Justice Revisited or Revised?

Well, it’s that time of year again – Amirfest, or perhaps Rabinfest.  For those of you who are not in Israel let me explain how this is traditionally observed.  Towards the end of October, the local media start writing inflammatory articles designed to whip up a public frenzy against the murderer of Yitzchak Rabin, the goal being to see who can inspire the most radical responses possible.  So far the one that sticks in my mind for this year is one individual who suggested that Yigal Amir’s wife and week old infant be strung up by the neck with him.

Make no mistake.  By no means do I condone assasination, and Amir certainly deserves to serve every day of the punishment handed down to him.  Like those far to the Left of myself, I believe that the legal system must be allowed to operate and that justice must be served.  The difference is that those on the Left seem to believe that that the legal system only applies until it comes to Amir.

Unfortunately the Left still fails to comprehend the true nature of Amir’s greatest political crime.  Yes of course he killed Rabin, but those on the left will be the first to concede that Rabin as Rabin was no different than any other victim but will tell you “it’s what Rabin represented that Amir killed and that’s what makes this different.”

That’s exactly the point.  What Rabin represented was the democratic process of letting the people choose their leaders and deciding by the ballot rather than by the bullet.  But by the same token he has caused the Left to encourage the destruction of the same democracy under the guise of “justice.”

It amazes me to see how eagerly the talkback lefties on news sites and the interviewees on the radio consistently speak of creating new laws with which to punish Amir and apply them retroactively.  Creating and applying a punishment to someone which wasn’t in existence at the time they commited the crime is the antithesis of democracy worthy of the most totalitarian of countries.  If Israel were to create a law that would in any way work retroactively to worsen the situation of a single arab terrorist sitting in an Israeli jail the entire Left would raise a howl and every one of its lawyers would beg to represent the “victim.”  But the moment it’s a Jew under discussion they rush to invent new punishments and pile them on. Amir can barely ask for a roll of tissue paper for his cell without the media reporting it and 600 talkbackers suggesting reasons why Amir shouldn’t be allowed to go to blow his nose for the rest of his life.  Yet this seems normal to them.  With a straight face they will explain to you why “Amir is different.”  But that’s just the point – Amir isn’t different – not under the law that existed on Novermber 4, 1995.  Perhaps it should have been different…but it wasn’t.  Post-mortem, people often rewrite history.  Already the Left has managed to focus Rabin’s legacy on his miltary career and his victimhood in search of “peace.”  His willingness to give away parts of his country for a peace guarantee from Arafat (whose greates legacy was that he never kept a promise in his life), his slaughtering of fellow Jews (including an attack on his later successor Menachem Begin) on the illfated Altalena, and his history of alcoholism while in office are glossed over.  But that’s the difference between law and history.  It is safe to rewrite history only to the extent that it affects the past and safe to rewrite law only to the extent that it applies to the future.  In the case of Rabin and Amir, history is being rewritten in order to encourage people to demand that the law be rewritten to affect the past.   

That, in the end is Amir’s greatest (by his calculations) “success.”  He, by himself has become the catalyst for the Left’s unveiling of its own hypocrisy.  The Leftist who calls for Amir to suffer punishments that were not on the books when he committed his crime, effectively negates ANY possibility of fair justice.

There are many, yes even on the right, who wish that there had been a more stringent law under which to punish Yigal Amir.  But to do so now under a newly created Yigal Amir law does nothing but grant victory to Amir by admitting to him that he’s caused a state of affairs where the left considers the laws of the state to be subject to the individual whims of the moment.  Even the call to allow such a state of affairs is so repugnant as to cause many to sympathize with Amir and place him in the role of the victim of a witch hunt.  The man got his punishment, let him serve it anonymously and without celebrity.  Giving him a stage is a victory for noone but himself and our national tabloids.

ILL-frustration

I just opened YNET to discover once again that the local online press seems to think its readers so amazingly stupid that we’re incapable of understanding a sensational article unless it’s illustrated with a “victim.”  This is especially true when it’s of a sexual nature and a female is a victim whether it’s a rape or a molestation etc. though it’s done in other situations as well. 

The headline this time was about a rash of pedophilism taking place down south.  Next to it was a picture of a little girl in a playground.  In many cases these pictures have “illustration,” and sometimes even “picture not related to article” underneath it.  This time it was the main story on the main page and the only way to know in this case that the pictured little girl was not (thank goodness!) an abuse victim is if you happen to run your mouse over the picture (and even then it doesn’t have the disclaimer – for all we know maybe this is an abused child being used as an illustration - that’s what we’re supposed to presumably believe).

Why?!  No, my question isn’t why they’re not using a picture of an actual abused child.  My question is why they need to use a picture of a potential victim at all!  Do they think that without it the readers will be sitting around saying “a child, a girl…now what’s that?  I can’t seem to remember what one of those look like.  Oh one of those – like in the picture!”  Anyone incapable of figuring out what a child in a playground looks like to the extent where they need a child’s picture in order to understand the article  probably lacks the intelligence to understand 3 words put together let alone a whole article.

If you must have a picture because today’s online journalism demands accompanying pictures then take a picture of an empty playground, or of police consulting (to make us think of police trying to figure out how to catch these guys).  What is the point of showing a picture of an unconnected child unless they either think their readers moronic.  Unless they’re using her as bait to appeal to the pedophile community to read the article…?