The following speech should have been given at the induction of Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn, by Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit or by Nissenkorn himself.
"Over the past few decades, there have been increasing attempts to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon. The legal tactic has been to gin up allegations of criminality by one's political opponents based on the flimsiest of legal theories. This is not a good development. This is not good for our political life and it is not good for the criminal justice system.
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"As long as I am in office, the legal system will not be used for partisan political ends. The proper investigative and prosecuted standards of the department of justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result. We saw two different standards of justice emerge. One that applies to the prime minister and his associates and the other that applies to everybody else. We cannot allow this ever to happen again.
"I have set up an investigative team to get to the bottom of what happened and it will determine whether there were any laws were broken and if there were, those who broke the laws will be held accountable. This cannot be, and it will not be a tit-for-tat exercise. We are not going to lower the standards just to get a result. The only way to break away from a dual system of justice is to make sure we scrupulously apply a single and proper standard of justice for everybody.
"Now, I have a general idea of how the investigation is going. As I have indicated, some aspects of the matter are being examined as potential crimes. But we have to bear in mind, as the Supreme Court recently reminded us, there is a difference between abuse of power and a federal crime. Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime."
Unfortunately, a speech like this was not given, but these are the words, almost verbatim, that US Secretary of State William Barr spoke last week, referring to the "Durham investigation."
"Criminalizing politics" – the targeting, the selective enforcement and the double standard – is a problem that threatens to paralyze Israeli politics and destroy the justice system here just as it has harmed our great ally from across the ocean.
You can try to fight this fire with fire. In response to cigars and champagne – the "Fifth Dimension" will be put forth. Against the precedent of the crime of positive coverage – the Harpaz affair and Mendelblit recordings will be dusted off and raised. Against the unfounded conflict of interest agreements produced by the consulting and legislative department – there will be no less blatant examples presented of judges' and attorneys' behavior.
Make no mistake. We shall win. We will win because justice is on our side. In the absence of effective supervision and control, the judiciary really has become a place where a judge can lie and deceive and be assured that no evil will befall him. Where there are no consequences for scandalous decisions, delay of justice, lies, and concealment, and the appointment of associates. But we must pursue just justice.
In the just struggle for cleaning the stables, we must not skip the difficult questions and become a mirror image of the other side's agitators. Not every mishap is corruption, not every mistake justifies decapitation and not every issue is criminal. Criminalizing politics is the doomsday weapon of the justice system. The way to deal with such weapons is through its dismantling, and not through a war of total and mutual annihilation.
The current government included "national reconciliation" among its principles. It must, therefore, work to disarm the public sphere from the nuclear weapons of the justice system. That is the only way to achieve reconciliation. It would be a shame to find out that this is only lip service and a ceasefire intended for rearming purposes. The burden of proof is on the shoulders of the coalition's elected officials, on both of its sides.
