Monday, July 5, 2004
Honest Reporting's latest entry emphasizes the recent Israeli Supreme Court decision on the Security Fence. Not only did the Court mandate a change in the path of the fence, a mandate that is being followed by the military authorities, but it also affirmed the legality of the fence itself, especially emphasizing the fence as a security necessity, rather than as a political experdient.
We examined petitioners' arguments, and have come to the conclusion, based upon the facts before us, that the Fence is motivated by security concerns ... Petitioners, by pointing to the route of the Fence, attempt to prove that the construction of the Fence is not motivated by security considerations, but by political ones. They argue that if the Fence was primarily motivated by security considerations, it would be constructed on the "Green Line," that is to say, on the armistice line between Israel and Jordan after the War of Independence. We cannot accept this argument. The opposite is the case: it is the security perspective ? and not the political one ? which must examine a route based on its security merits alone, without regard for the location of the Green Line.
Most of the press trumpeted the required path change, but more or less ignored the legitimacy finding and the greater meaning of the process. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen didn't:
Bear this decision in mind, please, when next someone refers to the Israelis as "Nazis" or otherwise talks about the nation as if it were a thuggish dictatorship ...
The early Zionists wanted Israel to be a light unto other nations. The other day, it was.
