Even Israelis who tried very, very hard would have found it difficult to evade the flood of hysterical speeches and battle cries by senior officials in the legal system this past year. Our state attorneys, our judges, and our advisors are seen on every screen, lamenting the hostile treatment to which they are subjected by the citizenry and warn about the risk of the public losing its faith in law enforcement officials.
Unfortunately, behind the smokescreen of the "enlightened" and the accusing finger they point at anyone outside Israeli legal circles, a disturbing series of legal failures has taken place. But they aren't enough to cause legal scholars to stop their mourning for a moment to accept responsibility or look inward.
The latest product of the state attorney's faulty manufacturing line is the case against Sara Netanyahu involving illicit expenditures at the Prime Minister's Residence, which can only be seen as law enforcement's flagship case. What didn't the people at the Justice Ministry do to convince us about the gravity of the case: thousands of hours of costly investigation time and time spent reviewing countless scandals that generation thousands of pages of evidence, as well as a state's witness who was enlisted who tried to hide his personal details. After an indictment was filed, the State Attorney for the Jerusalem District was sent to an interview in which he said "the scope of the fraud is significant," and the attorney general wanted three judges to handle the case because of its seriousness. In the end, only one hearing was required for the State Attorney's Office to agree to cancel the trial, and a process of mediation ended with a minor charge that did not include fraud.
Another case in which the State Attorney's warnings recently broke down in court has to do with two minors who were arrested in connection with the arson killing of the Dawabshe family in Duma. They wound up being charged in connection with a different incident of arson. In that case, too, there was no trial and the original indictment was withdrawn after it turned out that the confession by one of the minors had been secured through an illegal interrogation trick that the judge called "unfair, to say the least, offensive, and threatening." In the Duma case itself, the State Attorney's office was forced to sign a plea bargain with a different minor who had been accused of involvement. And that's only the beginning.
A month ago, the State Attorney's Office took a tumble when it represented Army Radio correspondent Hadas Shtaif, who was sued for slandering broadcaster Natan Zahavi. After the ruling was handed down, the prosecution asked the court to delay its implementation, but the request was rejected and it was ordered to pay costs for what the presiding judge called "weak and baseless" conduct.
Meanwhile, the State Attorney's Office reached out to Israel Police intelligence chief Guy Nir, who is also suing Shtaif, and suggested that he forgo legal proceedings in exchange for half a million shekels. Nir refused, and the State Attorney's Office stopped representing Shtaif. If you were wondering, the hundreds of thousands of shekels Shtaif lost will be paid out of state coffers.
All this happened while the State Attorney's Office is granted her questionable immunity from criminal charges in another affair, and is locked into a clear conflict of interest in how it is treating Shtaif.
Outside the courthouse, too, State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan and the system he is in charge of are failing. Two weeks ago, a report by Judge David Rozen determined that Nitzan and others did everything possible to prevent an investigation into former Israel Police Commissioner Yochanan Danino, in a manner suggestive of "outside interests and special treatment."
But all these are minor issues that do not prevent the gatekeepers from constantly preaching about the issue and calling on others to uphold a standard of ethics. Transparency? Responsibility? They leave that to other people.
