Nobody is above the law in Israel
How proud Israelis must be to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the front page facing career- ending corruption charges. Sure, it’s tacky, politically paralyzing and disappointing to his supporters. But what a vindication of their open society. And what a contrast with their unfortunate neighbours.
I don’t know if Netanyahu, whose security policies I generally approve of, is guilty of legal or even moral wrongdoing. But it doesn’t look good when the police come calling; the maxim that all publicity is good publicity is not strictly true. What does look good, on Israel as a whole, is precisely that the police can come calling on the prime minister, the most powerful politician in a system whose presidency is largely ceremonial.
In Israel, nobody is above the law. Judicial impartiality is as real there as here. And it’s the only place in the Middle East where one can imagine such a headline.
Obviously Israel is not perfect. As Kant said, “From the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” But it is a habitual error of radicals, even a trick, to suggest that if our system is not perfect it is contemptible, while remaining wilfully blind to far worse failings in our philo- sophical or geopolitical enemies.
During the Cold War, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky compared North American liberals to the backward dogs of Russian folklore that bark at their own families and wag their tails at strangers. And it’s even worse, something of an achievement though not one you’d want, when the postmodern left gets onto Israel.
There is astounding hostility to Israel around the world, the way in which sordid repressive regimes focus on it at the UN, with grotesque tyrannies passing resolution after resolution condemning its human rights record with minimal or no protest from our progressive left. And it’s not just about Israel. It’s about Jews. Behind the hostility to their homeland is vicious anti-Semitism, cultural as well as official. Where’s the outrage?
If you don’t follow Middle Eastern affairs closely you might assume I am overstating the case. Surely people who preen endlessly about how tolerant they are, how sensitive to hate speech and marginalization, can’t be ignoring a torrent of abuse while denouncing Israel’s policies as the key obstacle to peace, questioning its democratic legitimacy, and trying to organize boycotts or at least winking at the sinister undertone of BDS and similar movements. But all you need do is consult an outfit like MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which translates and publicizes the horrendous comments that are routine in Israel’s neighbours, and if you are not shocked, you should be ashamed.
Nobody would suggest the Israeli government, or its political culture, is perfect. Least of all Is- raelis, who vigorously debate every imaginable thing, including security policy in the shadow of annihilation. So why doesn’t it get them better credit abroad including here?
Try to imagine a single one of Israel’s neighbours where citizens might pick up a newspaper and read that the effective head of government had been indicted for lawless behaviour. The Saudi king, say, or Syria’s dictator. To be sure, it could and indeed almost certainly would happen right after a coup along with a slew of more scurrilous charges, many of which might be justified. But no charges could be laid until they fell from grace.
Remember the Soviet j oke about three guys in a freezing gulag cabin? The first says, “I criticized Comrade Popov when he was a rising star.” The second says, “I praised Comrade Popov as he was falling from favour.” And the third says, “I’m Comrade Popov.” And who thinks a friend of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas could be indicted without first losing a power struggle?
It would be slightly better to live in a country like South Africa with a semi- free press. But only slightly, because you could read of corruption charges against the president without any real hope of change. (President Jacob Zuma, revealingly, was finally forced out by his own party after repeatedly defying the courts, politics again trumping law.)
Of course it is embarrassing that an important figure stands publicly accused of misusing his office, even if you didn’t like him. If the charges are valid, it’s squalid and disruptive, and worse if the judicial system blundered in spectacular and confidencesapping fashion. But such things are nothing to knowing you live in a place where the powerful can break the law with impunity, while the lowly derive no security from obeying it.
Far worse than picking up a newspaper and seeing someone in power facing indictment is knowing you live somewhere it couldn’t happen. So we should sympathize with Israelis … and congratulate them.