even if it were true<\/em>, there are excellent ways for a democratic state to deal with this fairly and without political bias. You can make stricter laws about transparency of funding sources and expenses, so as to make sure NGOs don’t get or give money from or to hostile forces (Im Tirzu might have a problem with that, B’Tselem will not). If there is any specific suspicion, the police and state attorneys can deal with it in the courts.<\/p>\nBut we have been trained to believe that responding to security threats is something that has to be done quickly and with little process. We have been trained to accept decisions that were made\u00a0with little forethought, in the heat of emotion.<\/p>\n
Guess what. Democracies make decisions slowly, and they do this on purpose. It can be excruciatingly frustrating, as anyone in any democratic school has certainly learned, but you do it because it ensures a resolution that is well thought-through, follows prior decisions, and is agreeable as possible to all sides. As soon as you give up that slowness — and in Israel, when it comes to security issues, I think it was given up before I was born — you are allowing for bad governance that harms everyone involved.<\/p>\n
But as someone on Twitter bitterly remarked a few days agoKatsav trial<\/a> only proves that while the citizens of Israel are okay with being screwed by their leaders, we’re not okay with it being done one citizen at a time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Footnotes<\/h3>\n