Israel Matzav

Our World: Shimshon Cytryn and Aharon Barak

In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick takes up the cause of Shimshon Cytryn, an 18-year old accused of 'attempted murder' for his role in a fight with an Arab in a Gaza community last summer. It's a good cause.

Hat Tip: Marilyn Cytryn (Shimshon's grandmother)

Cytryn, 19 a yeshiva student from the community of Nachliel in the Binyamin Region, is accused of attempted murder. Last June 28, two groups of teenage boys pelted one another with rocks on the Muwassi beach area in Gaza adjacent to the Israeli community Shirat Hayam. As the fight raged for three days without IDF intervention, the Israeli press set up shop near the boys and waited.

On June 28 the media sprang into action. Channel 1 filmed a series of narrow lens video clips which showed only the Israeli youths - including Cytryn -- throwing rocks. Then Yediot Aharonot reporter Yitzhak Saban "heroically" inserted himself into the drama. He jumped before the cameras and "saved" a Palestinian youth whom he and his fellow reporters claimed had been critically wounded by the Israeli youths in a manner that recalled "a lynch." The next morning a photo of Saban's "intervention" was on the front page of Yediot. Television and radio news broadcasts led with stories about the "lynching" carried out by "right-wing extremists." They reported that the Palestinian "victim" was hospitalized in Gaza and fighting for his life.

Yet that Palestinian "victim" was in and out of the hospital in the space of two hours. The picture of health, he gave multiple interviews to Arab and European reporters where he expounded on the "heroic battle" he and his friends fought against the "Jewish settlers." The fact of the "victim's" miraculous recovery from his life threatening wounds was not reported in the Israeli press until several days later and then the story was hidden in laconic reports on the inside pages of the papers.

The "lynch" story was manufactured against the backdrop of a steady drop in public support for the Sharon government's plan to expel all the Israeli residents from Gaza and northern Samaria. Polling data showed that less than 50 percent of Israelis supported the plan. But the "lynching" story reversed the trend. In the space of 24 hours, the public's support for the withdrawal rose to over 60 percent.

After the expulsions were completed last August, IDF commanders, including then OC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Dan Harel admitted that there had never been anything even vaguely resembling a lynching. But the crime's fabrication did not prevent the police from arresting Cytryn nor did it did stop the state prosecution from charging him with attempted murder. So now Cytryn sits in prison awaiting trial for a crime that was never committed.

THE LEGAL environment that enabled situations like Cytryn's to arise is part of the judicial legacy of retiring Supreme Court President Aharon Barak.

...

UNFORTUNATELY for Shimshon Cytryn and the 65 percent of Israelis who in a poll last week said they believe that the Court's rulings are motivated by political interests rather than law, the guard will not change when Barak retires next week.

His hand-picked successor Justice Dorit Benisch not only subscribes to his judicial philosophy, during her 31 years in the State Prosecution, Benisch stacked the prosecution with what she referred to in a recent interview with Yediot as attorneys who "worked in accordance with the same values" that she ascribes to. As she has made clear through her actions and words, Benisch's "values" are post-Zionism; hostility towards the military; hostility towards religious Zionists; support for the Palestinians; and support for anti-religious social forces and pressure groups.

As Benisch replaces Barak next month she faces a situation where only 32 percent of Israelis think that she is qualified for office, and only 33 percent of the public has full faith in the Court. This is in contrast to the 85 percent of Israelis who had full faith in the Court in 1995.

Since it is clear that she will continue and attempt to widen Barak's usurpation of governing authority in Israel, the question that arises is whether our political leaders will have the courage to curb the court's power.

Unfortunately, given our current crop of politicians, there is every chance that Shimshon Cytryn will be tried and convicted of a crime that was never committed.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:19 PM