Tel-Chai Nation

The Israeli supreme court - and even the attorney general himself - made a stunningly biased decision to disqualify Michael Ben-Ari, even though he'd once served in the Knesset before, while the Hadash party, run by Arabic communists and even a shady Israeli character, are allowed to run by contrast:

A maximum nine justice panel of the High Court disqualified Otzma candidate Michael Ben-Ari from running in the upcoming elections due to racism, while permitting his Otzma colleague Itamar Ben-Gvir as well as all of the Arab parties to run on Sunday night.

With its decision, the High Court essentially followed the recommendations of Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, while overruling several decisions of the Central Elections Committee.

The Central Elections Committee had disqualified the Balad-United Arab List parties and Hadash candidate Dr. Ofer Kassif, the Arab party's only Jewish candidate, from running.

It had ruled Ben-Ari and Ben-Gvir, as well as the Hadash-Ta'al Arab parties (other than Kassif) eligible.

Mandelblit had said that while Balad-UAL and Kassif's statements about the State of Israel and the IDF were highly problematic, that they did not meet a "critical mass" of supporting armed conflict with Israel under the law for disqualification.

The court's 8-1 decision, with only Justice David Mintz dissenting and voting to disqualify Balad-UAL and Kassif, signaled that it accepted this reasoning, though its full reasoned decision will be published at a later date.

Likewise with Ben-Ari, the court's 8-1 decision, with only Justice Noam Sohlberg dissenting and voting for Ben Ari to remain eligible, signaled support for Mandelblit's contention that the candidate's statements violated racism against Arabs both in terms of incitement and in terms of him taking some concrete actions to further racism.

Mandelblit had said that Ben-Gvir's statements were problematic, but that he had been more careful than Ben-Ari to avoid explicit support or actions backing racism, which appeared to be why the court declared him eligible though he is also from the far-right Otzma party.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who in the past has said her conservative appointments accomplished a revolution swinging the court from left-leaning to right-leaning, slammed the decisions.

She said, “It’s the last straw for the High Court’s justices and they have changed themselves into political actors. The High Court decision to disqualify Ben-Ari, and on the other hand, to approve the eligibility of [Arab political] parties which support terror is a massive and mistaken intervention going to the heart of Israeli democracy.”

She added that the decision, “tramples on the decisions of the Central Elections Committee.”

This is already causing a lot of outrage in the public, proving additionally that Mandelblit's not suited to his job, and should just resign already for his cowardice. Here's an analysis of the emerging case:

The Central Elections Committee hearings on whether to disqualify candidates has long been little more than political theater. The politicians on each side argue how bad the opposite side’s extremes are, and whichever side has a majority wins.

The real arena has always been the High Court of Justice, to which the committee’s decisions are always inevitably appealed.

That’s why the cries about racism and the end of Israeli democracy – after the committee vote two weeks ago to keep Otzma Yehudit candidates Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir in the running, while banning UAL-Balad and Hadash candidate Ofer Kassif – were overblown. They were generally the result of cynicism from those who would speak like that about Israel or the Right no matter what; or of ignorance, especially from foreign outlets whose reporters are only in Israel for a few years and may not have gone through these motions before.

And then there are those who are both ignorant and cynical, like American anti-Israel agitator Linda Sarsour who tweeted “Democracy?” with a link to a Reuters article about the committee vote two weeks ago. Don’t expect her to confirm the robustness of Israel’s democracy now that the situation is more to her liking.

Now we have the Right questioning Israeli democracy, albeit for an entirely different reason.

No one has been banned from running from the Knesset since 1992, when the Kach and Kahane Chai parties were not allowed to run, on grounds of racist incitement. Those parties, like Otzma Yehudit, were inspired by Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose own Kach Party had been banned in 1986.

Ben-Ari’s disqualification, as an individual whose candidacy was upheld by the Central Elections Committee, is wholly unprecedented. It’s unclear why he can’t run now when he could in 2009 – after which he was a member of Knesset for nearly four years – except that he’s posted on Facebook a lot in the interim that helped Meretz gather a “critical mass” of evidence against him. It’s not like Ben-Ari’s ideology has changed, or that it’s any different from that of Ben-Gvir, who is allowed to run.

Taken together with the court allowing Kassif, who is an open anti-Zionist, and UAL-Balad, whose candidates have repeatedly sided with terrorist groups against Israel (to the point of Balad’s founder having spied for Hezbollah and an ex-MK from the party going to prison for aiding terrorists), to run for the Knesset despite their apparent violation of the conditions stipulated in the law, the outrage has to come from even more moderate sectors of the Right, like Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and Likud candidate Gideon Sa’ar.

[...] In the end, the High Court may have hurt itself more than any one person or party, by applying the law unevenly and more broadly than before.

The big winner of this night is not Meretz, despite its great satisfaction at the ruling, it’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The topic can serve to make valid arguments about how politicized the court system's become, and why a serious overhaul is needed. If the rulings against Kassif and company from Hadash had been allowed to stand, there probably would've been less controversy surrounding Ben-Ari, but because the court had to make such hypocritical decisions along with the state attorney, that's why this must all be looked upon gravely.

Labels: anti-semitism, dhimmitude, islam, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Knesset, military, Moonbattery, political corruption