In a normal country, the testimony of former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit should have shunted off to the margins any other subject. It was a veritable earthquake that should have shaken the country to the core.
For close to ten years, the entire country has lived under the cloud of charges against the incumbent head of state. Israeli society has been split and divided in the wake of these indictments and burning issues. We have experienced five shaking elections, all because of a ban issued against our head of state who is being accused of bribery, deceit and duplicity.
Billions have been wasted on unnecessary elections because of this court case, which itself cost hundreds of thousands of shekalim. An entire system has been activated in order to put an end to the tenure of the prime minister, outside the election polls. Chief police officers and attorneys have dealt with the case day and night, for weeks, months and even years in an attempt to paste an indictment against the chief of state.
Standing at the peak of the system, the attorney general at the time who signed upon the arraignment, has admitted to the attorney for the defense that he is not altogether certain that he was the one who signed upon the final, updated document of the indictment. The signature may be his own, but for all its looks, it appears that it is an uncertain, a faulty semblance of his previous verified signature.
For long hours of cross-examination, the former judicial advisor admits that the interrogators operated against the law, actually circumvented it and employed illegal methods without judicial permission, all in a mad obsession to achieve a single purpose: to force the prime minister to step down and resign in exchange for dropping the charges against him.
There were some who advised him at the very beginning of this saga to sign a charge-plea and resign honorably. It is reasonable that any other person would have done this long ago and not go all out in an unending war against an unrestrained and inexhaustible enemy, determined to trample him to the dust. Many other people arraigned in the past have been prepared to admit to the charges against them merely because they lacked the emotional stamina and huge recourses needed to fund the defense case against them.
But Netanyahu is apparently made of stronger stuff and he decided to go all-out in self defense, concurrent with his duties in running the country. Were it not for his determination, we would not have been privy to the huge gamut of deceitfulness in the judicial system, which continues to this very day to trample the law, a system which has no controlling red lines.
This is the very system in which, to this day, the current attorney general violates the law as if the state was her personal property, and insinuates herself in everything that moves, legally or otherwise, and by virtue of her position, investigates anyone who attempts to create cases. And, to be sure, she uses the judicial system for political purposes in every way without having received such a mandate from the voting public.
As previously stated, in any democratic state on the face of the globe, this would have been the prime subject dealt with by the media. But in an anti-Semitic country like Israel, the one shameful political issue which is the only concern of the media is the chareidi public — that and no other. It is a war against Hashem, as it were, and His Torah. This is the central theme, and even a judicial earthquake cannot budge it from its concerted agenda.
The Democrats from the Shinui Party
In order to clarify the ideology of the Democrats, Yair Lapid, head of the Opposition, was interviewed this Monday, demanding that the Rightist channel be shut down. "What disturbs me about Channel 14 is that I find that in many places where I visit, it is still operating," said this man, who is about to evaporate and be doomed to oblivion after the upcoming elections.
All of the channels are mobilized for the battle against Netanyahu are, in his sight, legitimate, and their total lack of equality is altogether democratic. But when there is one and only channel which leans to the opposite side of the map and allows a voice to the camp which constitutes at least half of the Israeli population, his peace of mind is totally disconcerted.
"What troubles me is that a criminal oligarch and his draft-evading son have purchased a propaganda channel for the prime minister and all regard this as a normal situation." These were the words of the celebrated fighter from the army newspaper, while adding that "what is poisoning the Israeli society is what is open and visible on their screen."
Truly troubling... The 'rating' of viewers of this particular channel rises day by day. The Rightist camp, which has been abused by the other defaming and inciting channels, abandons it in favor of this single channel which presents its side of a world-view and flees from the other channels which promote an endless propaganda campaign for all the demolishers and destroyers of the State. This is what is unnerving the peace of Yair Golan, the 'democrat' who already, in the past, declared his intention to shut down the channel and was joined by Yair Lapid, whose kingpins of the party have already abandoned the sinking ship.
This is the democratic face of those people, which includes stopping up the voices of half the country, if not more. If this can be achieved through the Knesset, fine and well, but if not — there is always the High Court which can deliver the goods.
Greater is the Miracle in the Sky
Less that two weeks have elapsed since the phenomenal miracle which took place in the Middle East skies of Fly Dubai, and everyone returns to their normal routine. If, G-d forbid, the terrorist had succeed in his plan, we would all be in a completely different state, almost similar to that after the Simchas Torah massacre. His plot was almost foolproof, and according to reports, he had planned this for many years.
He studied aviation, entwined himself in the Fly Dubai Company which services a good number of Jews — and all for the one goal of becoming a national hero, along the same lines as the Twin Towers martyrs. Had he succeeded in killing the main pilot and taking over the controls, he could easily have reached the skies of Israel and crashed the plane on the ground with no one understanding what had taken place in the cockpit.
A sequence of inconceivable miracles prevented a heavy disaster, saving the lives of the 180 passengers and more untold lives of people on the ground. It was truly an illogical chain of events, contrary to all statistical laws, which brought the airplane to a safe landing, with no one on the plane hurt in the least. A miracle within a miracle within a miracle.
Small wonder that a good number of the passengers, Jews who in their daily lives are far from mitzvah-observance, went to shuls in order to recite the hagomel blessing in heartfelt joy of deliverance.
Together with this, following the great miracle, there surfaced the severe failure and shortcoming of the various security services which disregarded a potential danger of unidentified or authorized aircraft allowed to land in the country. Whoever enters Israel from abroad or is returning to Israel, is well aware of the strict and comprehensive security examinations required by all, including luggage inspection and checking of passengers for metal or even manual frisking for weaponry — which is fine and good. All the time expended on these tests, including their unpleasantness, are understood and accepted since passengers expect that the security system is working well in order to protect them.
If this is done to the passengers, why are the airborne personnel not subject to such checking with the incoming or outgoing flights? How is it possible that air crews from hostile countries, going and coming, can fly aircraft full of Israeli citizens without passing through testing booths? Someone up front in the security system has made a snafu and notwithstanding, or perhaps, precisely because of the miracle, this lack has come to the national attention.
