By Moshe Feiglin
February 1, 2007
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The exact details do not interest me. The past foibles of Plaintiff A don't interest me either. The court will decide if it was done with coercion or not. These stories are great for the media, because they present a golden opportunity to sell pornography in the guise of public report and debate. But amidst the din of reporters and the flashes of the cameras, the real question has completely disappeared:
Was President Katzav unfaithful to his wife, or not?
To find the answer to that question, I do not have to know A's occupation. And the exact measure of her cooperation is also irrelevant. Only one thing interests me: Was he unfaithful to his wife? Yes? Or no?
The media, the police, the State Prosecution and the courts are concerned with a completely different question. What interests them is if President Katzav broke the law. That is very important. But the question of faithfulness goes even deeper.
We live in a culture of disloyalty. It begins with the sphere closest to us; our spouse and children. It ends with the national sphere. Disloyalty to our homeland, the Land of Israel, has become a national sport. Nobody has any problem with lauding terror collaborator, Tali Fachimah, at a posh conference at which Yossi Beilin also spoke. Simply because Fachimah's treachery is the tip of the iceberg of the disloyal culture that has encompassed our entire society. Traitor Udi Adiv, who served seventeen years in prison for spying for Syria, was accepted as a political science instructor at Haifa University. Today he teaches at the Open University. Nobody has any problem with that. I wonder what would happen if Yigal Amir would get out of jail and teach political science at Bar Ilan University?
Israeli society futilely attempts to exchange its lost culture of loyalty for a culture of disloyalty supported by the law. Clearly, it will never work. Law is supposed to express culture; it cannot replace it. If unfaithfulness to one's spouse is culturally acceptable, a thousand laws and ordinances to formalize the disloyalty will not make it morally legitimate.
The newscasters all gravely explain that State Attorney Mazuz scrutinized the evidence thoroughly. They explain that all the investigative mechanisms did their work in an exemplary manner, and that we must have faith in them. But when the entire culture is disloyal, nobody has faith in anyone. What was the police interest in breaking the story now? Why were equally serious allegations against others not investigated? Who does the State Attorney represent? Me? You? Who appointed him and why? Who are the Supreme Court justices? Who chose them? What is their cultural orientation? Do any of them have skeletons in their closets similar to those of which the President is accused? (I can testify that at least one of them has a much more serious skeleton in his closet).
No concept scares me more than the 'Rule of Law.' A minor criminal breaks the law. An intermediate criminal evades the law. But a major criminal uses the law.
The Rule of Law is a concept taken straight from Sodom. Israel must aspire to the Rule of Justice. When Israel's public is convinced that the legal system serves justice, the law will be respected. But now that Israel has despaired of searching for justice; now that it has decided that there is no G-d, no truth, no justice and no morality; now that Israeli society agrees that truth is subjective; that everyone has his own story -- the law is nothing more than a stoplight to direct traffic between the various narratives. The problem is that the person activating the stoplight is a king. Even if he is a fair person, he cannot but force his narrative on mine.
What went on deep inside the President's office is mainly a matter of viewpoint. Some people are convinced by A's attorney. Others think that the same facts point to blatant blackmail. That is why I have no faith in the farce surrounding the Presidential scandal. None of the 'facts' in the charge sheet have any significance. Maybe they are true, maybe they are false. All I want to hear from the President is one clear statement. Was he unfaithful to his wife? Yes or no?
If he was unfaithful to his wife -- even if everything that happened was absolutely legal -- he is completely unworthy. And if he was not unfaithful, then even if the Rule of Law Gang (in the words of former Justice Minister Chaim Ramon's associates) convicts him, as far as I'm concerned, he can remain in his position.
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