At each other’s throat – just as Bibi wants

Petitions to Israel’s top court seeking a full-fledged commission of inquiry into October 7 are disrupted by bereaved families threatening other bereaved families. Guess who stands to gain.

On April 23, seven Israeli Supreme Court justices convened in Jerusalem as a panel of the High Court of Justice. Rather than hearing appeals against the verdicts of lesser courts, the High Court of Justice hears petitions against the government brought by people like you and me.

The petition being heard this day concerned government foot-dragging on the establishment of a commission of inquiry into October 7, 2023 – into the events of that day, what led to them and what resulted from them. It was brought by several government watchdog groups as well as simple citizens who lost loved ones on that fateful day or in its wake.

IN ISRAEL, WE ALWAYS SAY that you cannot argue with a member of a bereaved family, which is shorthand for people who have lost relatives to war or terror attacks. You cannot shut them up when they speak out at private or public gatherings, even those as sacrosanct as memorial ceremonies. The unstated rule is that they have the floor by virtue of having had someone taken from them in the name of the so-called Zionist enterprise. It is the rest of us who must shut up. And rightfully so.

This approach generally works when the angry comments are directed at government officials who bear responsibility for the deadly event. After all, government officials in a democracy must answer to the public, no matter how ugly the comments get.

But things get dicey on the rare occasion when those raising their voices aim their ire at members of other bereaved families that lost loved ones in the same event. That’s what happened at the Supreme Court building on April 23.

“Some two hours into the hearing, a woman tried to force her way inside and, after she was ejected by court security, a mob of pro-government supporters converged outside the courtroom, demanding to be let in and chanting ‘Judge the judges,’” wrote Times of Israel reporter Jeremy Sharon.

“The attempted break-in,” Sharon continued, “followed ugly scenes outside the Supreme Court building as bereaved families on different sides of the political aisle engaged in mutual recriminations over who was responsible for the October 7 disaster….”

As many readers know, responsibility for that dreadful day remains a true bone of contention. Beyond that, “judge the judges” or some such iteration, has become a familiar refrain. Nine months prior to October 7, the newly sworn-in government of Benjamin Netanyahu – the most extreme in Israel’s history – embarked on what it hoped would be a blitzkrieg of legislation seen by most level-headed observers as draconian and even bizarre, all aimed at neutering the country’s judiciary.

Many right-wingers, including members of Bibi’s hardcore political base, have long claimed that the bench is overly full of left-wingers – you know, judges and justices who believe that criminals, too, have rights. Worse yet, when the defendant is a Palestinian. Worst of all? When the case concerns terrorism.

Are their claims justified? Some are. In recent years, Israeli jurists have waded deeper and deeper into the swamp that is politics and farther away from the ivory tower of applied law. Yet much of this is due to the fact that Israel’s judiciary branch is the sole counterweight to a unicameral legislature whose majority provides the personnel who make up the lion’s share of the executive branch. There may be checks, but not much balance.

If the United States has three branches of government – four, really, if you take into account that the legislative branch is bicameral, meaning it is often at odds with itself – Israel has but two.

Think of a four-wheeled (or even three-wheeled) automobile chugging along day by day in the United States. Then think of a two-wheeled whatever swerving in and out of traffic, the person at the controls not at all restrained by the laws governing the roadway. The possibilities for accidents are endless.

If this weren’t enough, the lawyer for the government, Michael Rabello, appeared to base his argument before the panel of seven justices on the fact that Israel remains at war.

“The time is not yet ripe to establish an investigative committee,” Rabello argued. “We are now in a very fragile ceasefire [with Iran]. I was afraid that we would not be able to get to the hearing.”

Yes, Iranian rockets and a ceasefire that are based on the whims and wiles of an American president floundering in the realities of global events for which he is entirely unprepared.

“The main thing right now,” Rabello added, “is that the State of Israel will win the fighting on all fronts,” intimating that his client, Prime Minister Netanyahu, wishes to hold off on all decisions pertaining to a commission of inquiry until the fighting on each of the many fronts is won.

This led Justice Yael Wilner to ask: “Only after the war ends will we investigate what happened three to four years ago?”

In a nutshell, yes.

AND FROM SOMEWHERE not far away, arms probably folded in self-satisfied splendor, Bibi saw it all. And he smiled. For it meant that the little people, those he so despised – even if they came from the lower echelons of his own Likud party – would remain far below, deep in the bubbling cauldron that is today’s Israel, lunging at each other’s throat and ignoring the larger changes taking place thanks to his government of gonifs and ne’er-do-wells, plebes and ignoramuses.

This is not to say that we, the little people, can’t wake up and demand that the higher-ups cease to manipulate us into a massive brawl, and instead let us make up our minds by ourselves, without the input of those whose jobs are aimed at nothing more than maintaining a hold on their seats of power.

I’ll take it a step farther. We, the little people, must unite in the knowledge that we are being played for suckers; that we must ignore all the politics being thrown our way and see our future for what it is – either a black hole of unsated malcontents at each other’s throat, or the blue skies of promise for a future in which we are not played for peons and suckers, but for citizens worthy of building a better, cleaner and saner society that can return Zionism to the trajectory it was meant to take.

For that to happen, we must understand that only together can we survive and thrive, and to reach that plateau, we must shout a resounding NO to the forces that wish to keep us at each other’s throat and out of the way of their efforts to make over our country in their ugly, disgusting image. That we cannot allow.