[Video] Christmas Eve in Tel-Aviv
Only
a few months ago, former Justice Minister, Prof Daniel Friedman said:
“The Attorney General cannot shut the mouth of the entire State...”
Well, it appears that the Attorney General is working at it…. And
on such Voltaire said: "To learn who rules over you,
simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize".
Figure: Meni Naftali, former Netanyahu residence chief caretaker, on Christmas Eve, after a violent attack by Israel Police during a demonstration against Attorney General Mandelblit and government corruption. Earlier in 2016 Naftali won a lawsuit claiming abusive conduct by Sarah Netanyahu. [i] The lawsuit revealed Mrs Netanyahu to be a frequent consumer of large volumes of alcohol, leading her to abusive, at times physically violent conduct against employees. The lawsuit helped break a code of silence in Israeli media, regarding the bizarre conduct of the Prime Minister and his spouse, where the latter is often the one deciding on crucial national security matters... That, while many doubt her mental condition. [ii] At one point, media claimed that Mrs Netanyahu’s mental condition was used to prevent her criminal investigation. [iii] It is likely that Naftali holds major evidence of criminality by the Netanyahu couple relative to embezzlement of public funds. Mrs Netanyahu was involved in the most bizarre practices, such as forcing the residence staff to collect empty bottles, then pocketing the refund money (an affair dubbed “bottlegate”). [iv]
Figure: Daphni
Leef arrested by police in June 2012, during the wave of social
protest, which she led.
She was later subjected to false criminal investigation of
“assaulting police”, which was dropped only in 2014. Police
appeared on the stand and lied to the laughter of the public in the
courtroom, where videos were screened by the defense, showing that
police were lying. [v]
A series of such false
criminal prosecutions against protest leaders was effectively used
to suppress political protest in Israel.
Leef and Naftali met for
the first time a couple of weeks ago, in one of the Saturday night
demonstrations in front of the Attorney General’s residence. It
was the first time that Leef heard that Netanyahu, his family and
his advisors were hysterical during the social protest wave, being
sure that the demonstrators are going to march on the PM in
Jerusalem and cause his toppling. Leef never realized her power
during that time.
Figure:
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, Netanyahu confidant, refuses to
permit true criminal investigations of the Netanyahus and other
senior government officers in the face of rampant government
corruption and blatant evidence of criminality. [vi]
The latest in a never-ending string of corruption scandals [vii]
involves the purchase of three submarines from German manufacturer
ThysenKrup, which the professional IDF and Ministry of Defense
objected to as unnecessary, and where Netanyahu’s confidants
apparently collected huge commissions. [viii]
Corruption in major IDF procurement is perceived as crossing the
line of public tolerance. A true criminal investigation against
Netanyahu or other senior State officers would have required their
suspension or resignation. To subvert due process, Attorney
Mandelblit invented a system where instead of criminal
investigations Police is only permitted to conduct “examinations”
in such cases, under his own micro-management. Media claim that he
actively subverts even such “examinations”.
Figure: Routine
Saturday, 7:00-10:00pm demonstration across from Attorney General
Mandelblit residence, demanding criminal investigation in a list of
corruption cases.
VIDEO:
Monsonego, Kfir. Violence in Christmas Eve demonstration in
front of the residence of Attorney General Mandelblit. [The chants
are mostly, “Police State”].
Figure:
Social
networks poster for the
December 31, 2016 Saturday night demonstration in front of Attorney
General Mandelblit’s residence: “Bibi is afraid of Meni”.
______
______
OccupyTLV, December 25 –
the violent abduction last night of Meni Naftali by Israel Police in
front of the residence of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit
astonished many of the participants in the small, routine, Saturday
night demonstration. Naftali himself appeared shell-shocked.
Participants in the demonstration did not number more than 30-40,
from children under 10 years of age to “mature’ women (not to
offend them by calling them old). The routine chants were, “Both
a friend and an investigator – Mandelblit resign!”, “The
public demands – criminal investigations!”, “Government,
corporations – crime organizations!”.
Already at the beginning
of the routine demonstration, around 7:30 pm, some experienced
participant said that it looked like police were planning violence
this time around. The signs were obvious: A line of police in a
threatening stance on the opposite sidewalk, some of them wearing
ski masks like warmers, hiding their faces, and others with no
visible name tags.
Participants of the
demonstration were not permitted to step down from the sidewalk to
the street. However, just as happened the week before, police
permitted one of the neighbors to step into the street and shove
himself within inches into the demonstrators’ faces in an attempt
to provoke violence. The neighbor was a “values” person, just
like Mandelblit himself - wearing a black yarmulke. [Orthodox Jews
in Israel have taken into the habit of referring to themselves as
“values” people, in contrast with secular Jews. At the same
time, some of their political, and religious leaders are notoriously
corrupt. Religious, military, and political leaders of the orthodox
variety have also been convicted in a series of serious sex crimes
cases.]
Such provocations were
unsuccessful last week and last night as well. The demonstrators
were not even close to being a violent crowd.
Then, around 8:30 pm,
Naftali was standing in the back of the sidewalk, near the drinks
and refreshments (there were Hanukkah candles and latkes –
Hanukkah potato pancakes - as well… ), where all of a sudden, for
no reason at all, a group of about five policemen stormed and
violently abducted him.
The end of that move is
seen in the figure above– where Naftali is subdued on the ground,
later to be handcuffed and transported to the police station.
Naftali and two other demonstrators were released hours after
midnight.
Communications have been
conducted with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in recent
weeks, in an effort to obtain opinions regarding the legal
boundaries regarding conduct of such small protests guards. In the
case of protest guards in front of the Supreme Court,, it appeared
that the law was relatively clear. Although the Supreme Court Guard
and the Israel Police initially tried to fabricate and enforce their
own law, they eventually permitted such protest guards to take
place.
In contrast, when it came
to protest guards in the proximity of the residences of public
service officers, it appeared that the legal situation is vague, and
eventually – was at the discretion of the Attorney General…
Therefore, there is good
reasons to suspect that the violent abduction of Meni Naftali last
night was conducted with the approval, if not by instructions of
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit himself…
Only a few months ago,
former Justice Minister, Professor Daniel Friedman stated in a
Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee hearing: “The
Attorney General cannot determine what the law of the State is, to
shut up the mouths of the entire State, never permit the expression
of opinion...” [ix]
Well,
last night it appeared that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was
exercising exactly such powers…
On
such matter Voltaire said: "To
learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to
criticize".
Beyond that, if you
inspect any area of material government corruption in Israel today,
scratching a bit below the surface, you find that the Godfather,
patronizing the corruption is the Attorney General – by preventing
true criminal investigations of government officers, and/or their
true criminal prosecution. It is an undeclared generalized “too
senior to fail, to senior to jail” policy, applied to:
-
The Prime Minister and his wife;
-
Senior Israel Police officer; [x]
-
Tax Authority officers - also involving abuse of whistle-blowers; [xi]
-
State Prosecution officers, who engage in serious misconduct, e.g., in the Roman Zadorov affair; [xii]
-
Judges, who were caught in Fraud Upon the Court; [xiii]
-
Magistrates, attorneys and banks, who perpetrate large-scale fraud on the debtors in the Debtors’ Courts, and [xiv]
-
Judges, attorneys and social workers, who abuse parties in the family courts, including the unbearable ease of removing children from their biological parents in Israel. [xv]
The unreasonable
concentration of power in the office Attorney General in Israel (a
nation with no constitution) has been the subject of legal and
political discussion for years. [xvi]
However, given the obvious political expediency of the current
situation for the party in power, no reform has ever been
implemented. Regardless, the current levels of both government
corruption and blatant disregard of the law by the Attorney General
are unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel. Possibly,
they are related to the unprecedented length of tenure of Netanyahu.
The maintenance of civil
society requires a working system of checks and balances – which
is an unstable equilibrium. On the other hand, once government is
corrupt, conditions tend to become stable at the new state of
affairs. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine correction of
current circumstances in Israel, where the Godfather holds such
excessive power and authority, absent fundamental regime change.
LINKS:
i
2016-02-10 Ravid, Barak. Court Rules: Sara Netanyahu Abused
Employees in Prime Minister's Residence. Haaretz
2014-03-20 Tait, Rober. Netanyahus sued by former caretaker over 'racist and physical abuse'. Telegraph/UK
iii
2016-01-01 Senyor, Eli. Sara Netanyahu questioned for 5 hours on
suspicions of corruption. Ynet
iv
2015-02-02 Staff. Weinstein
to rule on possible criminal probe against Sara Netanyahu in
'Bottlegate' affair. Jerusalem
Post
v
2014-04-01 Lior, Ilan. Israel Police to Drop Charges Against Daphni
Leef, Other Social Justice Activists. Haaretz
vi
2016-08-10 Israeli MP floats law to protect Netanyahu from criminal
inquiries, The Guardian/UK.
2016-07-11
Jess
Staufenberg. Benjamin
Netanyahu investigated for money laundering by Israeli authorities.
Independent/UK
2016-09-08
Police looking into fresh allegations against Netanyahu. Times of
Israel
2016-10-07 Weitz, Gidi. State
Comptroller Urges Attorney General to Open Criminal Probe of
Netanyahu. Haaretz
vii
2015-02-02 Beyond Bottle-gate: The Top 11 Scandals That Have Touched
Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.
Haaretz
read
more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.640386
viii
2016-11-23 Beaumont, Peter. Israeli police to probe alleged
Netanyahu submarine scandal. The Guardian/UK
2016-12-23
The Israeli Submarine Scandal: What We Know. Haaretz
ix
2016-06-08 Prof Friedman: The Attorney General cannot shut the mouth
of the entire nation. Newsly
xi
2014-09-29 Zernik, Joseph. ISRAEL: Attorneys from a non-existent
law-firm appeared as Public Defenders for whistle-blower Rafi Rotem…
OpEdNews.com
Rafi
Rotem - Israeli Tax Authority whistle-blower – OpEdNews.com series
xii
2015-12-15 Zernik, Joseph. The Zadorov Affair: False murder
conviction of a Ukrainian exposed massive corruption of the Israeli
justice system. OpEdNews.com
2016-07-12
Zernik, Joseph. ROMAN
ZADOROV - the Israeli Mendel Beilis. OpEdNews.com
2016-08-19
Zernik, Joseph. Roman
Zadorov affair: A court, which refuses to certify its own decisions,
is certified corrupt! OpEdNews.com
xiii
2014-01-03 Zernik, Joseph. ISRAEL: Large-scale Fraud in the Supreme
Court's Office of the Clerk. OpEdNews.com
xiv
2014-02-27 Zernik, J., ISRAEL: War hero Moti Ashkenazi+76 others
versus the medieval debtors' courts. OpEdNews.com
xv
2016-08-14 Zernik, Joseph. Israel: anti-judicial corruption
protester placed under compulsory psychiatric hospitalization.
OpEdNews.com
2016-10-09
Zernik, Joseph. Joelle Ben Simon affair continues - organized crime
in the Jerusalem Family Court. OpEdNews.com
xvi
2014-10-31 Yedidia
Z. Stern. Adviser or Prosecutor? Israel's Attorney General Can't be
Both. Israel Democracy Institute
2010-07
Gad Barzilai. The Attorney
General and the State Prosecutor: Is Institutional Separation
Warranted? Israel
Democracy Institute
1997-
Gad
Barzilai, David Nachmias Accountability and
authority of the office of
Attorney General. Israel
Democracy Institute
