{"id":2062,"date":"2011-02-01T10:41:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T08:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=2062"},"modified":"2011-02-01T11:22:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T09:22:02","slug":"land-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2011\/02\/land-grab\/","title":{"rendered":"Land Grab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"\"<\/a>\n\t

IDF Chief of Staff candidate Yoav Galant<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

UPDATE: The Attorney General has decided<\/a> <\/em>not to defend Galant. Crime, it seems, will <\/em>not be rewarded in this case!<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most frustrating parts of living in Israel is when people think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re above the law. You see it on the highways (speeding, not yielding the right of way in a traffic circle) and in apartment complexes (doing construction in shared areas without clearing it with the other residents first), just to name a few.<\/p>\n

But when a public official is caught blatantly abusing his position by grabbing land that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t belong to him, that reflects badly on all of us. Which is why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so upsetting that the nominee for the next IDF Chief of Staff, Yoav Galant, was found in a report published last week<\/a> by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss to have illegally taken property belonging to the moshav<\/em> in which he lives\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and then lied in not one but two affidavits on the matter.<\/p>\n

Galant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my fault. Blame my lawyer. Blame my contractor.<\/p>\n

The specifics of the case involve Galant planting a grove of olive trees on public land that he did not own, building a private driveway to his property through another patch of land, and building additional floor space in his home without a permit (for which he swore under oath that he had requested but did not).<\/p>\n

The issues were raised on behalf of the moshav<\/em> by the Green Movement. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein must now decide, on the basis of the state comptroller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s findings, whether to defend Galant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s IDF appointment in the High Court against the Green Movement\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s petition.<\/p>\n

All this would be annoying but unfortunately Middle Eastern typical if this were not the guy who is supposed to be protecting us from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and any other militaries gunning for our destruction. If he rolls over his neighbors, what other \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberties\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will he take with the law? And his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blame the other guy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d attitude doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bode well either.<\/p>\n

With few other viable candidates for the position in sight, and outgoing Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi involved in his own scandal, losing Galant would be a serious blow to the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preparedness. But the alternative \u00e2\u20ac\u201c letting an accused criminal off the hook because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s considered indispensable \u00e2\u20ac\u201c would send a message to the rest of the country that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to consider.<\/p>\n

This article was published last week on the Israelity<\/a> blog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: The Attorney General has decided not to defend Galant. Crime, it seems, will not be rewarded in this case! One of the most frustrating parts of living in Israel is when people think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re above the law. You see it on the highways (speeding, not yielding the right of way in a traffic circle) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46],"tags":[103,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2067,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions\/2067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}