VZCZCXRO6012
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHTV #0159/01 0181208
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 181208Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5062
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 000159 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KJUS KWBG IS
SUBJECT:  THE RIGHT TAKES ON THE JUDICIARY OVER AMBASSADOR'S MEETING 
WITH HIGH COURT PRESIDENT 
 
REF: TEL AVIV 3111 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (SBU) On the eve of the Annapolis conference in November 2007, a 
group of right-wing Israeli parliamentarians accused the President 
of Israel's Supreme Court of violating professional ethics by 
meeting with the US Ambassador to Israel (reftel) to discuss 
settlement and separation fence construction issues as well as legal 
cases. The group of legislators urged the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs to lodge a sharp protest with the State Department over what 
they viewed as interference in the Israeli judicial system.  They 
were also vocal in the media in demanding that Justice Beinish 
either resign or recuse herself from all cases concerning settlement 
and barrier fence issues. The same group of right-wing legislators 
has now put its protest in writing. In an unprecedented letter, 
addressed to Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish and released in 
the wake of President Bush's visit to Israel, the group of twenty 
MKs once again demands that she recuse herself from presiding over 
all cases pertaining to settlement and barrier fence issues. 
Beinish, who is not likely to bow to dictates from the legislature, 
is not expected, even by her toughest adversaries, to capitulate. 
However, her opponents may have other strategic objectives in mind, 
such as discrediting her rulings to the point where the settler 
community en masse is emboldened to flout them. 
 
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THE PRESIDENT CREATES A PRECEDENT 
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¶2. (SBU) Precedent is a key argument in all legal discourse and 
those who wish to see Justice Beinish divested of the power to rule 
on settlement and separation fence issues argue that her discussion 
of such issues with the US Ambassador was "unprecedented." (Note: 
This is of course not the case. The Ambassador held several meetings 
with Beinish's predecessor, continuing a tradition of such meetings 
with the court.  End Note.)  In the initial wave of protest in 
November, National Union-National Religious Party (NU-NRP) MK Uri 
Ariel wrote to Justice Beinish that "By the very essence of agreeing 
to meet and discuss this subject with the Ambassador you have 
damaged the standing of the Supreme Court... and turned it into a 
political organization." While MK Ariel focused his ire principally 
on Justice Beinish, his faction colleague MK Arieh Eldad accused the 
United States of "crude intervention in the Israeli legal system and 
an attempt to pressure the Supreme Court."  (Note: Again, this is 
not the case.  The office call was a normal diplomatic contact 
intended to improve our understanding of past rulings.  There was no 
attempt to influence pending cases.  Indeed, this would be almost 
impossible to do; in the Israeli system rulings are issued by 
multi-judge panels which often do not even include the president of 
the court.  End Note.)  MK Zevulun Orlev [NU-NRP], who chairs the 
Knesset's State Audit Committee, pulled the rhetoric and the 
campaign away from a pre-Annapolis assault on the United States and 
its officials and redirected it at Israel's highest legal court and 
its president. 
 
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TARGETING THE PRESIDENT...AND THE COURT 
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¶3. (SBU) While Orlev's leadership of the campaign has so far 
prevented the rhetoric from spinning out of control, he initially 
went as far as to demand the resignation of the Supreme Court 
President: "This is a serious action and absolute tampering with the 
judicial establishment," he said.  "This is more than an appearance 
of American influence on the rulings of the Supreme Court and 
abrogation of its considerations against political interests."   At 
present, however, Orlev's campaign has dropped the demand that 
Beinish resign altogether and is instead seeking to limit her 
ability to rule on West Bank issues.  The open letter to Beinish, 
signed by twenty members of right-wing and ultra-orthodox factions 
in the Knesset, claims that the court president's meeting with the 
Ambassador jeopardized Israel's sovereignty and the independence of 
the judiciary and that it is therefore incumbent upon Beinish to 
cease such discussions. The letter also calls for Beinish to recuse 
herself from future rulings on issues related to settlements and the 
separation barrier.  However they stop short of calling for her 
resignation. 
 
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PRECEDENT BUT NO PROTOCOL 
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¶4. (SBU) The members of Knesset, whose letter to the President of 
the Supreme Court is itself a break with precedent, admit that they 
have not had access to any report on the meeting, nor do they know 
for a fact that political issues were discussed. This salient point 
 
TEL AVIV 00000159  002 OF 002 
 
 
emerged when Knesset Member Orlev was interviewed by Israel Radio on 
January 14 and admitted that he had asked the MFA whether such a 
report existed and if he could review it. Orlev said that to date he 
had not received an answer and he did not plan to wait very long for 
one. What was clear, he asserted, based on his own experience of 
meetings with ambassadors, was that they did not hold such meetings 
merely to hear others' ideas but to pass on a message and to exert 
influence. (Note: Orlev has never met with the Ambassador.)  Pressed 
by the radio interviewer as to whether this could be said even of a 
supremely democratic country such as the United States, Orlev said 
it had been reported, only days ago, that over dinner at the Prime 
Minister's residence, visiting President Bush had asked the Israeli 
cabinet to "look after" PM Olmert "and let him work," so "who knows 
what the Ambassador asked of the President of the Supreme Court..." 
The end result, Orlev insisted, was a loss of public confidence in 
the credibility of court and what was required in this case was that 
at the very least, and if only for the sake of appearances, Justice 
Beinish needed to recuse herself from presiding over settlement and 
separation barrier cases, at least in the foreseeable future. 
 
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A BARRAGE FROM THE BENCH 
------------------------ 
 
¶5. (SBU) Acknowledging receipt of the parliamentarians' letter, 
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish responded: "Your claims that 
the court is conducting political discussion or accepting dictates 
from anyone, Israeli or foreign, are delusional, false and baseless" 
she declared in a press statement, adding that her predecessors had 
routinely met with foreign diplomats, both at the request of the 
latter and at the request of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
but that such meetings had refrained from addressing politics or 
issues pending before the court. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶6. (SBU) Almost three decades have passed since then Prime Minister 
Menachem Begin made access to the Supreme Court a rightful resort 
for Palestinian plaintiffs in appeal hearings against the occupying 
authority. Since then, the court has been mired in controversy and 
dispute over land and settler issues in the occupied territories. 
The attack on Justice Beinish, however, marks a low benchmark in 
relations between the right-wing and the judiciary in which insult 
and disrespect may prove to be more than merely personal. The 
parliamentary group headed by MK Orlev may only represent one sixth 
of the plenary but comprises members from six factions, including 
one Kadima MK. Such a challenge to the authority of Israel's highest 
legal instance by the right wing over settlement issues may be 
designed to provide a pretext for settler activists to deny the 
legitimacy of any future high court rulings on settlement 
evacuations, which could complicate efforts to implement Israel's 
Roadmap commitments. 
 
JONES