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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Attacks on Israel's legal system are biased, innacurate and unjust
Letters to the Editor | 9/18/07
Posted online at 1:42 AM EST on 9/18/07
To the Editor:
Daniel Ortner has again written an uninformed, unfair attack on his favorite target, Israel ("In Israel, rule of law does not hold sway," Aug. 28 issue). Recounting a personal experience at the Allenby Bridge crossing (which connects Israel and Jordan, not Israel and Lebanon), he decries how some members in his group were subjected to more thorough questioning. But in the cases he cited, this scrutiny was not arbitrary, but based on straightforward criteria-sharing a religion with an enemy population waging a religious war. Every airport in America selects people for greater scrutiny, arbitrarily or based on a suspicion. To ignore such suspicions and to subject everyone to equal scrutiny would be suicidal. His criticism of Israel for making these discrimination betrays naivete and ignorance of Israel's security reality.
Ortner asserts that Israel has no written constitution and that this "inevitably" predisposes it to arbitrary law. In actuality, Israel has a constitution, consisting of basic laws which establish government functions and human rights. As in Britain, statutes and common law function in lieu of a single document. Yet without any evidence, Ortner declares that this system necessarily weakens the law.
Outrageously, Ortner characterizes the Israeli system as one in which the "delineation [between powers and laws] vanishes completely," and where "the government can at any time turn against its citizens with little legal recourse." At best, he says, "the courts can provide some minimal checks to the arbitrary actions of governments."
These baseless accusations are a reversal of the truth. Israel has an extremely robust supreme court that enjoys wider powers of review than its American counterpart. Following the principle articulated by former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, "Everything is judiciable," the court frequently intervenes in military affairs. According to legal experts, there is no country in the world where civilian courts [have] such broad jurisdiction to review military actions.
Addressing an audience at Brandeis last spring, Barak spoke passionately, almost religiously, of upholding the rule of law. He insisted that judges apply the same standard for balancing security and liberty in times of war as in peace, and abide by international law-issues of great contention in our country.
Ortner's attacks on Israel appear all the more outrageous when one considers his silence regarding Israel's neighbors. He has no outrage for the Arab world, where freedom of speech and women's rights are often nonexistent, suspects are routinely tortured and homosexuality is a crime. But then, it shouldn't surprise us when Israel's actions are singled out for obsessive scrutiny and the serious abuses of other countries go unnoticed. This selective concern for human life and dignity has so rooted itself in the intellectual circles as to become unconscious.
-Aviv Luban '08
Daniel Ortner has again written an uninformed, unfair attack on his favorite target, Israel ("In Israel, rule of law does not hold sway," Aug. 28 issue). Recounting a personal experience at the Allenby Bridge crossing (which connects Israel and Jordan, not Israel and Lebanon), he decries how some members in his group were subjected to more thorough questioning. But in the cases he cited, this scrutiny was not arbitrary, but based on straightforward criteria-sharing a religion with an enemy population waging a religious war. Every airport in America selects people for greater scrutiny, arbitrarily or based on a suspicion. To ignore such suspicions and to subject everyone to equal scrutiny would be suicidal. His criticism of Israel for making these discrimination betrays naivete and ignorance of Israel's security reality.
Ortner asserts that Israel has no written constitution and that this "inevitably" predisposes it to arbitrary law. In actuality, Israel has a constitution, consisting of basic laws which establish government functions and human rights. As in Britain, statutes and common law function in lieu of a single document. Yet without any evidence, Ortner declares that this system necessarily weakens the law.
Outrageously, Ortner characterizes the Israeli system as one in which the "delineation [between powers and laws] vanishes completely," and where "the government can at any time turn against its citizens with little legal recourse." At best, he says, "the courts can provide some minimal checks to the arbitrary actions of governments."
These baseless accusations are a reversal of the truth. Israel has an extremely robust supreme court that enjoys wider powers of review than its American counterpart. Following the principle articulated by former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, "Everything is judiciable," the court frequently intervenes in military affairs. According to legal experts, there is no country in the world where civilian courts [have] such broad jurisdiction to review military actions.
Addressing an audience at Brandeis last spring, Barak spoke passionately, almost religiously, of upholding the rule of law. He insisted that judges apply the same standard for balancing security and liberty in times of war as in peace, and abide by international law-issues of great contention in our country.
Ortner's attacks on Israel appear all the more outrageous when one considers his silence regarding Israel's neighbors. He has no outrage for the Arab world, where freedom of speech and women's rights are often nonexistent, suspects are routinely tortured and homosexuality is a crime. But then, it shouldn't surprise us when Israel's actions are singled out for obsessive scrutiny and the serious abuses of other countries go unnoticed. This selective concern for human life and dignity has so rooted itself in the intellectual circles as to become unconscious.
-Aviv Luban '08
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