HOWARD EPSTEIN – A FRESH START?
I WOULDN’T START FROM HERE IF I WERE YOU
It has been a confusing week and one that leaves us wanting to be almost anywhere in time (post-Holocaust) but here.
After the Belgians trumpeted their only two claimed successes following the attacks in Brussels on 22 March — that they had a key suspect in custody, and had shot and killed in the street another about to detonate a rucksack bomb — their great security accomplishments soon dissolved. Their arrest of the supposed third-man-at-the-airport proved wide of the mark, and they, perforce, released the main, their only, suspect — still not knowing who it was (pictured with hat) that was seen in the airport CCTV videos with the two who had detonated the suitcase bombs. The released man, however, was the lucky one. The other, he who was shot dead in the street for the crime of being out and about whilst carrying a rucksack, has no recourse — not that you see the international media screaming about the way the Belgian security authorities conduct their affairs.
Not only may we point to the Brussels slaying of an innocent man to show that things can go wrong on feverish streets but London provides an example, too. After the outrages there on 7/7, 2005, the Metropolitan Police (operating a later-admitted “shoot-to-kill” policy), pumped no less than eight dum-dum bullets into the head of a man who committed the crime of being out and about whilst Brazilian. (They all look the same, those Moslems/Arabs/Hispanics, and what-have-yous, to a British copper). The end of the matter came this week — after almost eleven years — with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) at Strasbourg that the decision not to prosecute the police officers involved was correct.
Ken McDonald (Baron Macdonald of River Glaven, Kt, QC, no less), a former Director of Public Prosecutions, wrote in The Times of London about the ECHR decision:-
police officers … following a man they believed to be armed and probably wired with explosives and chasing him into a confined space underground … deserved praise for their bravery, not the ignominy of a trial. It is easy now to forget those febrile days in London, following mass murder on the Tube and the fear of more to come.
Still looking at the UK, if you will indulge me, we may observe that there are strict rules — coming under the heading of sub judice — about what may and may not be reported on crimes. Before an arrest, the news is limited to something such as: “a 23 year old London man is helping police with their enquiries”. After the arrest and the bringing of charges, anything other than the name, age and address of the accused and the crimes with which he/she is charged, remains off limits until the trial. The court proceedings may then be reported in full and, after both verdict and sentence, the pundits may have their say.
The purpose of the sub judice rule is to give the accused the chance of a fair trial. Better, the British say, that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be found guilty; and preserving the ignorance of the jury until the facts come out in court is part of that tradition of fairness.
In the US, by contrast, anything goes, and media speculation about crimes allegedly committed receives the same treatment as any other news item. Not only are the (supposed) facts fully reported, but also every witness, quasi-witness, person within earshot, person out of earshot but with a view, and pundit, may comment and speculate as much as they wish. All is greedily gobbled up by the media and spewed out for salacious digestion, to the point of indigestion, by a “news”-hungry public.
Where does Israel stand between these two extremes. Here, we are supposed to apply sub judice rules but, as shown in the Katsav case, the press is increasingly unruly, and trial by media is alive and well and living in the State of Israel[1]. Most regrettable as this is, the position is exacerbated by those who represent us, as we shall see.
On 24 March, in Hebron, a place that is rarely, if ever, not (to use the Baron’s term) febrile, after an attack by two Palestinians on Israelis, a soldier arriving late on the scene allegedly — as has yet to be investigated by a court of law — fired on one of the by-then prostrate Arabs thereby, allegedly, conclusively ending his life. Whether the Arab was already dead, or moved, giving rise to the fear that he might have been about to activate an explosive suicide belt, has all been picked over by the Israeli media, but with a clear bias towards the implication, if not the direct assertion, that the soldier may — which itself implies, “may not”, a point that appears to have been lost to all — have been responsible for an unlawful killing, as though trial by media had supplanted trial in the law courts in Israel. By this, our media, less quick to glorify ourselves in these matters than the Belgians, imposed a retrospective counsel of perfection that was not only unnecessary but also offended a basic rule of criminal law, that of sub judice.
There is grainy evidence, in the form of a video published by B’tselem, who have a track record of less than supine subservience to the interests of the State of Israel, and there will be other evidence, which will in the fullness of time be brought before the (military) court. The media, however, could not wait for that, not least, one imagines, because to do so would not “sell copy”.
The media’s leaping to conclusions is one thing. Government officials’ public statements are quite another. I make no attempt to whitewash the soldier concerned for if, ultimately, after a fair trial, he is found guilty of some form of culpable homicide, he will deserve the sentence of the court; yet pending the unwinding of that process, let us see with what our representatives, and the IDF’s representatives, have gone public.
We should start at the top. Thus Prime Minister Netanyahu:
“what happened in Hebron doesn’t represent the values of the IDF.”
This is prime (ministerial) nonsense. There is no proper way for the Prime Minister to know what happened in Hebron, prior to the end of a trial of the soldier in the courts — ie including the appeal courts, if invoked.
Next up, the Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon. According to Ha’aretz for March 28[2]:
An initial military inquiry into the incident showed that “this is a case of a soldier who has transgressed, and not a hero,” Ya’alon told the Knesset plenum, noting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot condemned the incident immediately after it occurred. “We’re not like the other side,” he said. [As if this assertion will cut any ice in or out of Israel.]
Finally, IDF military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner is reported in The Guardian of March 24, as follows:-
“The Israel Defence Forces views this incident as a grave breach of IDF values, conduct and standards of military operations. A military police investigation has commenced and the soldier involved has been detained.” [No. We cannot blame The Guardian’s natural leanings against Israel on this occasion. Lerner’s Facebook post was in the same vein.]
All three, Netanyahu, Ya’alon and Lerner stand condemned — for them no sub judice, no indictment and no trial, as they are not charged with any statute book crime — and may peremptorily be found guilty of three moral crimes:-
- pandering to, and trying to appease, a hostile world just aching for expressions of weakness on Israel’s part, by immediately and prematurely admitting the guilt of one soldier in the hope that that the vicarious confession will elevate the moral standing of the IDF and the State of Israel (ie what may technically be described as the: “Throw the boy to the wolves. We have bigger fish to fry” state policy) — a wholly unforgivable transgression;
- risking weakening the resolve of other soldiers to defend themselves, and others, in case they are immediately abandoned by the army and the state they serve — an even greater and even less forgivable transgression; and
- risking depriving the accused soldier of a fair trial — so base as to be unworthy of comment, save to say it flouts the sub judice rule in a way that suggests that politicians and army officers consider themselves to be above the law.
I, for one, hope that the young soldier is acquitted, however strong the evidence against him may be, not because I advocate extra-judicial killings (which this may, and therefore, may not, be), but purely on the basis that a fair trial has been rendered impossible by these three public pronouncements alone, let alone as exacerbated by the media attention. He may yet be found unfit to continue to serve in the army, or perhaps the Minister of Defence will recommend he be given thirty lashes to appease the Iranians (he might as well go the whole appeasement hog, while he is at it), but a legal process is one to be respected and how he receives a fair trial, now that it has been disrespected and in a gross way, is utterly beyond me.
In the McCarthy style witch-hunts, over historical sex-abuse, that have “rocked Britain” over the past few years, since, amazingly to all but the very few, it turned out after his death that disk jockey Jimmy Savile
Jimmy Savile (not the Field Marshall)
was a pervert — all visual evidence in his malign lifetime being supportive of that view — the Metropolitan (London) Police, in an attempt to show that highly-placed members of parliament, at least one retired senior British Army officer (a Field Marshall, if you please) and several other notables, some already dead, had committed child abuse and murder, announced in November 2014 that they had evidence on the subject that was “credible and true”. There was to be another announcement within a year.
As reported in the Daily Telegraph of September 21, 2015, Scotland Yard later ruefully concluded, after several lives had been ruined, upon closing the file on the investigation, that:-
“Only a [court] can decide on the truth of allegations after hearing all the evidence.”
Messrs Netanyahu, Ya’alon and Lerner please take note: The sub judice rule is there for a reason — and no less important, pandering to our critics cuts no ice with them. This is not Stockholm, we do not have the eponymous Syndrome, and we are not the captives of anyone to whom we need to cleave in order to curry their favor.
Accordingly, I offer this:-
MEMO: to the offices of Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Military Spokesman [all of whom should be — to use that delicious Israeli euphemism — sent home]:-
Should something like this occur again, here is your script:
“Information is to hand that someone died in circumstances that warrant an arrest and an investigation for the possibility of a criminal offence having been committed.
Given the values, conduct and standards of the IDF, the Israeli public may rest assured that the matter will be thoroughly and properly pursued, through the courts if necessary.”
One family that apparently did not look at Savile and cringe was the royal family of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, for he spent much time with them. As reported in the Daily Mail[3] of June 12, 2015:-
‘He was in and out of Buckingham Palace,’ recalls a footman. ‘He would often ask if there was any gossip about the royals, and when you look back, maybe he was building up information which would be useful to him if he ever needed leverage. Lots of people were taken in by his fame, which he used to get people to open up to him. I never heard tales of any sexual abuse, but it was perfectly normal to see him with an arm round the young housemaids and other female servants.
‘We were all taken in by him, and thinking back on it now is frightening.’
Not that this was an isolated lapse of judgment by the royals. They also gave houseroom to popular pop-artist, Australian, Rolf Harris, who was recently found guilty of indecently assaulting four girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986.
Judgment and discretion, let alone perspicacity, not being a royals’ strong point, it was not entirely surprising to learn this week that the future King of England, Prince Charles,
has not the antennae to avoid (no doubt at the prompting of the Foreign Office and others seeking to expand British trade with Iran) a trip to Tehran. “Iran!” you exclaim, “where they are engaged in a race to the bottom with the Chinese to execute well into four figures this year of those by whom the Mullocracy is offended? Does he not want to keep better company?” Well, dear reader, you may well ask, but you overlook the Prince’s close ties with the Saudis. They (as you will know from my earlier blogs) are steaming ahead with their execution rate, too, with the added flourish of post-death crucifixions. So nothing new there, then.
Let us, however, give Charles the benefit of the doubt. He may be intending to ask of the Mullahs that he be taken to the grave of Ms Nedā Āghā-Soltān,
shot dead at the age of 25 by the Basij for the crime of being out and about near street protests on June 20, 2009. Or he may ask to see one of those popular football stadium crane-jib jobs, where there are (as reported by Amnesty International) frequent hangings that fill a few otherwise boring hours of a Friday lunchtime. Perhaps there will be a discreet royal protest on behalf of the alleged homosexuals whose last pendulous sensations are sadly somewhat cruelly extended by the methods used.
(One can be sure that Charles would not treat the Royal Corgis like that, even when they are well past their bow-wow date.) Or he might ask to see a live missile test in breach of the JCPOA. Given their anticipated, not to say announced, future regularity, there should be an opportunity to fit one of those into the royal schedule, the better to illuminate it.
What does Israel have to do with royal visits? Forget it. None of them have ever been here, save Charles’ father, Prince Philip, who in 1994, in a “private capacity” attended at Yad Vashem when his late mother was honoured as a righteous gentile. Why otherwise would the royals want to come here?
What do we have of interest to the British? Apart, that is, from our legal system and our welfare state, both based on British models. And the fact that we are the only democracy in the wide expanse that lies between Greece and Japan. Also we have, like the UK, a free and (almost, as we shall see) fearless press.
In any event, like Groucho Marx, we would not want to be a member of that club even if they would have us. The House of Saud, the Mullahs, Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville — not our kind of people, thank you very much. If that is what his Royal Highness wants, he is welcome to it.
What we have to do with the time in which we shall not be planning to host the blue-blooded is get our house in order, legally and mentally: next time we anticipate embarrassment, let us pause, think of the boys in uniform and their morale, appreciate that no concessions we volunteer will win us any brownie points abroad, and do everything to ensure that he who is the suspect gets a fair trial. And let us do all that because we are a democracy, we have separation of powers, we need to promote our sub judice rules, and we are a Jewish State — no, we are The Jewish State, with all that that implies.
Finally, I said that the Israeli press was “almost fearless”. This week there were (sort of) symbiotic press reports:-
- the Associated Press news agency hired an SS photographer and assisted Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine under a deal signed with the Nazis, according to German researchers; and
- a former hero of the Nazi SS and personal favourite of Adolf Hitler went on to become a hitman for Israel, according to veterans of Mossad, the country’s renowned secret service.
The Times of Israel and The Times of London: One carried both reports, whilst the other carried only one of them. I leave you to guess which newspaper carried both.
Finally, some good news (from the Times of London again):-
The world’s first Jewish tartan has been officially launched.
The plaid, which is designed to represent the flags of Scotland and Israel, has been given the blessing of religious scholars. It means that kosher kilts, as well as tartan skullcaps, are about to enter production.
The tartan was designed to comply with shatnez, the Jewish law prohibiting the mixture of wool and linen in garments. It has now been officially accepted into the Scottish National Register of Tartan.
We need all the good news and new friends we can get; and the Scots may yet be independent of England and the royals, so don’t knock it. I have one nagging reservation: I have not yet seen a rabbinical ruling on men wearing skirts, sorry kilts. So this story may not have long (or exposed) legs.
Howard Epstein
© March 31, 2016
[1] See: http://www.israelbar.org.il/english_inner.asp?pgId=48946&catId=246
[2] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.711376
[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3122130/How-Savile-seduced-royals-s-claimed-nearly-godfather-Harry-predatory-DJ-wormed-way-heart-Palace-life.html#ixzz44O6HUUNK
