Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit’s coup d’état

By Dogan Akman    

By what authority did the Attorney-General cause havoc in the electoral process; manipulate the electoral system by undermining the opportunity for the Prime Minister and the Likud coalition government to carry on while radically improving the chances of other political formations to form the next government?

If the counter-argument is that the Attorney-General has not done any such thing by merely indicting the Prime Minister, then the next question is: by what authority is the Attorney-General doing indirectly that which he is not authorised to do directly. None.

What prevented the Attorney-General from doing the decent thing and postpone his decision until the Prime Minister leaves politics? This is not the first time Attorney-generals, even in normal times, put the interests of the state above pursuing a Prime Minister or, better still, an executive President for allegedly committing one or more serious offences instead of the chicken-sh.t ones involved in the present case.

And the present times in Israel are far from normal and need to be handled by a superbly qualified leader like the current Prime Minister instead of  some retired generals who so far have yet to show that  they have the right stuff  or for that matter any good stuff  to handle complex international political issues and problems facing Israel other than suggesting  that they are prepared to engage in the kinds appalling policies that resulted in the disastrous Oslo accords by now submerged in the blood of innocent Israelis and that of brave IDF soldiers.

What is to be done about it? I suggest the following possibilities:

First, to delay the election for one month;

Second, if possible, to reconvene the Knesset to enact a law granting the Prime Minister immunity from prosecution so long as he occupies his present position or the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs;

Third, request the President of Israel to rise above politics and exercise whatever powers he may have to remedy this problem;

Fourth, a referendum to afford the electorate to express its opinion as to whether

1. The Attorney-General acted in the best interests of the nation, and
2. If not, he ought to stay the charges for the period suggested above.

I realise that some might consider of the foregoing suggestions to be drastic but then again the Attorney-General’ willful drastic decision to subvert the electoral process demands such solutions.

By the way, I am not partial to Likud or to any other party. As a member of the Diaspora, I have no since I have no right to vote.

My sole interests is that the election is conducted on a level field and that, what I consider to be the

political opportunism of the Attorney-General of Israel does not fatally subvert the electoral process and thereby create a situation prejudicial to Israel’s national interests.

The writer lives in Canada. Prior to his retirement in 2009, he taught university, served as a Judge of the Provincial Court of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and then joined the Federal Department  of Justice where he was employed first, as a Crown prosecutor, and then as a civil litigator. Besides his academic publications, since his retirement, the writer published papers on a variety of subjects, mostly focused on political issues.