Israel’s High Court of injustice and the Red Cross Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/israels-high-court-of-injustice-and-the-red-cross/

Israel’s High Court of Justice has once again revealed its misplaced priorities. And that’s putting it delicately.

In a hearing on Monday about National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s policy to bar Red Cross visits to Nukhba terrorists in Israeli prisons until the organization gains access to the hostages in Gaza, the judges made their outrage clear. But their fury was not aimed at Hamas or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has utterly abandoned its humanitarian mission. Instead, it was directed at their own government and prison authorities.

The ex parte session was spurred by a petition on behalf of the terrorists. It was submitted by the usual left-wing “suspects”: the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights, HaMoked (the Center for the Defense of the Individual) and Gisha.

These NGOs pulled a typical fast one. They first acknowledged that “Hamas doesn’t provide information about those it holds in captivity, and refuses to allow Red Cross visits to the hostages … in Gaza [among whom] are those who were murdered in Hamas captivity.”

They then went on to get to the crux of their foul maneuver to equate victim and perpetrator, by stating that “Israel’s obligations toward those it holds do not change because of Hamas’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

As if Israel’s “holding” of mass murderers is comparable to Hamas’s “holding” of innocent captives.

Not surprisingly, Justice Yitzhak Amit, the self-anointed president of the Supreme Court, agrees with this twisted logic. But the reasoning that he proffered during the hearing went beyond woke politics to focus on his personal reputation and that of his hallowed perch in the international arena.   

“Right now, what’s … being publicized abroad [is] that there is starvation, that dozens of prisoners are dying, that it’s basically the Israeli Guantánamo,” he bellowed, banging on his table. “And you’re putting us, the court, at the forefront, on the front line.”