Our sources told of a highly developed structure of lawyers, activists, and even public relations professionals that has been constructed around the terrorists. Upon further investigation, we became convinced that they were right about that. A major part of this architecture is provided by academic institutions abroad and in Israel running law programs geared to producing skilled, proficient lawyers of a certain bent who together form an army for the protection of terrorism suspects’ civil liberties.
One such person, Dr. Shiri Krebs, was written up in Makor Rishon after she published a comprehensive, aggressive study of administrative detentions. Years ago she had learned the tools of her trade as an aide to High Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinish, tools that she carried with her all the way to an international law chair at the University of Santa Clara, in the midst of leftist Californian academia. Naturally, Krebs is also a staff member of the Israel Democracy Institute.
In the beginning, Krebs sold her wares and research abroad, where the major buyers of anti-Israel wares are located. Now, having besmirched the State of Israel elsewhere, she is trying to import her faulty product to our country, in Hebrew, in an effort to convince the Israeli public that administrative detention constitutes a severe violation of civil liberties and ought to be discontinued.
To read Krebs’ study is to understand the constant difficulties that the Shin Bet faces in the battle of minds against the terrorists and their supporters.
It also is to understand what gave the two murderers confidence in their fight to be reunited as a happy family in Jordan. They are as aware as we are of the ongoing deterioration in Israel’s counter-terrorism abilities and of the limits of Israeli power.
They saw, just as we did, how prisoners on a hunger strike regained their “rights” to television including two Arabic channels, joint meals, and free higher education.
They saw, just as we did, how a rightist government was so sympathetic to Mahmoud Abbas and his claims about the psychological need of PA families to get back the bodies of their murderous relatives, with the prime minister’s office going so far as to publish a press release denigrating keeping the bodies in Israeli hands by stating that “Israel does not traffic in bodies.”
They saw, just as we did, the fancy and impressive ceremony in which the dead murderers were officially recognized by the Palestinian Authority as shahidim (martyrs), and the honor guards that accompanied them to their final resting places as if they were soldiers rather than murderers. The only thing missing was an IDF honor guard and delegation from the government of Israel.
This is why they were confident that their lives too could be better if they just persisted in their ways, and surely enough, they persisted in their fight until they managed to “convince” the Israeli authorities to let them reunite in Jordan. Yet, it must be noted, these contemptible beings remain as contemptible as ever, and could not even be bothered to invite Prime Minister Netanyahu to their second, symbolic wedding ceremony.
He should have been the best man.
First published in Makor Rishon (Hebrew), June 2012. Translated from Hebrew by David B. Greenberg.