Democracy, Israeli style department: Manhigut Yehudit update - 29th of Dec. 2002

Last week, Judge Michoel Cheshin of the Israel Elections Committee, ruled that Manhigut Yehudit leader, Moshe Feiglin, could not run for the Knesset until 2004. He determined that Feiglin's conviction of Sedition (back in 1997) was a crime of moral turpitude, therefore rendering him technically "unfit" for entry into the Knesset race.

Some interesting points:

1) Publicly admitting to cheating on one's wife is not "moral turpitude". After all... nobody ever stopped Bibi Netanyahu from running.

2) Amir Peretz, is a Knesset member. As leader of the Histadrut Union he organized illegal strikes and stopped the country on several occasions. He caused over $1 billion in damages to the State of Israel. I guess that's not "moral turpitude" either since he did it in the name of higher wages and Feiglin did it in the name of stopping the spilling of Jewish blood.

3) The presiding judge in this case was Michoel Cheshin, a man who has fathered two children outside of his marriage. Furthermore, he has let out convicted Arabs from jail. On two occasions, these Arabs murdered Jews. That's not "moral turpitude"?

4) Finally, in addition to Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett, there was a third man indicted in this case. His name is Rabbi Benny Elon. In the middle of the trial, Elon was elected to the Knesset and thus never convicted. When he was appointed to become the Minister of Tourism, several knesset members screamed and said that his involvement in the case disqualifies him from becoming a minister. The attorney general, Elyakim Rubinstein, ruled that even though he was indeed indicted on charges of sedition, had he been found guilty, it would not have disqualified him since that crime does not fall under the heading of moral turpitude. This point was brought up to Judge Cheshin who stated, "I am not bound by the decision of the Attorney General".

This coming week, Moshe Feiglin will be appealing the case to Israel's "Supreme" court. Feiglin is represented by leading Tel-Aviv attorney Dr. Chaim Misgav.

For a very interesting explanation and commentary to what happened, please read this from Arutz-7 radio personality Jay Shapiro:

Rabbi Meir Kahane was ostracized by the media because they did not like what he said. He was ostracized by members of the Knesset who walked out when he got up to speak [because the ruling Likud knew that he would gain Knesset seats at their expense]. But something much worse was done to him and to Israeli democracy. After the election, it is customary for the president of the state to invite representatives of every list elected to the Knesset to come to the presidential home for consultation. The custom was never broken - until president Herzog chose not to invite Kahane. Kahane was legally elected by 26,000 voters. In other words, 26,000 voters had participated in a democratic procedure - a free election. They had played the game according to the rules. But the president of Israel was essentially saying - I don't care if you took part in a democratic procedure and played according to the rules. I don't like what you stand for so I will not consult with your duly elected representative. Herzog did not snub Kahane. Herzog snubbed 26,000 people who had participated in a democratic procedure. Herzog essentially said that democracy is a wonderful thing as long as you agree with me. When you stop agreeing with me, you are no longer supporting democracy. And when Herzog did this, he was supported by the media because they also did not like what Kahane said. In other words, the press was open and impartial as long as it agreed with positions taken by individuals. As soon as the media disagreed, it no longer felt an obligation to give coverage. Since democratic government depends upon the free flow of information, ideas and opinions, the whole purpose of freedom of press and broadcasting is to inform and educate the public so that it will be able to make intelligent and knowledgeable decisions. In a dictatorship, strange as it may seem, lack of freedom of press is not such a bad thing as in a democracy, since the public in a dictatorship does not make any decisions anyway. But in a democracy, where in principle, legitimacy of government comes from the people, then the people must be informed. When the media, public and private, abandon the role of public servant in order to serve or provoke public passions, they place themselves in a very precarious position. And that is what happened in the case of Meir Kahane more than a decade ago.

The treatment of Kahane was the litmus test of Israel's democracy and it failed horribly. I will cite one example to make the point. In the Maariv newspaper on August 18, 1985, there was an editorial based on an incident that had occurred on the previous evening. The mayor of the city of Givatayim, joined by some members of Knesset and several hundred members of youth movements who had been bussed into Givatayim for the occasion, whistled and shouted so that a planned Kahane rally could not be held. Maariv not only praised the action of the mayor of givatayim, but even recommended these actions as an example of what should be done elsewhere. According to Maariv "One doesn't have to wait for the assistance of the law before acting." But nothing has been learned in the decade since Kahane. Which brings us to what happened last week.

During the merry days of Oslo, when the government and the media were lying to us and hiding the truth about what was happening, Moshe Feiglin formed an organization called Zo Artzeinu which means This is our Land. And Moshe Feiglin led a series of protests in what could be defined as classical civil disobedience. He did exactly what Martin Luther King did and what Mohatma Ghandi did. He led non-violent civil protest. The protest culminated in something that was absolutely mind boggling. Feiglin's organization which was composed of a few people, a small office, a fax machine, telephone and a few other small items, called for a non-violent civil protest against the Oslo procedure, the protest to be done in the form of blocking intersections. The protest was successful beyond anyone's anticipations and hopes. More than eighty intersections around the country were blocked by thousands of people. The government went into shock. When Martin Luther King blocked traffic in Birmingham Alabama he was arrested and went to jail. He was charged with violating city ordnances having to do with traffic. After all, blocking traffic is controlled by city traffic ordnances. But in Israel, Moshe Feiglin was arrested for sedition, for trying to overthrow the government. It is interesting how the government here relates to civil protest. Feiglin was tried and could have gotten a very heavy prison sentence. Instead, he got, if my memory serves me correctly, six months of social work which he served. He paid his debt to society as we say.

Several years ago, Feiglin was approached by old-timers in the Likud party and asked to become active. These people saw that the Likud was wandering further and further away from its founding nationalistic philosophy they were looking for someone who could be the one to crystallize and form a bloc of truly nationalistic Likudniks. I don't want to go into all the details of the organization that Feiglin had formed called Jewish Leadership, but suffice it to say that Feiglin believes that real change can only come with political strength. Blocking the streets and civil disobedience can send a message and in some societies may be transformed into political strength but Israel is not one of those nations. The ability to make change in Israel means that you have to have political strength. And political strength is not found in the little parties which are really nothing more than lobbies. So Feiglin became active in the Likud, signed up a lot of new members who agreed with his philosophy and managed to form a solid block of about 150 members of the Likud Central Committee. The items in the platform of Jewish Leadership was close to the items in the Likud platform so there was no real problem of integrating within the Likud. When the elections were held several weeks ago, Feiglin found himself in the 40th place on the list. This was not a big success and there is no doubt that being that low on the list has to do with a certain innocence on the part of Feiglin's and his supporters. They were not ready to make questionable deals and compromise their principles. On the other hand, fortieth place is pretty respectable when one realizes that decent, intelligent, experienced persons like Yoram Ettinger and Achimeir and several others found themselves further down the list because their candidacy was based on ideology and not deals. The Likud list, by the way, forgetting whether it came about because of shady deals or any other reason, is a disgrace. Except for a handful of persons of proven experience who were elected because of name recognition and some ideology, the list is composed primarily of a group of zeroes who apparently are capable of nothing other than being elected to the list. But that is another subject that I may get to tonight. My point now is that Moshe Feiglin reached the fortieth position on the Likud list. Whereupon, someone, I think it was someone on the Meretz party list, complained to the judge in charge of elections that Feiglin was ineligible to run for the Knesset because he had been convicted of a crime. And here there is a subtle point. A person who is convicted of a crime cannot be a candidate for the Knesset for seven years - but that is on the condition that the crime involved what is called in Hebrew kalon. Which means dishonor, shame or disgrace. Another term is moral turpitude Now this is a completely subjective interpretation of the nature of a crime. In other words, to the best of my knowledge, when someone is convicted of a crime, it is not written in the judgement that the crime involves dishonor, shame or disgrace. Maybe there is something on the lawbooks that makes such a definition. I can imagine, for example, that someone convicted of being a pedophile or someone convicted of violent sex crimes is guilty of a crime involving dishonor, shame or disgrace. But what did Feiglin do? He did exactly what Martin Luther King did - he blocked traffic in a classic act of civil disobedience.

The media reported that The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Justice Michoel Cheshin, ruled that Feiglin's crimes involved moral turpitude and that he was therefore barred from running for the Knesset for seven years in accordance with Paragraph 6 of the Basic Law: Knesset.

In response to the decision, Feiglin declared he is proud of his deeds, which he called "acts of honor" aimed at fighting against what he called the "bloody" Oslo process.

Feiglin said he was not surprised by the judge's decision, but charged that he disqualified him for political reasons. He said he is proud of his protests against the Oslo diplomatic process with the Zo Artzeinu movement that led to his arrest for sedition.

"There is definitely no shame in my activities to stop the bloodbath of Oslo," he said. "The judicial hierarchy of Israel permitted and encouraged the Oslo death procession. Despite its illegality, they gave Oslo judicial support, so it is clear that they would also try to prevent me from reaching a point of influence."

Feiglin said his Jewish Leadership Movement would continue to integrate into the Likud and add ideological force to the movement. He vowed that he and his movement would run for the Knesset again.

Cheshin wrote that he barred Feiglin for both technical and substantive reasons. According to the law, Feiglin should have included in his application to run for the Knesset a request to the CEC chairman to rule that his crimes did not involve moral turpitude. He failed to do so until eight days later, in response to requests by attorney Ya'acov Shtotland and MK Naomi Chazan (Meretz) to disqualify him.

Now, please note the next thing in this news item.

But Cheshin did not mince words in describing his view of the political protests launched by Feiglin. In his decision Cheshin moved from the technical realm of legality to political commentary stating: "Mr. Feiglin refused to accept the decision of a democratically elected government and decided that he and his friends would do everything in their power even against the law to thwart legally made decisions...

"Deeds such as those perpetrated by Mr. Feiglin undermine society and are destined to turn a state of law and order into one controlled by warring militias. These actions are painted with the strong color of moral and social turpitude."

In other words, the learned judge did several things of great importance and which say volumes about the judicial system in Israel. First, the judge essentially said that civil disobedience is an act involving moral turpitude. In contrast to the now understood philosophy behind civil disobedience that was made so clear by Martin Luther King - which is not to overthrow the system but to correct the system so that it will be true to its real character- the judge is saying that Martin Luther King was guilty of moral turpitude. Contrary to the understanding of civil disobedience that turned Martin Luther King into a national and world hero - and I won't say that it won him the Nobel prize since that has become a worthless honor - our Israeli judge is saying that if I disagree with the purposes and goals of the civil disobedience then it involves moral turpitude. Worse, the judge is saying that he is the only one capable of evaluating the morality of an act. Even worse, the judge is saying to Feiglin it is true that you are no longer performing acts of civil disobedience, it is true that you are acting within the system, that is meaningless. I have decided that I don't like what you stand for so you and those who voted for you have no right to work within the system even if you want to. In other words, this judge is saying what President Herzog said about Meir Kahane. I don't like what you say so you and those who agree with you don't deserve to operate within the system. If that is not a recipe for what the judge calls "Deeds that undermine society and are destined to turn a state of law and order into one controlled by warring militias. These actions are painted with the strong color of moral and social turpitude." Then I don't know what is.