Another Bombed Bus in Jerusalem

Earshot | Feb 21 | American in Israel

[American in Israel]

Not sure how bad, can just hear hundreds of sirens.

[American in Israel]

New year's day for the satanic cult of death, destruction, and genocide, 1425.

It is the black night of the new moon, and another firey sacrifice to their god of death.

[tubavil]

The David Haivri Case
by Louis Rene Beres
Feb 17, '04 / 25 Shevat 5764

[The following article will soon appear in the Jewish Press.]

Were it not for the evident seriousness of its implications, the David Haivri case would represent little more than the reduction to absurdity of a democratic country's legal system.

Known popularly as the "T-Shirt Trial", the current court proceedings in Israel are based on an incident in which the defendant was charged with possession and distribution of a "publication" intended to incite racism. The "publication" at issue was a T-shirt imprinted with a picture of Rabbi Meir Kahane on the front, and the Hebrew words "Ein Aravim - Ein Piguim" ("No Arabs, No Terror Attacks") on the back.

The section of the penal law under which Mr. Haivri was indicted states, inter alia, that "...it does not matter if the publication led to racism or not, and if it contained truth or not." From the standpoint of even the most minimal standards of liberty in civilized societies, codification of a rule that truth is immaterial to guilt - that truth is not exculpatory - is both rare and indefensible. Moreover, as every country's domestic legal system must conform to minimal worldwide human rights standards, the Israeli prosecution here is in clear violation of overriding international law.

The defendant's "published" statement in this case - "No Arabs, No Terror Attacks" - is obviously true on its face. No one could conceivably argue that Israel now faces relentless terror from any other group on the face of the earth. The Haivri statement does not purport to explain terrorist attacks in other countries, where, of course, the offending groups might well be different, nor does it suggest in any way that all Arabs or even a determinable number of Arabs are terrorists.

Without any explicit proposal or discernible message about what should now be done to limit Arab terrorism, the adjudicated T-shirt merely makes an absolutely incontestable observation, without any plausible evidence of bias and most certainly without any hint of identifiable "racism." To blithely deduce from the picture of Rabbi Kahane that the wearer and distributor automatically advocate harm to Arabs is not only jurisprudentially unacceptable, it is factually unwarranted.

Many Arab citizens of Israel remain loyal to the State and ought not to be identified with terrorists as a group. There is no ascertainable reason for the defendant in this case to be accused of suggesting otherwise. For the prosecution to impute a broadly generic attack upon all Arabs to Mr. Haivri on the basis of his T-shirt "publication" represents either a deliberate falsification drawn from political ideology or a despairingly flagrant incapacity to reason correctly.

Indeed, recognizing very precise errors in deductive reasoning, known in formal logic as "fallacies," the prosecutorial position in this case is undeniably based on conclusions that are not properly drawn from its acknowledged premises. In short, it is altogether false for the prosecution to conclude from the defendant's more-or-less implied statement, "All terror is caused by Arabs" that he is in any way suggesting "All Arabs are terrorists." The government's syllogism is patently invalid.

International law, which is always based on a variety of Higher Law foundations, including the Torah, forms part of the law of all nations - including the law of the State of Israel. This is true whether or not the incorporation of international law into national law is codified explicitly, as it is, for example, at Article VI of the United States Constitution. If it is to represent itself correctly as a Western-style democracy, the government of Israel is now fully bound by authoritative rules of international law to assure basic rights of free speech to all its citizens, Jews as well as Arabs, and not to deny these rights selectively to certain Jews on the basis of political antipathies.

Further, as every state is obligated under international law to provide security to its citizens, the right of these citizens to peacefully protest when certain government policies endanger their survival is not only permissible, it is indispensable.

Today, when Israel's government has undertaken repeated and persistently-failed policies of concession and capitulation to Arab states and Palestinian "authorities" that openly seek Israel's "liquidation," the right of civil disobedience in that country can hardly be questioned. In this connection, the wearing and printing of a T-shirt with the message depicted by David Haivri is even substantially more protected than fully peaceable acts of civil disobedience.

Every government surely has a legal right to prosecute "racism", but that right must never be allowed to impair the most minimal standards of free speech, nor can it ever lawfully declare the irrelevance of truth. This prosecutorial right is also contingent upon equality and consistency of application. For the government of Israel to prosecute Jews on the basis of allegedly offending T-shirts, while simultaneously ignoring overt calls by Arab citizens for another Jewish genocide, is intolerable by any measure of democratic law-enforcement. And when the indictment of Jewish citizens for "racism" takes place at a time when hundreds of aspiring Arab terrorists and suicide-bombers are released from Israeli jails as an expression of "good will", the government's case for prosecution becomes reduced to a paradigm for national self-defilement. The fact that the released Arab prisoners were not citizens of Israel has no legal bearing on this particular observation concerning wrongful prosecution of Mr. Haivri.

Speaking of Arab citizens, an important question comes to mind: If these citizens were now to print and display T-shirts with the inscription, "No Jews, No Occupation," would the Israeli authorities prosecute under the same "racism" statute? Almost certainly the government would choose to ignore such activity, although - in marked contrast to the contrived case mounted against David Haivri - the charge here would almost certainly be true. Ironically, the presumed decision not to prosecute, a decision in essence now made daily by the government when it looks fearfully away from genocidal publications by elements of its Arab population, would be based on a pitiable wish not to appear "undemocratic" before the tribunal of world public opinion.

It is bad enough that Israel's legal system is now being abused for blatantly political purposes; it is far worse that the law is now also being applied selectively, in a fashion that literally makes this system complicit in future terror attacks against Jews. Much as they might wish to deny it, the Israeli government prosecutors of David Haivri writhe within an agonizingly twisted jurisprudence that has far more to do with national surrender and capitulation to terrorism than with any measured considerations of justice.

[The Westerner]

What an elitist idiot! This was the greatest country that ever existed, even greater than Ancient Greece. The English suffer from a terrible inferiority complex, don't they?

[Don Joe]

I will tell you anything I damned well please.

Yes, you will, apparently. And by the same token, you will eat the responses your vile attacks earn you.

Enjoy. It looks like you've decided to have quite a feast!

[Don Joe]

How does condescending, arrogant and mis-informed sound for starters?

In his case, it sounds far too understated.

[The Westerner]

Thank you for the clarification. I don't mean this the way it sounds, but you have delusions of grandeur if you think you have any influence over Bush and his decision to be a spineless flunky of world opinion. I see absolutely no shift in his stance that Israel must not start a war against Palestine, i.e., must not defend herself.

If you think re-electing Bush is going to help, you are living in an insular world of like-minded people. Bush does not have the courage to go against public opinion. I know he attacked the little dictators of Afganistan and Iraq. But everytime Cheney or Rumsfield have started to approach the real solution of taking out Iran, Mr. Powell and Mr. Bush have backed them off. I hope you won't take my rhetoric personally. I just think you are seeing the situation through rose colored glasses. Sadly, I haven't seen the backbone in Bush to go against the whole world.

[The Westerner]

Sag., I have no animus toward you at all. However, it is your exact sentiment that informs President Bush's take on this situation. And some of us don't think he's right. We are at war. People jumped to their deaths from their office windows. Our own BKO and BCM were murdered. We want these barbarians killed. And if it means killing the innocent they shelter themselves among, so be it. That was the traditional war policy of the United States until people with your philosophy took over. They now run West Point and other military academies. They run the White House and State Dept. We, the people who want a righteous defense, are rendered powerless.

[The Westerner]

I do not understand why you banned Sag. He was a helpful foil for us to polish our reasoned arguments against. You are cleaning this site of good adversaries. Please reconsider. Having adversaries here used to liven up the debate. Now we are just preaching to the choir.

[Joe Hadenuf]

A professor of mine in England used to say, "America is the only country in world history, to go from barbarism directly to decadence, without ever having known civilisation."

The same professor that taught you how to spell "civilisation" ?

Your professor has a POS for a brain. America created the greatest, most advanced civilization on the planet.

Only now are others attempting to change that, by flooding this country with millions of uneducated, unskilled, third world types.

[Chris Talk]

Another poster above says my prof was only quoting Oscar Wilde.

The same professor also told me once that I was the only American student he had ever had, who knew how to write.

[Salem]

"I don't mean this the way it sounds..."

Haa, haa! Well thanks for cutting me a little slack. No, I know what you're saying and you're not seeing the point I was trying to make. It's not a matter of Bush or Powell or the U.S. or nailing Iran. It's the double standard that the U.S. has been trying to maintain in its own interests, at the expense of the peace and safety of Israel citizens.

Bush once said, "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

Yet, this same axiom is denied the Nation of Israel, through coercion, intimidation, and economic and military threats—most from us!

It's not the waffling and vacillating in American foreign policy in the war on terrorism as our deluded foreign policy wonks at the State Department attempt to "keep the region 'stable'", whatever that means. I'm assuming that is the point you were trying to make. The issue is the Israeli government acquiescing to them, thus watching their law abiding citizens being blown up, shot, stabbed, and attacked in myriad other ways by HAMAS and Al Aqsa and Fatah killers.

The U.S. is a big nation with its fingers in a lot of things globally. Israel is a little sliver of land the size of San Bernardino county in California. They just can't take the level of abuse being dished out to them, like we can. That's why the double standard being imposed on them since the first Gulf War has to be opposed on their part. See my point?

Also, I don't share your sense of fatalism the American people don't have any influence in the affairs of their country. Free Republic would not be making the impact it is in Conservative circles; indeed, the leftist activists attacking this country internally in various quarters would have petered out a long time ago. There's a lot of people who do think they are making an impact. Most are registered at Free Republic.

[Salem]

"I do not understand why you banned Sag. He was a helpful foil for us to polish our reasoned arguments against. You are cleaning this site of good adversaries. Please reconsider. Having adversaries here used to liven up the debate. Now we are just preaching to the choir."

Haaaaaa, haaa, haaaa!!  

Note to FR Administration: Please give The Westerner fuller opportunity to eat the next one!

Wonderful!

[Crazy-a**ed FReeper]

[af_vet_1981]

Names released of victims: 1st Sgt. Netanel Havshush, 20, two high-school pupils, Lior Azulai, Yehonatan Bnayahu Zuckerman, both 18, Yuval Ozana, 32, all from Jerusalem, Yehuda Haim, 48, from Givat Zeev, brother of member of Israeli consulate staff in Hague

Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time, and say ye, Amen.

Let His great name be blessed for ever and to all eternity.

Blessed, praised and glorified, exalted, extolled and honored, magnified and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He; though He be high above all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations, which are uttered in the world; and say ye, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life for us and for all Israel; and say ye, Amen.

He who maketh peace in his high places, may He make peace for us and for all Israel; and say ye, Amen.

[judicial meanz]

Amen vet.

Well said.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Wasn't the topic of this thread the Mel Gibson movie?

WWJD?

Too bad this ass clown got banned before I came home tonight...

[NYC GOP Chick]

Yep, it's been ZOTted...

[NYC GOP Chick]

Maybe we need a separation wall.

Maybe???

[Slings and Arrows]

Maybe we need a separation wall.

Maybe???

That was ironic understatement. It's very popular on the Internet.

[NYC GOP Chick]

So I've heard! ;D