Sunday, January 15, 2023

Is Yariv Levin Hurting or Helping Benjamin Netanyahu With the New Judicial System?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

At age 53, Levin has half the world worried about Israel's new government with him changing their judicial laws.  

"Yariv Gideon Levin (Hebrewיָרִיב גִּדְעוֹן לֵוִין, born 22 June 1969) is Israel's new Justice Minister;   an Israeli lawyer and politician who serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice. He served as Speaker of the Knesset in December 2022, previously serving that role from 2020 to 2021. He currently serves as a member of Knesset for Likud, and previously held the posts of Minister of Internal SecurityMinister of Tourism, and Minister of Aliyah and Integration.                               

Levin holds some honest but shocking views to the West with respect to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He opposes the creation of a Palestinian State, and believes in the right of Jews to remain in all parts of the land of Israel. He and others have been alerted to the fact that a Two State Solution right now is impossible; especially after seeing what is happening in Gaza.  He is not alone in his opinion.  Some call this a hawkish view.  It could be called a realistic view from where Israelis are sitting.  



Levin often criticizes the court system in Israel, claiming a small elite has taken over the system and tries to use it in order to define the values Israel lives by.

  Esther Hayut, age 69  (Hebrewאֶסְתֵּר חַיּוּת; born 16 October 1953) is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. She was sworn in on 26 October 2017, and is expected to serve as Chief Justice until October 2023.  In March 1990 Hayut was appointed as a judge in the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, and in 1996 was appointed to the Tel Aviv District Court where she gained tenure in 1997. In March 2003 Hayut was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, where she gained tenure in March 2004.

In May 2015 Hayut was appointed Chairperson of the Central Election Committee for the 20th Knesset.

Hayut was elected to replace Miriam Naor as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2017 and serve as such until 2023, according to the seniority method used in Israel.

The chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court attacked the sweeping changes to the country’s justice system planned by the new conservative government on Thursday, lending her voice to a growing outcry against the proposed overhaul.  Alan Dershowitz, a U.S. lawyer and staunch Israel defender, has also come out against the plan, saying were he in Israel, he would be joining the demonstrations.

Critics accuse the government of declaring war against the legal system, saying the plan will upend Israel’s system of checks and balances and undermine its democratic institutions by giving absolute power to the most right-wing coalition in the country’s history. The government says the overhaul is a necessary step to streamline governance and correct an imbalance that has granted the legal system too much sway.

Israel's new government has made overhauling the country's legal system a centerpiece of its agenda. It wants to weaken the Supreme Court, including by politicizing the appointment of judges and reducing the independence of government legal advisors.  The legal changes could help Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, evade conviction, or even make his trial disappear entirely. Since being indicted in 2019, Netanyahu has railed publicly against the justice system, calling it biased against him. He says the legal overhaul will be carried out responsibly.

          At age 73, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  was born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv, grew up in Jerusalem, and spent his adolescent years in the United States, where his father Benzion– a noted historian – taught Jewish history in Philadelphia.
Netanyahu's Likkud (Unity) political party:  Created in 1973 with the dominant participation of Gahal-the Herut-Liberal bloc, together with 2 smaller groups.  
Herut (HebrewחֵרוּתFreedom) was the major conservative nationalist political party in Israel from 1948 until its formal merger into Likud in 1988. It was an adherent of Revisionist Zionism.

The Platform included the retention of all territories acquired as the result of the Six Day War and economic liberalization.  In 1977 elections it won 43 seats in the Knesset and as the largest party formed the government coalition with its leader, Menahem Begin as premier.  Another leader was Yitzhak Shamir who succeed Begin in 1983 His party broke up in 1990 but formed a government together with other right-wing and religious parties after that.  They connect with who they can at the time to form a government that can work together---they hope.  

It is possible that even in Israel, the system has become so political that Likud had its enemies who wanted to get rid of Netanyahu.  It certainly has happened in the USA with the journalists involved with bias.  It's hard to imagine that Netanyahu, the star of Israel, could be accused of corruption.  When I heard it was over a box of cigars, I wanted to weep! 


 
Shani Koskas, Billionaire James Packer’s housekeeper, testified that the Netanyahus were frequent guests at his home in Caesarea, mostly when Packer was not there. She also told the court that at one of the meals prepared for them, she gave a box of cigars directly to Netanyahu.  Suspects in high places often depend on a stash of cash to talk their way out of graft allegations; his lawyer testified that he gave Netanyahy green light to accept gifts from friends.Sources said this week that Case 1000, as police have dubbed their investigation into allegations that Netanyahu illegally received gifts and other benefits from wealthy businessmen, is growing stronger.

In defense of Netanyahu, his salary for working as the Prime Minister is a fraction of what President Biden receives.  He's being paid bupkas, nothing in comparison, and his problems are 10 times larger involving life and death situations every minute.  Here we have former president Trump with secret files found in his home and Biden found with his former vice president days' secret files that he "forgot" about in his garage, yet Israel is all puffed up over a box of cigars that were found in Netanyahu's home.  

Of course as a Prime Minister he would try everything in his power to evade an unfair and biased conviction.  To convict Netanyahu of such a petty crime as is known to me and the public is asinine!  In such a case as this, he needs Alan Dershowitz as his lawyer.  What has been going on in the judicial system?  

                                   Accusations

Netanyahu is facing charges in three separate cases. The first is Case 1,000, which alleges that Netanyahu and his wife accepted more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods, including jewelry, cigars, champagne, and Mariah Carey tickets. In exchange, he offered political favors to the several billionaires who provided him with these gifts, One of those favors is reportedly what Israelis have started calling the "Milchan law," which cuts taxes for citizens who return to Israel after living abroad.

The second allegation, Case 2,000, is focused on a quid pro quo Netanyahu tried to get in exchange for more positive media coverage. Netanyahu reportedly pressured Arnon Mozes—publisher of one of Israel's major daily newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth—to back off of negative press about his administration. In exchange, Netanyahu reportedly offered to ask American right-wing billionaire and close ally Sheldon Adelson to limit the circulation of his Israel ­Hayom, a free daily paper and rival of Yedioth Ahronoth. In 2017, a transcript of a conversation between Netanyahu and Mozes leaked to the media. "Every day I have somebody who is killing me," Netanyahu complained, before pleading with Mozes "to lower the level of hostility toward me from 9.5 to 7.5." Adelson denies that he was ever aware of such a deal.

Case 4,000 also concerns the prime minister trading favors for friendlier media coverage. Netanyahu allegedly negotiated with Shaul Elovitch, a billionaire and majority shareholder of the Israeli telecommunications giant Bezeq, offering to advance regulation in the company's interest and make it easier for Elovitch to back a merger of two media companies that earned him millions. In exchange, between 2012 and 2017, Netanyahu and his associates got to guide coverage of the news site Walla, also owned by Bezeq. They reportedly had a shocking degree of editorial control: pushing flattering pictures, killing headlines and stories that were critical of the government, and even having a say in the hiring of editors and writers.

Are these indictments an attempted coup?  Looks to me that the opposing party has been watching Netanayhau over a period of time, spying, to gain enough evidence to go along with the box of cigars. 

In USA:  Even though heads of state have traditionally exchanged gifts as expressions of goodwill, the Constitution (Article I, Section 9) prohibits anyone in the US Government from receiving a personal gift from a foreign head of state without the consent of Congress. Today, the handling of gifts from a foreign official to any Federal Government employee, including the President, is largely governed by the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966 and further legislation passed in 1977. Congress has allowed Federal employees to retain any gift from a foreign government, as long as the total US retail value of the gifts presented at one occasion does not exceed an amount established by the General Services Administration (GSA).[1] Foreign official gifts over this “minimal value” are considered gifts to the people of the United States, which the recipient must purchase from GSA, at fair market value, in order to retain. The White House Gift Unit sees to the disposition of foreign official gifts that the President and First Lady do not retain. 

 Israel is only  74 years old while the USA is 246 years old.  I'd say that the USA has had time to resolve a gift problem while Israel, under the hatred it has been, never even considered getting a gift. 

 Bribing the press is another thing.  You can't bribe people to get what you need.   My suggested Punishment?  Write an essay on why he shouldn't have done this and its effects on future Israelis and publish it in the newspaper.  

Update: 9pm 1/15/23 I don't mean to make light with my punishment.  It's hard for me to face the idea that Netanyahu might be guilty of anything bad.  I certainly expect more out of him and of Israel than to be a copy-cat of what's ultimately been going on lately in the USA and in other countries of any dishonesty.  Israel has to remain as perfect as humanely possible for as always, it is an example for others to follow, not a country to sink and follow others.  Netanyahu must have a court trial and then it will be up to that judge or judges to decide on his punishment.  May the court continue to be as outstanding as in the past for us always to be proud of.  


Resource:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/former-top-israeli-legal-officials-oppose-judicial-reforms-96384111

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yariv_Levin#:~:text=Yariv%20Gideon%20Levin%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%99%D6%B8%D7%A8%D6%B4%D7%99%D7%91,role%20from%202020%20to%202021.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-11-03/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-trial-netanyahus-the-only-guests-to-get-boxes-of-cigars-witness-claims/00000184-3a07-d46d-ab96-babf24960000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Israel



1 comment:

  1. Yair Levin, Gantz, and the leftists, ad nauseam, most definitely are wreaking havoc and stirring up civil strife in Israel. They have allowed the PA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad terrorists along with the anti-Israel EU and UN for too long to steal our Jewish heritage in the ancestral and Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.



    Area C is being stolen from us every day and billions of dollars are being provided by the EU to the PA to smother the precious Jewish heartland with illegal Arab settlements.



    I have been there and have seen this thievery with my own eyes. This is land given to us by HaShem and we must restore, redeem, and liberate it from those who wish harm to the reborn Jewish state and thus prevent another Shoah to afflict our embattled Jewish brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. Area C is being stolen from us every day and billions of dollars are being provided by the EU to the PA to smother the precious Jewish heartland with illegal Arab settlements. I have been there and have seen this thievery with my own eyes. This is land given to us by HaShem and we must restore, redeem, and liberate it from those who wish harm to the reborn Jewish state and thus prevent another Shoah to afflict our embattled Jewish brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. Victor .

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