In Britain today, hating Israel has become a valid criminal defense. Last week
five people charged with destroying property valued at some $225,000 at the EDO
MBM arms factory in Brighton during a January 2009 break-in were found not
guilty of all charges. They were found innocent although all five admitted to
having committed the crime.
As the
Guardian reported, the defendants
boasted in on-line forums at the time of the incident, their crime was
premeditated. It took place during the IDF’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Their declared aim was to “smash up” the factory. And they achieved their
goal.
The jury found the five innocent because it accepted as a valid
defense their claim that they vandalized the plant because they wanted
to
prevent Israel from carrying out war crimes in Gaza. EDO MBM does
business with
the IDF, therefore, the defendants claimed and the jury agreed, it
deserved to
be attacked.
In finding as they did, the jurors were acting in accordance
with the guidance they received from the presiding judge. As the
Guardian
reported, Judge George Bathurst- Norman instructed the jury, “You may
well think
that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans
suffered in
that time.”
What this verdict shows is that in British courts, hatred of
Israel has become a license to break the law. This turn of events is the
logical
flipside of Parliament’s abject refusal to amend Britain’s outrageous
universal
jurisdiction law. British lawmakers, government officials and jurists
all
basically agree that the law, which allows magistrates to issue arrest
warrants
against foreigners based on allegations filed by British subjects, is a
legal
travesty. It subverts the capacity of the British government to conduct
foreign
policy by placing all foreigners at the mercy of political
activists.
Both Spain and Belgium amended their universal jurisdiction
laws for this reason.
But in Britain no amendment is in the offing
because the demand for the amendment is linked to Israel. Since
Israel-hating
activists began hijacking magistrates courts to force the issuance of
arrest
warrants against Israeli military personnel and politicians five years
ago,
Israel has repeatedly asked that the law be changed. And because Israel
wants it
changed, it will remain in force.
In fact, not only will it remain in
force, its use against Israelis expands by the day. Today anyone who
served in
the IDF has to think twice about traveling to Britain lest doing so
place him
or her in jeopardy of being arrested on trumped-up charges.
What both the
Brighton court’s verdict and the abuse of the universal jurisdiction law
show is
that today in England, Israelis cannot assume that the laws will protect
them.
And by the same token, haters of Israel can assume that they will be
immune from
punishment for violent attacks against Israel-related targets.
THE
PERVERSION of the legal system in England isn’t unique. Take the
situation in
Malmo, Sweden, for instance. In an almost one-to-one parallel of the
arguments
that won the day in the Brighton courtroom, in January Malmo Mayor Ilmar
Reepalu
used the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day to bash Israel and Israel
supporters and equate them with Nazi Germany.
Over the past few years,
Malmo’s Jewish community has been fleeing the city due to the massive
increase
in anti-Jewish violence conducted by an alliance of Muslims and
leftists.
Reepalu denied there is anti-Jewish violence in his city and then went
on to
blame the city’s Jewish residents for the violence launched against
them. As he
put it to the
Skanska Dagbladet
newspaper, if the city’s Jews don’t wish to be
attacked, all they have to do is denounce Israel. But, he said, “instead
the
community chose to hold a pro-Israel demonstration,” adding darkly that
its
action, “may convey the wrong message to others.”
So like the EDO MBM
plant, Malmo’s Jews deserve to be attacked.
Then there is the situation
in Australia. In the weeks that followed the Mossad’s alleged
assassination of
Hamas terror-master Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, Australia’s
generally relaxed Foreign Ministry sprang into action. No, it didn’t
attack
Dubai for allowing wanted terrorists to roam free and enjoy the famed
hospitality at one of its luxury hotels. Australia’s Foreign Ministry
angrily
expelled an Israeli diplomat amid unproven accusations that the Mossad
officers
allegedly involved in the counterterror operation used forged Australian
passports to enter Dubai.
Notably, the fire-in-the-belly attitude that
marked Australia’s assault on Israeli embassy personnel had no parallel
in an
Australian federal court last week as Judge Neil McKerracher adjudicated
an
extradition request from Hungary.
Hungary requested the extradition of
retired Nazi Charles Zentai, who is wanted there for his role in the
1944 murder
of Peter Balasz. Balasz was 18 when he was killed.
Zentai and his fellow
Nazis killed him because he was Jewish and threw his body into the
Danube
River.
There is no statute of limitations for Zentai’s crime. Yet,
McKerracher didn’t care about the law. Instead he followed his heart.
And his
heart told him that extraditing the 88-yearold war criminal who has
evaded
justice for 66 years would be “oppressive and incompatible with
humanitarian
considerations.” And so he denied Hungary’s request.
To sum up the
situation Down Under, an Israeli diplomat got expelled because Israel
allegedly
used Australian passports to kill a senior member of an organization
dedicated
to the eradication of Jewry. And an Australian judge ruled that a Nazi
war
criminal who actively participated in the genocide of Jewry can live out
the
rest of his life in peace in the bosom of his family.
THIS BRINGS us back
to Britain for a moment. Britain was the first country to expel Israeli
diplomats over the Mabhouh incident.
The Foreign Office received the
rousing support of the British media for its action. The Guardian, for
instance,
characterized the alleged use of British passports in the Mabhouh
operation as
the action of an “arrogant nation that has overreached itself.”
Notably,
while Israel allegedly used forged British passports to target a
terrorist, last
week it emerged that Russia used British passports to spy on the US.
Reports of
the Russian spy ring that was arrested last week in the US indicate that
members
of the ring used forged British passports. Amazingly (or actually,
predictably)
neither the Foreign Office nor the British media have taken or called
for action
to be taken against Russian embassy personnel for abusing British travel
documents.
As to the international campaign against Israel following the
Mabhouh assassination, this week Poland is set to rule on Germany’s
extradition
request for Uri Brodsky. Polish officials acting on a German warrant
arrested
him at a Polish airport last month for his alleged role in forging a
German
passport for one of the alleged Mossad operatives involved in the
Mabhouh
operation. Germany is adamant that Poland send Brodsky to Germany to
stand trial
for his alleged role in assisting in the targeted killing of a wanted
terror
mastermind.
Germany’s feverish insistence that Brodsky stand trial is of
a piece with its newfound appetite for waging political warfare against
Israel.
Last week the Bundestag unanimously passed a resolution calling
for an international investigation of the IDF’s takeover of the Turkish-
Hamas
ship
Mavi Marmara on May 31.
The resolution also demanded that Israel
immediately end its lawful maritime blockade of the Gaza coast and
slammed it
for violating the principle of proportionality.
Like the court in
Brighton, the Bundestag’s action asserts that Israel is guilty by nature
and
that as a consequence, unlike every other country, it cannot be judged
by an
impartial body. Rather, as the British judge made clear in his libelous
instructions to the Brighton jury, guilty Israel must be judged by a
hanging
jury that draws its conclusions in advance.
ONE QUESTION that necessarily
arises amid any discussion of this legalistic-political assault and the
worldwide perversion of law in the service of Israel’s enemies is where
is our
government in all of this? Where are our leaders? Where is the Foreign
Ministry?
Where is the Justice Ministry? Last week Britain’s Methodist Church
voted to
boycott all products emanating from Jewish communities in Judea and
Samaria and
from Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.
It probably goes without
saying that the Methodist Church has levied no similar boycott against
any other
country. Indeed, as Robin Shepherd wrote in “The banality of Methodist
evil” in
Monday’s
Jerusalem Post, not
only did the Methodist Church never consider
boycotting say Sudan or Iran or Saudi Arabia for their human rights
abuses, the
only countries the Methodists considered attacking other than Israel
were
Britain and the US for having relations with Israel.
As Shepherd relates,
among other factors guiding the church’s decision was its members’
assertion
during the boycott deliberations that Jews worship a racist God.
Shepherd
recommends that Israel fight fire with fire. In his words, “If the
Methodist
Church is to launch a boycott of Israel, let Israel respond in kind: Ban
their
officials from entering; deport their missionaries; block their
church-funds;
close down their offices; and tax their churches. If it’s war, it’s
war.”
These recommendations are eminently reasonable.
And indeed,
the government has no cause for not adopting them.
For generations Jews
have clung to the belief that law is intrinsically good and if we follow
the
law, the law will protect us. But this has never been more than a fool’s
belief.
As we see today in the wholesale perversion of law in the service
of Israel’s destruction in countries around the Western world, law is
but a
tool. Depending on who wields it, it can be a force for injustice just
as easily
as it can be a tool for pursuing justice.
Israel’s response to date to
all of these legal assaults against its detractors has been muted and
defensive.
But as the energized boycott movement and the Brighton court’s obscene
ruling
and similar actions throughout the world show, Israel must itself take
up the
law as a cudgel to beat its foes.
Where are our government lawyers? Why
aren’t they issuing international arrest warrants against every agent of
Hamas
and Hizbullah? Where are our diplomats? Why aren’t they expelling
British,
Swedish, Australian and German diplomats involved in subverting our
sovereignty
in Jerusalem and other criminal activities? Where are our political
leaders? It
is not enough to decry the international campaign to delegitimize Israel
in
speeches before foreign audiences and in newspaper interviews. A war is
being
waged against us and it is well past time for us to fight back and fight
to
win.
caroline@carolineglick.com