It’s an old story. A king sent his servant to buy him a fish. The servant came back with a fish so foul that its odor nauseated the king, so the king decreed a punishment. However, as a kindness to his loyal servant, he gave the servant a choice: (i) you can pay a monetary fine for the fish, or (ii) be whipped with 10 lashes, or (iii) eat the whole fish.
The servant was quite poor and did not want lashes, so he chose to eat the fish. But it was so awful that, halfway through, he retched uncontrollably and gave up. He agreed instead to be whipped. Alas, after six horrible stripes on his back, he passed out and could not take any more. So, broken, he scurried for the coins he would need to pay the fine for the fish.
Instead of just “biting the bullet” up front and paying the painful fine at the outset, the servant ended up paying in full anyway, but also had undergone the lashes he could have avoided and the ordeal of eating half the fish.
That is my take on the ICC (International Criminal Court) arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They never should have allowed food, water, meds, and electricity into Gaza to begin with. Either way, they were going to be charged with war crimes, and American campuses and the streets of Europe were going to resonate with cries of “Genocide.” Either way. But this way, by feeding and enriching Hamas immeasurably for a year, they lengthened the war. And I know Biden threatened to withhold crucial weapons, but still...
Fortunately, there still is time to stop the madness. Yes — certainly — inoculate that population to protect against polio. That's good for Israel too. But that’s it. No food, no water, no meds, no electricity — and no fish.
Justice and courts are a tricky thing. To ensure civil decency and a properly functioning society, we need laws, courts, and judges desperately. And yet, they often evolve into the most corrupt weapons of a corrupt society, or they get wielded in a good society against good people led by corrupt tyrants.
It is particularly instructive to observe the lying and hypocritical Left (same thing) as they speak of courts and justice. When they control the courts with their own corrupt and prejudiced left-wing judges, appointed to their seats by corrupt and biased heads of government, the Left loves the courts and their judges. Oh, how they sing the songs of justice! Justice, justice they pursue.
Israel has such a court. By means of a system that may (or may not) initially have been well intentioned, the Israeli Supreme Court now is corrupted, through and through, tainted by a permanent biased left-wing majority, ensconced in place forever by a self-serving system for replacing retiring left-wing justices with carbon copies.
Remarkably, the left-wing justices get to select their succesors. And they are so corrupt that many of them hire the law school children of their colleagues for coveted Supreme Court judicial clerkships. Those clerkships are a lifetime ticket to a successful legal career. I know this because G-d blessed me with the opportunity to be selected after law shool for such a clerkship in America, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and that set me up for life in major law firms paying boatloads of money. The only reason I stopped swimming in those boats of cash is that my calling always had been to be a rav. As soon as my first marriage ended, I raced right back to my prior ten-year rabbinic career with the blessings of my new wife, Ellen z"l.
When any Israeli government makes the slightest effort to amend and repair Israel’s warped Supreme Court system, the Left comes out in their hundreds of thousands screaming that the courts are sacrosanct and must not be touched, that the center-right are trying to convert Israel to fascism.
In fact, the reformers only want a balanced court with restraints almost identical to those governing America’s courts. Create a fair and balanced system for selecting new judges: some of one ideology and some of the other. Restrict the court from overruling the Basic Laws, the Constitution. Respect matters of standing, justiciability, and precedent. Bar justices from fabricating law on the spot. That is why deeply respected American Jewish jurists like Alan Dershowitz, Nathan Lewin, and former U.S. Attorney-General Michael Mukasey have published widely on their support for desperately needed Israeli court reform.
So that is one example of how the Left turns courts into weapons of corruption and oppression.
The opposite example now takes place in America. For scores of years, the American Supreme Court was in the hands of extreme leftists, far to the left of mainstream Americans. The reason is that, when Democrats controlled the White House, they predictably appointed and confirmed Leftists — and when Republicans were in control, their yokels also appointed and confirmed several leftists. (It’s a long sordid story I have written about many times in the past.) The bottom line is that the American Supreme Court was leftist for more than half a century, and the American leftists sang the same Supreme Court praises as the Israeli leftists.
But then came the second Bush and then Trump, and they Constitutionally changed the balance of the Court. Of the nine justices on the American Supreme Court, five now are conservative, three leftist, and one center-right.
The Leftist hypocrisy boldly emerges: Suddenly, the American Left no longer describes their Supreme Court with words of praise but with opprobrium, contumely, and calumny. Their latest tactic: while Biden and Harris were in the White House, they brazenly demanded to add six new justices unilaterally, so they could change the 5-3-1 conservative tilt to a 9-5-1 leftist tilt. By miracle, two Democrats in the 51-49 Democrat Senate blocked their effort. That is what became of the Holy Supreme Court revered by the Righteous Left . . . when the Left no longer dominated its composition.
So there is Torah justice, and there is human justice. The Torah urges appointing honest judges who cannot be bought. Often, human justice is honest and upholds civilization. At other times, courts are the central tool for corruption and even murder. It was that way in Sodom. Routinely, Stalin’s courts unanimously condemned political opponents to immediate execution; firing squads implemented the death sentences the same night. Hitler had his “People’s Court” (Volksgerichtshof ). Roland Freisler was Hitler’s Chief Judge. Read about him. He died in 1945 when a building pillar collapsed on him in his corrupt courthouse amid an American bombing run. Because the column supported the ceiling, the entire courthouse then crushed down on him. Divine measure for measure.
That is today’s ICC (“International Criminal Court’). It is aptly named: an international court of criminals. It emerges that they are no more a court of justice than were Roland Freisler’s or Stalin’s courts.
1. No other democratic country’s head of government ever before has been declared a war criminal or had an arrest warrant issued by the ICC. Only the two Jews.
2. Israel has its own unrestrained, wildcat Supreme Court and judicial system that is only too happy to investigate, criminalize, and lock up Prime Minister Netanyahu for any excuse they can generate. The ICC is supposed to be a court of final recourse when no other system of justice exists within the accused’s country. However, Israel investigates everyone. They threw Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into prison. Chief Rabbi Metzger. President Katzav. When they want a confession, they know how to torture it out of a tight-lipped witness. They love to throw their political enemies in prison. AG Baharav-Meara can’t wait to get her hands on Netanyahu.
Who needs war crimes? The Left wants to lock him up over cigars. Only a corrupt ICC would refuse to allow Israel to conduct its own investigations into war crimes charges.
3. All the alleged “crimes against humanity” — starving people, denying them water and meds, etc. — were adopted by a war cabinet including Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot. Why are they not included among the arrest warrants? Why Gallant but not Gantz and Eisenkot? This incredible prosecutorial lacuna itself demonstrates the judicial corruption. It is Stalin’s Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.”
The reality is that Israel never should have been giving Gaza food, water, and meds in the first place. Instead, all the Zionist spokespeople and apologists around the world proudly brag that Israel sends so many tons and truckloads of food and water to Gaza. Just as they brag that Israel is the best place to be a homosexual. And that Israel has been offering Arabs sovereignty in the Judea-Samaria half of Israel. None of that wins over the Left.
Which part of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” do they not understand?
The mainstream official Zionists are crazy. Who does this? No one does this. Did America and Britain feed Dresden while they were bombing them? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Does Turkey feed Kurds while exterminating them? Does Azerbaijan feed the Armenians they are destroying?
Who . . . does . . . this?
It is like the king, the servant, and the fish. The servant should have paid up front; the whippings and the rotten fish could have been avoided. Israel never should have agreed to feed Gaza. Israel gets no credit for it. The food and water are hijacked by Hamas and used to feed their terrorists to keep them in good health while killing Jews. They rob the food, feed themselves, and then use the remaining food to recruit more terrorists: “Hungry? You want food? Join Hamas, and we’ll give you food, your parents food, and your kids food.” And Hamas sells whatever still is left over at exorbitant prices.
Netanyahu, Gantz, and Eisenkot never should have agreed to send in food, water, meds, or electricity. At the very least, the message should have been from Day One — and I have been writing this here for a year: “No Food, no water, no meds, and no electricity until all hostages first are returned.” Hostages are not for negotiating.
And the foolish anti-Bibi slogan never should have been “Bring Them Home.” Who should bring them home? Macron? Putin? The U.N.? Biden? Biden can’t even bring back American hostages. The slogan should have been and still should be: “Give Them Back.” Better: “Give Them Back — Or Starve.” The foolish sign and the 'give Hamas everything' argument was done on the backs of the hostages - it made Hamas up the ante and refuse to negotiate.
“Humanitarian assistance”? No one — absolutely no one — is impressed. “See how Israel lets food and water in. The ‘innocent’ Gaza civilians have been killed only because Hamas hides their weapons, launchers, and personnel amid civilians, residential apartment buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals.” Through 13 months, no one gets it. They accuse Israel of “genocide” anyway. No credit is given for the food and water anyway. The ICC accuses Netanyahu of “genocide” anway. The college anarchists, funded by Arab government and George Soros money, protected by Charles Schumer, bolstered by Jew haters in J Street, accuse Israel and Netanyahu of “genocide” anyway.
Let Saudi Arabia and Qatar send food and water, and take in emigrants and refugees. Egypt, too.
Israel doesn’t have to keep eating the rotten fish and getting whipped for it. Just pay for the darned fish and go full-out without any more “humanitarian” aid to Hamas. Get the darned war done already. Stop feeding them. The ICC has nothing left to throw. And Trump’s team is on the way.
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