If you have to take the five episodes of the docu-series “Judges of Flesh and Blood”, which airs here 11 (the third episode will air this week), and distill from them one moment that teaches more about those who make fates, and largely shape Israeli society – this is the moment court retirees are asked Supreme to address the ruling that approved the disengagement plan. Ten judges then rejected the petitions of the residents of Gush Katif, who sought to prevent the destruction of their settlements. One judge – Edmund Levy, in a minority opinion – asked for them.
What do you think about Levy’s ruling? Asks the judges creator of the series Naftali Glicksberg. And they? They do not have a single drop of respect for their late colleague and his ruling. Which Grunis evades giving an answer. Yitzhak Zamir explains that Levy’s decision was “more a social mass than a verdict.” And Aharon Barak, as usual, surpasses them all. “I think Edmund Levy’s ruling is political,” he states. And what about his and his friends’ verdict? “Our verdict was not political.” Sharp and clear. Whoever rules like me, considers legal considerations. Anyone who decides differently from me is considering political considerations.
This series, like almost every interview given in recent years by retired Supreme Court justices, is an explanatory attack for them. If in their judgments we get them clean, fair, and considerate, and we have no idea what’s hiding inside there — when they sit in front of the camera, everything comes out. The arrogance, condescension, arrogance, detachment, and great contempt for anyone who sees the world differently from them.
Just before we go into details, we need to say a few words about the creator of the series, Naftali Glicksberg. All the interesting moments of this series do not come thanks to Glicksberg, but despite. Glicksberg set out in an attempt to defend his objects of admiration. He’s not really asking questions. He’s not really making it difficult. He does not really want to confront the judges with the allegations made against them on the part of a growing public. Glicksberg sits in front of what he called in a radio interview “the marvels,” like a young boy hanging eyes in love on a girl who has been the object of his dreams all these years.
“Did you notice that Ohana does not appear in the series?”, He asks Itai Stern, who interviewed him for Haaretz. “There are people who should not be given a stage. In my opinion, he is not in a conversation.” When Stern asks him why he did not confront his interviewees with the line of judges’ conflicts of interest exposed here in this column, Glicksberg has a clear answer. “I was not interested in engaging in it. I feel that some of the people responsible for the persecution of Liat Ben-Ari and the State Attorney’s Office, their motivation is not concern for Israeli society or a more just society. Their motivation is to undermine the credibility of the system, and that does not interest me.” Glicksberg, to sum up, set out to make a propaganda film that would bring out the judges well, and they – with their fluttering tongues – spoiled it.
Me and zero more
There is a premise that runs like the second thread in this series: the battle between the Supreme Court and the elected officials is a battle between good and bad. Between beautiful and ugly. The judges are portrayed as trying to fix the company. Politicians – self-interested, insidious, aggressive, narcissistic – as those who seek to destroy it. If there is one thing that cannot be missed in the series, it is the deep contempt that many judges have for the work of Knesset members and the legislation they put out. “In the Knesset, laws are passed by a random majority, in a sparse presence,” explains Judge Yoram Danziger. “To come and say that every act of legislation actually represents the view of the public in its entirety, so just because of that – should you judges not intervene? It really does not impress me.”
Let’s unpack this amazing sentence for a moment. Let’s put aside the contempt of the Supreme Court judge for a process in which elected officials pass laws. But to say that “laws are passed in the Knesset by a random majority, in a sparse presence”? How much unconsciousness does a person – who has served in an institution that often decides fate by a majority of two against one – need to talk about a “random majority”? In general, when a “random majority”, say 30 MKs, makes a decision, after 90 others have been given the opportunity to vote, and have chosen to abstain. They are also part of the process. On the other hand, when three judges rule, the other 12 cannot intervene. , Even if they really want to and even if they are convinced that this is a false ruling.
By the way, it is important to remind Danziger that this matter of “random majority, in a sparse presence,” as an excuse to disqualify, conflicts a little with reality. The Regulation Law, which was rejected in the High Court, passed in the Knesset by a majority of 60 to 52. The last Infiltrators Law passed, passed by a majority of 56 to 28. The draft law, which was also rejected, was passed by a majority of 65 to 1. And these are just examples For the President of the Supreme Court to talk about the attacks on democracy, it would be worthwhile to remind her how her own people talk about the democratic process.The bad example starts from them.
Did we talk about the arrogant contempt of the judges regarding the Knesset’s legislative process? Do not miss the contemptuous face of Dorit Beinisch, when she hears the name of the former Minister of Justice, winner of the Israel Prize for Legal Studies – Prof. Daniel Friedman. When Glicksberg reminds her that “no one disputes his specialization in a particular area of the legal world,” she responds immediately with “as you said. In a particular area.” Beinisch could have had a substantive debate with Prof. Friedman. To claim that he is wrong in his view. But why do it, if you can just underestimate it, and present it as someone who specializes only “in a particular field”?
Did we mention condescending judges? Look at what Judge Eliyahu Matza said about the Knesset members: “Politicians who criticize the Supreme Court this morning and this evening have never read a Supreme Court ruling from beginning to end.” Me and zero more. If anyone disagrees with me, it’s clear he did not read anything.
Value charge
There are moments in the series that you are not entirely convinced that these people, who are sitting at the top, have once met with reality. “A minister lives less within his people than a judge,” Zamir utters this unbelievable sentence, and also explains: “The minister travels, and he has the secretary and the speaker and the driver. The judge does not have all that. “Stands in traffic jams, and goes to the writer to buy, if his wife sends him. His friends, it’s the friends who always have been. He’s no different from any other man.” What can be said in the face of this disconnect? Does anyone think that Prof. Yitzhak Zamir “lives within his people” more than Amir Ohana, Dudi Amsalem, Miri Regev, Naftali Bennett or Itzik Shmuli?
Do you know the judges’ repeated attempt to convince them not to involve their personal opinions in the ruling? That they have nothing but the law? I recently asked Elyakim Rubinstein how could it be that out of the seven judges who discussed the issue of opening supermarkets on Saturday, the five seculars thought it should be opened, and the two religious ones ruled not. Is it not clear that judges bring to the court their private worldview? Could it be that the two religious judges in the panel did not understand the material taught in the faculty?
Rubinstein argued that issues of religion and state are the only issues on which the judge’s background influences his ruling. Zamir also claims this. “… The field of religion and state is a unique and unique field, in which a judge’s worldview can have an impact,” he says in the series. Oh really, is this serious? Could it be that only in matters of religion does the judge include in his judgment the world of his values and perceptions from home, and in other matters not? Could it be that judges have such a mechanism, which knows how to separate? When a judge prevents the demolition of a terrorist’s house, does it not stem from his worldview, and not necessarily the legal one?
Doe Procaccia puts things on the table clearly. “There is no doubt that the value burden of every judge is reflected.” Like her, Judge Zvi Tal thinks so. “To a value question you bring all your culture, and all your education, and all your values.” Wait, if that is the case, and if every judge brings with him to court his whole world of values, and his education, and his views, is it not more correct to check in advance the positions of the judges, to make sure the bottom line does not deviate enormously from that of Israeli society?
True, all judges have opinions, but if you ask Glicksberg, only in some of them these opinions should interfere. Which part? Those that look like dew. “I do not understand how a religious person like Judge Tal went on to become a judge,” Glicksberg told Haaretz. “You are an orthodox person, an ultra-Orthodox, why did you go to be a judge?”. He, the creator of the series, also has an answer, full of contempt. There’s a good salary, it’s status. Great thing in the world. The temptation is huge, but I think a religious judge can not really be a judge in the State of Israel. “Do you understand? Unlike all the judges that Glicksberg admires, who chose the profession out of a sense of mission, Zvi Tal chose this profession only because he has a” good salary “and” status ” .
A compassionate and compassionate heart
Let’s talk for a moment about the disengagement. A few years ago, Assaf Lieberman and I interviewed Judge Eliyahu Matza. This was after the High Court had overturned one of the infiltrators’ laws. Matza explained at the time that the High Court must be vigilant, because sometimes Knesset legislation could violate human rights.
I reminded him that one of the most detrimental human rights legislation was the one in which the Knesset decided to demolish with a shovel the homes of 10,000 people who had not sinned or committed a crime, and to evict them from the enterprise of their lives in Gush Katif. It was there, I remarked to him, that the same High Court, the defender of human rights and minorities, chose to enter the shovel together with the prime minister. Where was the protection of human rights then, I asked. Finding was a strange explanation. . Most sections of the public supported Ariel Sharon’s move to evacuate Gush Katif and northern Samaria … “.
“Well,” I asked, “and if the majority supports the demolition of the minority’s house, does that justify it to the High Court?” “It was a clear political act, and the Supreme Court usually does not intervene in legislation that has a clear political character,” he replied. Find. “It is a very, very powerful judicial restraint when it comes to matters that are clear policy,” Procaccia suddenly recalled that the court must maintain restraint when intervening in Knesset decisions. “This is a clear political decision, the considerations are policy considerations,” Beinisch also explained.
Procaccia, by the way, is unwilling to give legitimacy to legitimacy, not only to the legal claims of Gush Katif residents, whose signatures destroyed their home. She has a problem even with their protest. “One has to understand and go back to the atmosphere and events that took place at that time, and the great fear that is constantly being sawed from the buds of civil unrest,” she explains. “And there were not only buds of civil disobedience, there was real civil disobedience.” Have you heard? There was a real civil Mary here. This is the only problem that Procaccia recognizes in this incident. Not the justice system that has stopped thousands of protesters here wholesale, the vast majority of them for no reason. Not the group detention extensions made, as if we were in a third world country. Civil Mary, on the part of those who kissed the mezuzah and boarded the buses on their way to an uncertain future. This is what she remembers from those days.
And if you thought, against the background of the disengagement plan approval, that the judges’ heart is rough on individual rights in general, it is important that you see the continuation of this chapter. There, when the route of the separation fence turns out to be one that could damage the fabric of Palestinians’ lives, their compassionate and compassionate heart is revealed. “It is true that the erection of the fence was based on military considerations and a court does not interfere with military considerations,” Eliyahu Matza explains, His”.
“Let’s say small children have to get up in the morning in a certain village,” Danziger also explains with great sensitivity. “And it is terrible … the damage and suffering caused to people who are not guilty of any acts of terrorism … people who want to live their lives.”
Elijah Matza (Photo: Abir Sultan, Flash 90)A dog biting its master
One more word, towards the end, should be said about two people, that this series greatly sharpens the ability to distinguish between them. Former President Aharon Barak on the one hand, and former President Asher Grunis on the other. The battle between them, and this is very noticeable, is not a battle of activism versus conservatism. It is a battle of arrogance versus modesty. While Barak prays every morning that as many petitions, on as many issues as possible, will be submitted to his table, so that he can use them to knead Israeli society and shape it according to his worldview, Grunis hopes that all parts of society will get along, and no one will ask for his intervention. Does not have to intervene. While Barak looks at the Knesset from above, Grunis respects it.
Grunis’ position is expressed in a beautiful debate between him and Beinisch, regarding the disqualification of the Tal Law and the issue of exemption from recruitment for yeshiva students. If the decision of the Knesset is the decision of the majority, Grunis explains, and the Knesset dismissed the yeshiva students from service, it means that the majority chose to grant a privilege to the minority. “And in my opinion, the role of the court is not to defend the majority against itself. Its role is to protect the minority.” Beinisch, who in contrast ruled in favor of repealing the Tal law, preferred to disguise herself as a political commentator. True, she explains, the Knesset expresses the majority and the yeshiva students are the minority, but it is a “very strong minority.” Who decided that this minority is stronger than a regular minority? The judge of course.
“Comparing the relationship between the court and the public, to the relationship between a dog and its master,” Zamir gives a fine example, which should end with it. “A dog tends to run in front of his master, but from time to time he stops and looks if a distance is not too great. If he has not lost his master. Need to keep in touch, he can go a little forward. That’s what the court is trying to do. Promote society a little.” Judging by what I saw in “Judges Flesh and Blood”, we are currently at a stage where the dog does not stop biting his master.