Do you think the law reigns in the State of Israel? The judges are rolling in laughter. They are the law supreme, excluding everything else.
So here goes: The law passed in the Knesset regarding the selection of judges has two important clauses. The first: The committee for selecting judges is supposed to be summoned by the Justice Minister. The second: Said committee is supposed to be comprised of nine members and in any case, seven of the nine are to be present for a quorum.
This is the text of the law by which the country is expected to be run. This tallies with the law of separation of legislation and justice which determines that the Knesset is the legislative body while the court is meant to operate thereby.
The summoning of the committee was not done according to the first criterion because the Justice Minister was not the one who called for it, and there is no clause in the law allowing for anything else. Furthermore, at the gathering, only six members of the committee were present, as opposed to the clearly specified minimum number by law. It was altogether an illegal gathering and the very appointment of Justice Amit as President of the High Court was against the law.
This is the law, and so long as the Knesset itself did not modify it, there is no judicial body that can change it. Pure and simple. Therefore, the appointment of Judge Amit is altogether outside of the law. It is invalid, and even the blessing of President Herzog has no clout and cannot change the status of one illegally chosen to that of one legally chosen.
But who is interested in the law when the High Court has assumed for itself the status of a body not bound by any law? In this manner, it chooses to nullify laws passed by the Knesset as being devoid of authority.
Even more, the Basic laws which one of its chief members, the retired Chief Justice Aharon Barak, instituted, which determine that the court cannot nullify such a Basic law, does not seem to obligate the judges, since they are elevated above the people and no one can presume to tell them what to do or how to act.
So what can be done? The automatic reply is to turn to the High Court that it coerce the committee to comply to the law. But what to do if some of the members of the selfsame committee are themselves members of the High Court who defy the law without even blinking? They are the Law and that is the final word. And any body which calls itself the Legislative House can shut down and go home!
A True Kiddush Hashem in the Return of Hostages
"When a nation which does not recognize its past, its present is meager and its future is veiled in obscurity." This was understood even by Yigal Alon, one of the founders of the State and prime leader thereof for many years. The State of Israel created a nation of a new kind, which does not even acknowledge its past but is even prepared to denigrate, mock and abuse it.
A small sampling of those years: there is a small Rightist-religious media channel which, since its establishment, is shut down on Shabbos. The hostages were released on Shabbos and on the preceding Shabbos as well, a return which was celebrated victoriously by all the media and various public figures, including those who were supposed to represent 'Jewish sovereignty'. The channel, true to its principles, continues to rest on Shabbos and for this was duly vilified and disparaged.
It continued to be silent on Shabbos, notwithstanding that one of the parents of a hostage, Agam Berger, who was supposed to be returned on Shabbos, begged the media not to cover her return — if she were indeed released on Shabbos. Instead of congratulating this family, whose pure faith even at the return of their daughter remained steadfast not to desecrate the Shabbos, it was met by heaps of derision, and to be sure, not a single channel agreed to her request.
But the One Who Sits on High, heard the plea of His people, and this selfsame hostage is miraculously expected to be returned on terms beyond the regular agreements, and yet before the upcoming Shabbos, to the joy of the family and thus to serve as an outstanding show of Kiddush Hashem.
