Barak’s support for the expulsion of all Israelis from Gaza and northern Samaria made Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad immune from indictment for what appeared to be clear acceptance of bribes. In his words, “If Sharon had stood trial, there would have been no disengagement.”

And of course, under Barak’s rule, religious Israelis could expect little to no legal protection for their human or civil rights. Last year Barak’s Court enabled the abrogation of their freedom of expression by approving the police decision to prevent buses from traveling to licensed demonstrations; he indirectly approved police harassment and violence against demonstrators; he enabled unindicted citizens to be barred from their homes and prohibited from seeing their families. He ruled that they could be divested of their property rights without due process and without equitable restitution by the government; could be divested of their livelihood without due process or equitable restitution; could be prevented from running for office; and could be held for months in administrative detention.

All of these decisions are part of the means through which Barak’s “enlightened society” is cultivated and his “democracy” is protected.

UNFORTUNATELY for Shimshon Cytryn and the 65 percent of Israelis who in a poll last week said they believe that the Court’s rulings are motivated by political interests rather than law, the guard will not change when Barak retires next week.

His hand-picked successor Justice Dorit Benisch not only subscribes to his judicial philosophy, during her 31 years in the State Prosecution, Benisch stacked the prosecution with what she referred to in a recent interview with Yediot as attorneys who “worked in accordance with the same values” that she ascribes to. As she has made clear through her actions and words, Benisch’s “values” are post-Zionism; hostility towards the military; hostility towards religious Zionists; support for the Palestinians; and support for anti-religious social forces and pressure groups.

As Benisch replaces Barak next month she faces a situation where only 32 percent of Israelis think that she is qualified for office, and only 33 percent of the public has full faith in the Court. This is in contrast to the 85 percent of Israelis who had full faith in the Court in 1995.

Since it is clear that she will continue and attempt to widen Barak’s usurpation of governing authority in Israel, the question that arises is whether our political leaders will have the courage to curb the court’s power.

Unfortunately, given our current crop of politicians, there is every chance that Shimshon Cytryn will be tried and convicted of a crime that was never committed.

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The last paragraph in this article is very disturbing: “Unfortunately, given our current crop of politicians, there is every chance that Shimshon Cytryn will be tried and convicted of a crime that was never committed.”

Interestingly enough, in today’s Jerusalem Post there was a scathing critique of Caroline Glick’s article by Larry Derfner entitled, Shimshon Cytryn and other ‘innocents’.

Nadia and I were incensed at the venom he injects in his article. We want you to determine for yourself whether his writing is an example of the media’s ideological persecution of innocent victims. Therefore, we have enclosed Derfner’s entire article and also a letter which we wrote to the Jerusalem Post in response.

Rattling the Cage: Shimshon Cytryn and other ‘innocents’
Larry Derfner, THE JERUSALEM POST
September 7, 2006

I don’t like to take issue in print with other Jerusalem Post journalists, but I have to make an exception now for the column “Our World: Shimshon Cytryn and Aharon Barak,” written by Caroline Glick on Monday.

The column gives the impression that Cytryn, 19, a religious settler on trial for the attempted murder of a Palestinian teenager in Gaza during the summer of last year, is the innocent victim of a political frame-up by the media and Barak’s Supreme Court.

In Glick’s telling, all that took place at Gaza’s Moassi beach in late June 2005 was an extended rock fight between two groups of teenagers, yet the media “manufactured” the tale of a near-fatal lynching of a Palestinian boy by a group of young settlers, when the boy spent only two hours in the hospital and emerged “the picture of health.” The media’s motive, the column indicates, was to make the Gush Katif settler movement look bad and thereby buck up public support for the impending disengagement.

Cytryn’s case is now before the Supreme Court, which Glick accuses of having a leftist political agenda just like the media’s, so she concludes that “there is every chance that Shimshon Cytryn will be tried and convicted of a crime that was never committed.”

I’m writing about this because I was one of the reporters on the Moassi beachfront on that June 28 that the column describes, and the behavior of the young settlers there that day wasn’t innocent at all, which is what readers of Glick’s column would conclude. One of those settlers did in fact try to murder that Palestinian teenager, and he had help. I don’t know if it was Cytryn who hit the Palestinian boy in the head with a rock thrown full force from a few feet away, but I know that one of those Jewish marauders did, and others tried to join in the attack. And while this was the worst violent crime they committed during those three days on the Gaza beachfront, it was by no means the only one.

The media, Aharon Barak and the Supreme Court are not the villains in this story. The villains were those 25 or so radical settler thugs at Moassi, including Cytryn.

Glick’s column doesn’t mention how the rock fight began. Yet it was big news at the time: Those young settlers, who were among the many right-wing youth pouring into Gush Katif to try to stop the disengagement, invaded a three-story beachfront house owned by a Palestinian family, chased the family out and took it over.

They went up on the roof and wrote the words “Muhammad is a pig” in huge letters on the wall facing the house next door where the Palestinian evictees were gathered with their neighbors. For three days, the settlers and Palestinians threw rocks at each other while Israeli soldiers did little but watch.

WHO WERE these young settlers? Glick quotes the media’s characterization of them as “right-wing extremists,” her implication being that this is the sort of knee-jerk, settler-bashing terminology that can be expected from the media.

But from what I saw of those young people on the roof, I’d say “right-wing extremists” was too polite a term. I’d call them “Judeo-fascists” instead.

They were a bunch of Kahanists, they were flying banners of Kach and the like-minded messianic wing of Chabad. A graffito on the stairway wall read “We’ll murder Sharon, too.”

I recognized one boy on the roof from the recent Purimspiel-cum-yahrzeit for Baruch Goldstein at Goldstein’s grave in Kiryat Arba. The boy, a West Bank settler named Pinhasi Bar-On, then 15, had been one of the most high-spirited revelers that Purim, singing songs of praise to Yigal Amir and shouting gleefully for Sharon’s death.

On the rooftop in Gaza, I asked him how he thought the battle over disengagement would play out. “In the end,” he said, “Sharon will either be sitting home or lying in his grave.”

I got to the beachfront a little after the incident for which Cytryn is standing trial, so I didn’t see it with my own eyes. But a TV cameraman showed me the raw footage he’d shot, and I watched it a few times. The images still in my memory are fleeting, but I remember seeing an IDF soldier with a rifle standing with a Palestinian boy - Halil Mejeida, 18 - in his custody behind a wall. I remember seeing a boy hoisting himself atop the wall and hurling a rock at Mejeida, and another boy trying to get at Mejeida, who was lying on the ground as the soldier tried to protect him.

To fill in the lapses in my memory, here is the relevant excerpt from the news story written by the Chicago Tribune’s Joel Greenberg: “One Palestinian youth was wounded in the head by a rock, and as he lay senseless on the ground, young settlers ran up and stoned him at close range while an Israeli soldier tried to shield him. ‘Don’t touch him, let him die,’ shouted one settler in footage of the assault shown on Israeli television.”

“Manufactured”? I don’t know how long Mejeida stayed in the hospital, and I don’t know what kind of condition he was in when he got out, but was the media account of that incident a “fabrication” of “a crime that was never committed,” as Glick’s column has it?

No, it was an attempted lynch of a Palestinian in IDF custody by a handful of young settlers.

The standoff ended at sundown when Israeli soldiers stormed the house, dragging out the squatters who, in their parting gesture, had set the place on fire.

That was Shimshon Cytryn and his friends. Remember them the next time you read or hear about how the Israeli justice system is victimizing some purely innocent Jew who - wouldn’t you know it? - has been branded by the media as a “right-wing extremist.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE JERUSALEM POST
September 7, 2006

Dear Sir,

We were incensed to read Larry Derfner’s article, “Shimshon Cytryn and other ‘innocents’”, in today’s Jerusalem Post. It seems that once again Mr. Derfner is playing havoc with the truth. In addition, Mr. Derfner attacks the veracity of Jerusalem Post Columnist Caroline Glick.

Caroline Glick is one of the most honest political analysts today. She is also a world-renowned, courageous journalist, who during the recent Iraq War was embedded with US troops, joining the infantry unit that was first to reach Baghdad.

Derfner’s column gives one the impression that he passionately hates the religious settlers. In his article, he expresses his opinion that these settlers, Shimshon Cytryn and others, are nothing but “Jewish marauders” and “right-wing extremists”. Furthermore, he even refers to them as “Judeo-fascists”. He states that “one of those settlers did in fact try to murder that Palestinian teenager, and he had help.”

Larry Derfner has not done his homework! Its one thing to be opinionated, but another to write according to the facts. The facts of this incident, according to the alleged Arab victim of the so-called “lynching”, Hilal Majaida himself, are as follows: “A soldier came and took me from there to an isolated spot, hit me in the stomach and in the head. The soldier beat me with the butt of an M-16 rifle. It was a soldier who beat me, not a settler.” (This information is from a radio program aired on Reshet Bet, Israel Radio 2, on July 4, 2005 at 10:36:21. Ha-Kol Dibburim (Its All Talk) Avi Yisakharov Interviews Hilal Majaida.)

Larry Derfner owes all of your readers an apology.

Ruth and Nadia Matar
Women in Green

* * *

It is difficult to escape the feeling that the case of the State of Israel vs. Shimshon Cytryn is one of ideological persecution by the legal system and the media rather than purely legal prosecution.

If you are as incensed as I am about this injustice perpetrated on Shimshon Cytryn, please express your sentiments to Israel’s Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, fax number 001-972-2646-7001.

Also, email the editor of the Jerusalem Post at letters@jpost.com and express your opinion about Larry Derfner’s article.

With Blessings and Love for Israel,

Ruth Matar

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Stop Abusing Our Children!

Nadia Matar

I received many congratulations for winning in the trial against me in which I was charged with “insulting a public servant,” Yonatan Bassi. Obviously, this is only a temporary victory, and the State Attorney’s Office still can appeal. The very fact, however, that, at long last, a fair honest judge can be found, who is willing to expunge a charge sheet and admit, even indirectly, that at times there are foreign and invalid considerations in the decision by the State Attorney’s Office whether to place someone on trial, is a reason to be happy. But we should not think that, because of the acquittal, anything has changed in the judicial system in Israel. The judicial persecution of the camp that is faithful to the Land of Israel is alive and well, even - and especially - against our children.

Very few people are up to date concerning the case of Tirzah Sariel, a fifteen-year-old girl from Samaria, who has been in jail for two and a half months. I want to describe her case, so that we will take joint, and immediate, action to release Tirzah from the Neveh Tirzah prison.

About ten months ago there was an incident involving several Jewish girls and Arab olive harvesters. The Arabs claimed that the girls - how horrible - poured a bucket full of olives on the ground. The police naturally believed the Arabs and wanted to arrest one of the girls. The rest of the girls, including Tirzah Sariel, protested against the arrest attempt, and told the police: “Arrest us, too,” and so six girls were arrested. They were released a few days later, and a case was opened against all of them, with no end of false accusations. Tirzah announced that she would not appear for the court proceedings because she does not recognize the court’s authority, as long as the judicial system does not operate in accordance with the laws of the Torah.

Before the beginning of the trial, two and a half months ago, they came to arrest Tirzah. It was decided that, since she does not cooperate with the system and would not appear for the hearings of her own free will, she must remain in custody until the end of the judicial proceedings. The law dictates that when a trial is underway and the defendant is incarcerated, the judge must speed up the proceedings and prevent the defendant from remaining in jail for a long time before the trial.

The judge in Tirzah’s case, Justice Uri Ben-Dor, however, did not act in accordance with this law, and decided that the next hearing in Tirzah’s trial would be held four months later. In other words, Justice Uri Ben-Dor ruled that a fifteen-year-old girl will remain in jail for four months, just to wait for the next session of the trial. Even the prosecutor jumped up and said: “Just a minute, we are talking about a 15-year-old child who is sitting in jail, we must accelerate the proceedings.” Justice Ben-Dor replied: “That is of no interest to me.” Ben-Dor also made sure to express what he thinks about the Land of Israel loyalist public when he said: “You [settlers] are a public that knows to take all the time, but does not know how to give.”

With such a political and racist statement, it is no wonder that he is acting against a girl who lives in a settlement in Samaria.

Tirzah has already been incarcerated for two and a half months in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem. As someone who personally, during the demonstrations against the Rabin-Peres regime, was in jail in the Russian Compound for a few hours, and sometimes for a single night, together with addicts, prostitutes, and a lot of Arabs, there is no need to describe in detail how difficult it is to be a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl in jail, alone. Suffice it to say that every visit by her mother is conducted with a thick glass window separating them, and Tirzah speaks with her mother by telephone, just like in the movies. This is not accepted even for the worst criminals, unless it is suspected that dangerous objects will be transferred between them. But with God’s help, Tirzah is strong and is not broken. Her resolute stance is worrisome to the system and puts pressure on the entire system, that does not know what to do with a girl who dares not to recognize them. The representatives of the system are willing to do anything to try and break her - if only she will give them some sign of recognition.

Last week, all of a sudden, the state initiated a session, once again concerning Tirzah’s incarceration, this time with another judge. From a legal standpoint, this was a strange session. The judge’s decision, as well, was strange: on the one hand, she exempted Tirzah from appearing at the court sessions, and informed her that the sessions would , from now on,be conducted in her absence. On the other hand, however, she would not release Tirzah until somebody from within Israel above the age of 18 comes to the nearest police station and signs a bond in the sum of NIS 1500 ($350) to ensure her appearance at the sessions! If anyone were to ask, what need is there of a signature if the judge exempted her from appearing at the sessions - there is no answer to this. There is only a single reason: the signature itself will constitute recognition of the authority of the court. It is important to stress that Tirzah asks that no one do this and go to sign.

Instead of defusing the situation and allowing Tirzah to return home without any signature at all, and continuing the trial without her, Tirzah was sent from the Russian Compound to the Neveh Tirzah prison, that is meant for major women criminals. And this is not all: even within the walls of the prison she is denied many rights, which is something that would not have been done to the worst criminals within the prison. The writing instruments and paper that she had with her, in order to occupy herself, were taken away from her. Her telephone book was taken away from her, and who knows what else they’ll think up. All of this is payback for her stubbornness and insistence on her principles, that drives the system mad.

This story must enrage every Jew throughout the world. Even someone who disagrees with her approach that rejects recognition of the judicial system would admit that the negation of her basic human rights is inconceivable - rights that every prisoner receives, even if he is a murderer or terrorist with blood on his hands.

I am writing this on the day that Aharon Barak is retiring and Dorit Beinish is succeeding him as President of the supreme Court. All the state media highlights the extent to which Aharon Barak brought the subject of “human rights and freedom” into the center of the Israeli judicial system. No one bothered to mention that this might be the case when Israel-haters are brought to trial, but when those faithful to Eretz Israel, and especially their children, are concerned, then, in most instances, all basic rights vanish. We must not be silent when this happens. Our public, whether or not it agrees with Tirzah’s position, must rise up against this abuse.

Takhlis - the Bottom Line: What Can Be Done?

1) File written complaints against Justice Uri Ben-Dor with the Office of the Commission for Public Complaints against Judges, 5 Nahum Heftzadi Street, Beit Ofer, Givat Shaul, Jerusalem 95484.

telephone: 972-2-6595511

fax: 972-2-6595516

no email adress exists for that office.

We must complain about the judge not acting in accordance with the law, by not speeding up the proceedings. How can he allow a fifteen-year-old girl to rot in jail for four months, with murderers and other criminals, just to wait for the next court session? This is unforgettable and unforgivable.

2) Encourage Tirzah by sending letters to her in prison.

Even if the letters might not reach her, because they are intercepted, the very fact of the prison administration seeing such great support, hundreds of letters to Tirzah for Rosh Hashanah, will deliver a clear message: that, finally, we are aware of Tirzah’s case and we will not let them continue abusing her without our crying out both in Israel and abroad. Hurry and write letters of support to Tirzah before Rosh Hashanah, to the address:

Tirzah Sariel, POB 229, Neveh Tirzah, Ramleh

3) Everyone must relate this story to friends, family, and Members of Knesset, with the simple question: What did you do today for the release from Neveh Tirzah of Tirzah Sariel, the fifteen-year-old girl?