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ALAN DERSHOWITZ PUBLISHES OPEN LETTER TO A-G DEFENDING NETANYAHU BY URI BOLLAG
“To bring down a duly elected prime minister on the basis of an expansive and unprecedented application of a broad and expandable criminal statute endangers democracy,” Dershowitz wrote.
Alan Dershowitz at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York, May 7, 2017. (photo credit: SIVAN FARAG)
Professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the most prominent Jewish lawyers in the United States and the world, published an open letter on Wednesday addressed to Attorney-General Avichai Mandleblit, in which he defended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the ongoing investigations against him.
Mandelblit is expected to publish his decision on whether or not to indict Netanyahu on Thursday, with possible consequences on the current election cycle.
Dershowitz, in his letter published in Haaretz, negates charges of bribery and fraud against Netanyahu and said that an indictment against the prime minister would threaten the democratic process.
“To bring down a duly elected prime minister on the basis of an expansive and unprecedented application of a broad and expandable criminal statute endangers democracy,” Dershowitz wrote.
The Harvard professor expanded on the three cases – 1000, 2000 and 4000, which might bring forth an indictment – and rejected the legitimacy of the charges based on the existing evidence.
In Case 1000, in which Netanyahu is accused of handing out favors in return for gifts – cigars and champagne – from friends, Dershowitz wrote that there is no applicable law that defines the line of what would constitute bribery in this case.
“The accusation is that Netanyahu took too many such gifts and made too many favors in return. But how many are too many? The law doesn’t say,” Dershowitz asserted, adding that “no one should be charged with a crime unless he has willfully crossed a bright line and plainly violated a serious criminal statute.”
Cases 2000 and 4000, in which the prime minister is accused of supporting legislation in return for positive media coverage, “pose even greater dangers to democratic governance and civil liberties,” he said.
Dershowitz wrote that no substantial proof can be brought forth that a law was broken and that the complex relationship between political and media figures cannot be subject to prosecution. Instead this should be decided upon by the public, who can choose to vote in favor or against the representatives who behave in such a way.
In Case 2000, Netanyahu allegedly supported a law that would curtail Israel Hayom to gain fairer coverage from its competitor Yediot Aharonot in a deal struck with its publisher Noni Mozes. Netanyahu ultimately voted against the law, leaving prosecutors to deal with possible motives, but no real evidence that can be used against him.
Similarly, Dershowitz noted, in Case 4000 in which Netanyahu allegedly supported regulatory decisions made by civil servants in return for fairer coverage, a prosecution would be based on “speculation concerning the state of mind of the participants.”
“The relationship between politics and the media – and between politicians and publishers – is too nuanced, subtle and complex to be subject to the heavy hand of criminal law,” he wrote.
Dershowitz asserted that politicians’ decisions are often motivated by the coverage they would receive from the media and to achieve some sort of self-serving result.
“To empower prosecutors to probe these mixed motivations is to empower them to exercise undemocratic control over crucial institutions of democracy,” he reiterated.
The nature of politics, he added, and the relationship of it with media institutions to ‘”scratch my back and I will scratch yours’ is as Israeli as falafel and as American as apple pie.”
Dershowitz called on Mandelblit to let Netanyahu “continue his important work,” and to let Israelis decide at the ballot whether they accept the prime minister’s behavior or not.
“To criminalize these political differences is to endanger democracy and freedom of the press,” Dershowitz wrote.
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OUR SITES אתרי מבט
University of Cape Town to Hold Final Vote on Academic Boycott of Israel Later This Month by Shiri Moshe
The University of Cape Town campus. Photo: Adrian Frith via Wikimedia Commons.
The University of Cape Town, the top-ranking academic institution in Africa, is set to consider enforcing an academic boycott against Israel later this month.
The UCT Senate, a decision-making body comprised primarily of professors and administrators, endorsed a proposal on March 15 to bar the university from entering into any formal relationship with Israeli academic institutions that operate “in the occupied Palestinian territories,” or otherwise enable “gross human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the university said in a statement.
Brown University Students Pass BDS Referendum Against Israel
The campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – Students at Brown University voted overwhelmingly in favor of a referendum held between Tuesday and Thursday, calling on the school to separate itself from companies that conduct business with the State of Israel.
The tally was 69 percent in favor and 31 percent against.
Members of the pro-Israel community nationally and locally condemned the outcome.
Trump Gives Purim Miracle to Israel: Golan Recognition by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
“For the sake of My servant Yaakov, Yisrael My chosen one, I call you by name, I hail you by title, though you have not known Me.” Isaiah 45:4 (The Israel Bible™)
Many have seen similarities between the Biblical King Cyrus and President Donald Trump. (Breaking Israel News)
After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!
Many are claiming this was a pre-election gift to Trump’s friend, Netanyahu, but it others see a much larger significance that transcends politics and enters into the realm of the Biblical. One such belief was expressed by Breaking Israel News publisher Rabbi Tuly Weisz, who noted that the announcement came on the Jewish holiday of Purim.
Non-Jews Marking Purim Alongside the Jewish People By Dr. Rivkah Lambert Adler
“The same days on which the Yehudim enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy. They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.” Esther 9:22 (The Israel Bible™)
If there was ever a quintessentially Jewish holiday, it’s Purim, when the Jewish people were threatened by Haman, a descendant of Amalek, and saved by God’s hidden hand. Even so, we find examples of people from the Nations being inspired by the story of Purim and even gathering to mark the day alongside the Jewish people.
PROTESTERS WITH PALESTINIAN FLAGS TURN BACKS ON RABBI’S N. ZEALAND EULOGY
Protesters waving Turkish and Palestinian flags shout anti-Israel slogans during a demonstration in Amsterdam June 4, 2010. Israel’s raid of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla has set off a diplomatic furor, drawing criticism from friends and foes alike and straining ties with regional ally Turkey, which cal. (photo credit: REUTERS)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags turned their backs on a Dutch chief rabbi during his eulogy at a vigil for Muslims killed in New Zealand.
The incident Sunday happened as Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs was discussing the meaning of a minute of silence at the gathering at the Dam Square World War II memorial monument. Thousands of people, many of them Muslims, gathered at the square to commemorate the 49 people slain Friday by a far-right killer at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
New column!
Khaled Abu Toameh : Palestinians: The Other Peace Deal
Hamas is now accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah of exploiting the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip to call on Palestinians to overthrow the Hamas regime. Fatah, for its part, is accusing the “dark forces” of Hamas of acting on orders from outside parties to establish a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.
The US administration says it will publish its long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East, known as the “Deal of the Century,” after the general elections in Israel on April 9
Shoshana Bryen : Trump’s State Department Drops “Occupied Territory”
There is a difference between an “honest broker” and a “neutral arbiter.” In advance of the rollout of its Middle East peace plan, the Trump administration has taken a series of steps to ensure its role as the honest broker. The U.S. is not “neutral” between our ally, Israel, and the Palestinians who seek to replace it. But it won’t be easy to change presumptions that are deeply embedded in the
Daniel Pipes : Repairing America’s Broken Universities
When the FBI informs us that parents are ready to spend up to $6.5 million in bribes to get their children into prestige colleges, it seemingly implies that all is very, very well in the American university. But Warren Treadgold tells us that’s an illusion.
He’s a distinguished professor of Byzantine history at St. Louis University who has also taught at Berkeley, FIU, Hillsdale, Stanford, and UCLA. Having entered college in 1967, he draws on long experience to both indict and offer a remedy of the most thoroughly left-wing major institution in America. His book, The University We Need (Encounter, 2018) presents its case with insight and a light touch.
Seth Frantzman : Iran’s ‘Road to the Sea’ Exposed on Golan
The threat posed by Hezbollah and Ali Musa Daqduq, a senior operative in Hezbollah, was unmasked by Israel on Wednesday.
Daqduq was responsible for the “abduction and execution of five American servicemen in Iraq in 2007,” the IDF said. The role of Hezbollah members in neighboring states is an illustration of how groups allied with Iran are continuing to build a web linking Tehran to Beirut via a “road to the sea” that transits Iraq and Syria.
According to the IDF, the role of Daqduq includes establishing terror cells in Iraq to fight the US in 2006, stints training in Lebanon in 2013-2018 and now putting down roots in Syria.
Daniel Greenfield : Democrats and the Antisemitism Trap
Every few weeks, some political or national figure demands a national conversation about race. (Most recently, Senator Kamala Harris insisted, “We have not had these honest discussions about race.”)
What does a conversation about race mean? Invariably, an indictment of the fundamental unfairness of our country, the historical roots of racism in white supremacy, and the national guilt of white people.
Or, to put it more simply, why Senator Kamala Harris deserves to be in the White House.
We don’t have national conversations about anti-Semitism because the problem can’t be narrowed down to an easily blamed demographic. The Democrats invariably try to blame anti-Semitism on the usual suspects, white male Republicans living more than two hundred miles from a Starbucks, but the largest toll of violent anti-Semitic attacks tend to fall on New York City’s black neighborhoods.