Rav Eyal Tziyunov.

The Likud backed candidate lost the elections, and lost badly, for the spot of the Israel Bar chairman, and in the council race as well.

It seems there are two types of people in Israel.

there are those who think the court case beginning now against PM Benjamin Netanyahu is all one big conspiracy to bring him down, since the Left has failed to do so in elections.

There are those who think PM Benjamin Netanyahu is guilty.

There don't seem to be any people who believe that the accusations against PM Netanyahu were reasonable enough to demand a conviction and the trial will actually be as fair as possible and will reasonably determine guilt or innocence.

It is a sad day for the judicial system in Israel - not because they are trying a sitting Prime Minister, but because 99% of the country seems to have little or no faith in the judicial system.

It is a sad day for the executive and political system in Israel - not because a sitting Prime Minister is being tried for crimes he allegedly committed, but because they did their part in undermining the faith of the people in the judicial system.

Let us not forget that a fair judicial system is important for every society. Even Pirkei Avot says that without proper government  we would have chaos as each person would swallow up the other. Government includes the judicial system, because without it the laws passed by the government are worthless.

So, Netanyahu decide to revoke his request for immunity, saying that it was a done deal and he would not have been given a fair shot in the committee, so he is withdrawing the request and will fight the accusations against him in court.

There are still suspicions being floated that he has more tricks up his sleeve for the future, but for now we can take it for what it is. I think.

The news this morning said that with Netanyahu pulling the request, he, or the Likud, is requesting, or demanding, that the indictment only be served after the elections. Technically, Mandelblit can serve the indictment whenever he is ready and wants to - even today - and then the trial can get started according to whatever timeline the courts work with.

I don't know what will be decided about the timing of the indictment. We wait and see. (UPDATE: this post was written this morning. Early this afternoon the indictment was served)

I would say, though, that I see no reason to wait until after the elections. Netanyahu does not want it to be used against him in the Kachol Lavan election campaign, and I get that. If the elections we are having were normal elections, I might say that it seems fair to wait, though I also see the argument against waiting then too. With the elections so close, let the political side of it compete on ideas and politics. Even though it is fair for the legal issues to be considered as well, I would be fine with waiting a little bit.

However, because our election situation is not normal, things are different. This is the third election within the year. And who knows if a government will be formed after this one, and if we will find ourselves in a fourth election campaign within a few months after the candidates all fail to form a coalition again? So then we will have to wait until after the fourth election? and then wait until after the fifth?

I hope we get out of this stalemate at some point, but considering the situation we currently find ourselves in, I see waiting as being being not feasible or reasonable.

I've been casually following the proceedings in the court case of the Bet Shemesh election fraud (via some websites and via few journalists updating on twitter and Facebook).

To be honest, most of what has been said, by both sides, is pretty boring and exactly as was expected. There was fraud, there was not fraud, there was this much fraud, there was that much fraud, evidence is strong enough, evidence is not strong enough...

There was one argument Attorney Yaakov Veinrot, representing Moshe Abutbol as respondent to the petition, said that surprised me. He said:
I represent the mayor, and not the various parties that are here. The results regarding Abutbol are definite, that even if all the real owners of the captured identity cards had come themselves to vote, they definitely would have voted for Abutbol. Even if 956 votes, which is the differential between the candidates, had not come to vote at all, they would have a tie and a no decision. The fraud had no affect on the results.

Being that the real owners did not come to vote, I do not understand how he can claim them as Abutbol voters, if they would vote. Shmuel Pappenheim, a leader in that specific community, declared openly his support for Eli Cohen (despite not actually voting) and has expressed more than once how Abutbol is bad for the city. Maybe others in his community think the same or would have been influenced by him - "if they were to vote". Maybe some like Abutbol and some do not, for any other reason. Maybe they would have voted Abutbol, maybe not. How can he claim them as Abutbol voters. How does he know what they would have done if they would have voted?

And, don't they have the right to not vote? Living in a democracy allows one to take part in the democratic process of participating in elections. Just like a person has the right to express his opinion via his vote, he also has the right to express his opinion by withholding his vote. If they choose not to vote, it means they also do not want to vote for Abutbol - for whatever reason.

He cannot seriously be claiming that their non-votes should be counted in a way that will help Abutbol (not by actually adding their numbers but by saying what would have been). Can he?

The New York Times has an article about the defense team working on the Leiby Kletsky team, preparing to defend Levi Aron. Every person accused of a crime is entitled to a defense. he sure looks guilty, but he is entitled to a fair defense. And there are lawyers who specialize in defending such people no matter how difficult it is, no matter how unpopular it is, no matter how bad it looks.

The New York Times writes:

The death threats and hate mail, she says, have slowed, and she keeps her office door unlocked in defiance. There, Jennifer L. McCann sits behind her desk, wearing leopard print pumps, poised for an argument.


Ms. McCann chose to defend Levi Aron, a hardware clerk from Brooklyn who is accused of a crime that gripped the city this summer: the kidnapping, killing and dismembering of Leiby Kletzky, 8, who got lost walking to meet his parents in July in the Hasidic Jewish enclave of Borough Park.


“People assume I’m O.K. with a young boy being murdered because I represent the defendant,” Ms. McCann, 30, said recently in her office in Garden City, N.Y., which she opened in March after four years of practicing criminal defense law for a local firm. “To me, that’s pretty vicious. They have to understand, I’m not all right with people being murdered or with crime. I’m all right with defending constitutional rights.


“If he’s guilty, he will be convicted. And that’s it. But my God,” she added with gritted teeth, “it’s going to be legally.”


At Mr. Aron’s arraignment on Aug. 4, Ms. McCann insisted to distraught Jewish community members outside a courtroom that her client was no different from anyone accused of murder or drunken driving — he had rights. Her comparison drew gasps and angry retorts.
[...]

The most interesting part of the article is where Ms. McCann says:

In her trial preparations, she has learned about the Hasidic community in Borough Park and has also learned a new word. “Shiska,” Ms. McCann said, mispronouncing the Yiddish word, shiksa, for a non-Jewish woman.

The most troubling part of it is where Ms. McCann says:

Ms. McCann does not apologize for what she does not know. Or the profession she chose.


“This is what I do,” she said. “You kill people, you call me.”

from the AP via the Chicago Breaking News:

The southern Illinois city of Marion is considering a resident's request to put a Ten Commandments monument in the city square -- and opposition is already beginning to line up.

Ken Kessler's idea went before the Marion City Council on Monday night, although no action was taken.

But Mayor Bob Butler endorses the plan and may push for the sale of some city land to make the monument spot private property.
Kessler says he isn't a crusader and got the idea after seeing a similar display in a small Indiana town.

Butler says the American Civil Liberties Union already has threatened to sue the city if the project goes forward, but Butler insists he's not intimidated by that.

Several monument companies already are offering to donate the 5-foot stone and the inscription.

Aside from the stupidity of publicizing your travel plans and future personal life on public forums and social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, among others, it now might have legal ramifications.

The paper today reported that a couple flew to Turkey (I think) and had posted on their profile in Facebook that they were to be flying to a certain wedding. They came back and found their house had been ransacked in their absence.

Aside from being stupid, as they told the world that they were going to be away from their home traveling abroad, the insurance company, when they filed the claim, refused to pay. The insurance said that it is like leaving a wide open hole inviting the thieves. Publicizing your travel plans on Facebook disqualifies you from making a claim because it is like inviting the thief into your house.

I don't know if the decision will be appealed and overturned, but in the meantime, if you will be traveling, don't post your travel plans on Facebook.

I am not a lawyer nor any expert in law, but this does seem strange to me.

There was, allegedly, a shocking attempted rape the other day. The shock is especially great because the alleged perp is an officer in the army.

Guilty? Innocent? I have no idea. Let the trial run its course. Not my issue.

What did irk me is something the judge said in the pre-hearing after some initial claims were made and the basic evidence was laid out. After the alleged perp initially gave his version of the events with his denial, he has since remained silent.

the judge who reviewed the situation discussed some of the evidence and then he also said that the defendants silence makes him look guilty. Somebody innocent makes sure to proclaim it as often as he can in whatever way he can.

The judge might be right about that, and to us casual observers, remaining silent often does look guilty. However, the judge is not a casual observer. the judge is the legal expert deciding the case. To him, a defendant using his right of silence is not supposed to look more guilty because of it. The judge is supposed to use the evidence and decide the case (there is no jury in the Israel legal system) - to use the defendants silence, when he has the right to choose silence, no matter how guilty it might make him look, the judge should not be using that as part of his consderations.

Am I wrong? I saw the statement by the judge and this bothered me.

Bar Rafaeli, the Israeli supermodel who lives abroad and recently chose to malign Israel in a couple of interviews in the foreign press, has come out swinging.

In reaction to her interviews in which she spoke harshly against Israel, the local papers wrote articles describing the interviews. Yediot Acharonot, Israel's largest paper, wrote such an article with the headline stating, "Bar Rafaeli against the State of Israel".

Rafaeli decided to sue the paper for damages claiming that such an inflammatory headline set off a fury of hate and animosity towards her.

I think Israel should counter sue her right back for the way she maligned Israel in the world press.

I am sure that her statements against Israel in major newspapers in Europe received much more exposure than a local Israeli papers reaction did. She probably did much more damage than the newspaper did.