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March 26, 2007
Understanding the conflict
Israeli law
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Israel prides itself on having an independent judiciary and there is no doubt that, from time to time, the Israeli Supreme Court has delivered judgements at odds with the prevailing trends and dominant preferences of the ruling elite. Yet, on important issues, there is also no doubt that the Court has often chickened out and the issue remains: to what extent is the Supreme Court the guarantor of civil liberties and human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, to what extent a fig-leaf for their effective suppression.
Judge Barak
Gideon Spiro
January 2007
This piece was originally published on the Yesh Gvul website on the retirement of Supreme Court President Aharon Barak.
"As Aharon Barak's retirement as Supreme Court President drew near, the farewell ceremonies have multiplied – and in all of them, he was showered with superlatives bordering on a personality cult... I listened and read all the superlatives, while pinching myself: is that the Aharon Barak I know? After all, my friends and I have been struggling all these years for human rights and democracy, and somehow - not only have we not found Barak on our side, but amazingly he was almost always facing us as an opponent. No doubt about it: Barak has succeeded in creating around him a "human-rights man" aura even outside Israel. This is a huge propaganda feat, almost unparalleled in human history - considering that Barak is, to a large extent, the judicial designer, enabler and backer of the regime of human-rights abuses in the Occupied Territories."
