A while back, several years ago actually when Michael Ben Ari was in the Knesset, he had a tizzy about something that the Supreme Court did or other and called them a “Junta.” I have a strong dislike for Ben Ari since he embodies collective ignoramus anger. He’s like Trump with less money and less self control, more anger and less humor and more annoying amazingly.

Most people hate him because he’s a “Kahanist” though that means nothing to me. I don’t like him because he’s off-putting. He’s also my neighbor. His brother was the local mafia boss who I paid taxes to for a while. Annoying family.

Anyway, I see this in Maariv just now:

בית המשפט העליון: מוטציה מוגדרת שמשכפלת את עצמה

התקרית שבה השתיקה השופטת מרים נאור אם שכולה באופן משפיל ומבזה היא שיעור מאלף עד כמה הניתוק והאטימות קשים. מישהו בהיכלות הצדק צריך לענות על השאלה: כיצד ייתכן שקודש הקודשים של הדמוקרטיה הישראלית מנוהל כמו חונטה?

Supreme Court: A Self Perpetuating Mutation

That Justice Miriam Na’or (note, Na’or ironically means “enlightened”) can silence a bereaved mother in such a condescending disrespectful way is an instructive lesson on how severe the disconnect and inflexibility is. Someone in the Halls of Justice needs to answer the question: How is is that the Holy of Holies of Israeli Democracy functions like a Junta?

This was written by someone named Galit Distel-Atbarion. Since her name doesn’t ring any bells and she has two last names, and her bio said she wrote some book about peacocks, I assume she’s one of those feminist types who believes in equality or whatever. She doesn’t like the fact that a judge put down a woman. Has she been reading Ben Ari lately?

Incidentally, the woman she put down was yelling at this other woman judge for not destroying the houses where criminals happen to live. I’d yell at her myself for advocating the destruction of capital for no reason (I advocate transfer of the capital to the victim, which makes a hell of a lot more sense), but yelling at mothers whose sons died for the State for nothing is politically incorrect, and I’m very concerned about political correctness.

Most people who remember that the Junta thing is a Ben Ari line are probably laughing at that. I’m rather laughing at the irony of someone thinking it’s unnatural that the holy of holies of democracy functions like a Junta. Even more so in the Israeli version of it, where the court literally elects itself.

In any democracy, the government still judges itself and decides cases for itself. The court is the government and the legislature is the government and the executive is the government. The government cannot check the government. That makes no sense. Anything deciding its own cases is a Junta. Democracy creates a ruling class, which is a Junta.

It is colloquially used to describe a totalitarian system. When you take a wider view, namely that the government decides the limitations of the government, you realize that a Junta is the only thing it could possibly be.

This is also why the Supreme Court in the US always, eventually, puts a nice rubber stamp on anything any president ever does.

Congratulations Ben Ari on finally making it mainstream. Too bad almost everyone else does not realize the true irony of your statement. No matter how you organize it or whatever you do to fix it, the Supreme Court will always be a Junta, until courts become fully private and can limit legislative and executive power from outside the government entirely.