"The government, and only the government, is the one that can make decisions about priorities regarding fortification of the home front," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet at the start of Sunday's meeting.

"[The government] will determine what is to be fortified and delineate the sectors, and act in accordance with its responsibility," Olmert said. "We need to see what the Defense Ministry and Home Front Command recommend, and carry it out while respecting the High Court."

Olmert's words were a continuation of earlier statements by him over the weekend regarding Supreme Court intervention in security matters. "The court will not be the one to decide where we shall and shall not fortify," Olmert told kibbutz members he met with. He called the High Court's intervention on the matter of fortification "an unbearable move" and "unthinkable," and added: "this is a governmental decision and if the government is wrong – let it be replaced."

45 days ago, the High Court refused to accept the government's position regarding passive defense for the Gaza Perimeter area. The disagreement centered on the construction of so-called "protected spaces" within civilian structures as opposed to full-fledged - and more expensive - bomb shelters. "The decision to make do with fortification utilizing the 'protected space' system is not reasonable and justifies judicial intervention," Beinisch determined. "We cannot force parents to face the dilemma of choosing between their children's right to an education and the protection of their lives."
"The court will not be the one to decide where we shall and shall not fortify," Olmert told kibbutz members.

Beinisch reacted immediately to Olmert's criticism by attacking him and other ministers through the Ynet news site this morning. "This is an attempt to scare the court into submission," said sources close to Beinisch. "The Prime minister wants to destroy [the court] system, because this system is the one that will have to decide on the matters pertaining to him" – a reference to the pending criminal cases against Olmert.

The "sources close to Beinisch" went on to name Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, along with Olmert, as forming a group of people Beinisch feels threatened by: "the latest statements are part of the unbridled attack by Olmert, Dichter and the Justice Minister, who on the one hand say ' we will defend the High Court,' but do something else in practice… for Dichter this is not the first time… he is a man with no compunctions."

Friedmann received more tongue-lashing from Beinisch's "confidantes," who said they were "shocked" to hear the minister comment on the court's handling of the appeals in the case against former President Moshe Katzav. "This Justice Minister is doing unbelievable things," they went on to say, and called the law proposed by Friedmann which would limit the term of office of Court Presidents a "kishkoosh" (Hebrew slang for "complete nonsense").

"The Court only intervenes to make charges more severe"

In media interviews last Thursday, Minister Friedmann warned that if the High Court interferes in the plea bargain reached between the prosecution and Katzav's defense team, this could have grave implications for the rights of defendants to a fair trial.

Until last Thursday, Friedmann had refrained from publicly defending Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and his decision to sign a plea bargain with Katzav. The bargain involves Katzav admitting relatively light sexual offenses that do not constitute felonies, and receiving a suspended jail sentence.

Friedmann said that the court seems to intervene only when a petition is filed against the Attorney General, requesting that a suspect be charged with a crime or that a charge sheet be made more severe. The result, he said, could be that the AG will opt to file severe charges even when he doesn't think they are merited, only to avoid the High Court's censure.
If the High Court interferes, this could have grave implications for the rights of defendants to a fair trial.

The media, too, is becoming increasingly polarized on the matter of Beinisch and the Katzav affair. While leading websites like Ynet and Walla willingly advertised the feminist demonstration held in Rabin Square several weeks ago in protest of the Katzav plea bargain, and exhorted their readers to attend, other parts of the media are becoming quite militant in their protest against that protest, and against Beinisch.

"It still isn't clear if the High Court judges want to review the evidence in the Katzav case," Ma'ariv Op-Ed editor Ben-Dror Yemini wrote today. "But even before they looked at the evidence, they pronounced judgment. The humiliating treatment to which they subjected the prosecution's decision is, without a doubt, a verdict. The city square [Rabin Square – ed.] has now moved into the court of justice."