Is this justice?

Lately, justice has been especially unjust for the Jews of America and Israel

One of the things that has become crystal clear since October 7, and the dramatic rise in antisemitism which followed, is that the “justice” system can be anything but just for the Jewish community. While there have been some successes, there are also recent examples which demonstrate just how perverse and unjust the legal system can be – both in Israel and America.

The most egregious example occurred in Israel. It is the case of a young (ex) IDF soldier named Saar Ophir. And it is another example of behavior by some in Israel that makes me question whether Israel is actually going to win the larger war against the people would like to murder us all (G-d forbid).

Saphir is a young ex-soldier who fought bravely on October 7 against the Hamas murderers who invaded the country. He, along with two others, Yisrael Biton and Roi Yifrach, killed terrorists and rescued civilians and security forces. Meaning: they bravely saved Israeli lives.

Biton is a medic in United Hatzalah.

In a perverse example of astonishingly terrible priorities, the three were accused of murder. Murdering who? A Hamas terrorist. Let that sink in.

According to Ophir, one of their interrogators even accused them of being “worse than the terrorists.”

Specifically, they are accused of beating one terrorist to death after he had been neutralized. The details of exactly what happened are disputed. But these three young men risked their lives to defend Israeli lives on the worst day of Jewish carnage since the Shoah. The details, in my opinion, of exactly how a pre-civilizational, murderous terrorist died while engaged in rape, murder, and unspeakable brutality are TOTALLY irrelevant.

Ophir’s mother said it eloquently:

“We're talking about Israeli heroes, who saved lives while half the country was sleeping - and the other half, the security forces, we had no idea where they were…My son risked his life for the people of Israel and found himself accused of a ridiculous and irrelevant offense.”

The ”state attorney” responsible for the charges was the same person that accused National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of “‘incitement’ against the residents of Gaza.” To paraphrase Ben Gvir, do these people work for us, or our enemies?

So why is Israel doing this? Because it is so afraid, so scared, so submissive to the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it would rather investigate, and prosecute, its own heroes than look “bad” to the “international community.”

On a smaller, yet equally aggravating note, the pro-Hamas demonstrations continue on college campuses and in the streets of major American cities. Independence Day 2024, July 4th, was no exception.

During one of the “protests,” one of the participants was a woman named Urooj Rahman. You may remember that Rahman was one of two lawyers charged with throwing Molotov cocktails at police during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020.  The antisemitism of BLM has been well documented. So, it is not surprising, at all, that Rahman participated in the current round of anarchic insanity.

However, while Rahman has been disbarred, she is also an immigrant who has been allowed to remain in the country despite her habitual antisemitic, anti-American, and illegal activities. Of course, she claimed to be regretful and remorseful after her 2020 arrest. But she appeared happy to be out Jew hating (again) in 2024. She was in New York spreading hate on behalf of the antisemitic group “Within Our Lifetime.” These are the same people largely responsible for the pro-Hamas idiocy at Columbia University.

So why is she allowed to remain in the United States? Why are her activities, which in ANY normal environment been deemed terrorism back in 2020, not a violation of the terms of her naturalization? If they are: why hasn’t she been deported already? Why are professional rioters among those we CHOOSE to allow into the country, or to remain here? Common sense, and morality, demand that Rahman should have been deported after her serious crimes in 2020. I think we all know why she wasn’t, but why aren’t we demanding that she, and others like her, be deported now?

Speaking of the recent, and ongoing, campus protests, one of the worst of these was held at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). If you recall, in one of the many incidents of antisemitism during the UCLA protests, a Jewish girl was hit in the head and knocked unconscious. Immediately after that incident, another Jewish student was denied entry to the campus by pro-Hamas terrorists activists.

In fact, despite the usual yammering from Los Angeles’ pathetic mayor, Karen Bass (who refused to use the LAPD to protect Jews during the even more recent Pico-Robertson pogrom), police were never sent in - until a group of Jews showed up at the UCLA campus to fight back against the insanity. Of course, at least one of the Jews who fought back was arrested. Keep in mind that the people who showed up to fight back were driven by anger at the fact that there were zero consequences for the pro-Hamas terrorists who had beaten a Jewish girl and caused her to be unconscious, and that Jews were (and are) targeted on campuses across the United States while the police routinely do nothing.

The university was eventually sued by three Jewish students alleging civil rights violations, demanding an injunction guaranteeing their safety before they return to school in the Fall. Their lawyers alleged that the metal barriers that UCLA set up, and reinforced, the fact that Jewish students were not allowed into the “zones” set up for protestors, and the fact that they took no action to protect Jewish students were all violations of Federal and California Constitutions, and several civil rights laws of each.

UCLA, in a response that is as surprising as the sun coming up tomorrow, denied all of that, and even had the audacity to claim that the metal barriers weren’t there to protect the antisemites in the encampments, but to prevent the encampments from expanding. UCLA also admitted that it declined to call police but claimed that it used its own security to “prevent escalation.”

The reality was much different. The security, hired by UCLA, didn’t prevent violence at all, but instead obeyed the orders of the student terrorists in training, and did nothing to prevent any violence.

UCLA also claimed that it “neither suppressed nor coerced speech.” Except that a journalist was assaulted while the school did nothing.

So, they are liars. It remains to be seen if those lies are enough to subvert justice.

These are also the same campus protestors about whom Kamala Harris recently said “are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.” That is the Vice-President of the United States, and the presumptive Democrat nominee for President of the United States. The latest comment wasn’t even unique, but one in a long line that prove Harris’ embrace, and obsequiousness in the face of,  Jew hatred which is obviously the norm for American leftists.

So the lying, obfuscation, and falsehoods continue. The legal system is abused in Israel to please the world, while putting Jewish lives in danger. It is abused in the United States to protect those who, at worst want to murder us, and at best, use the law as a shield for their own ambivalence toward Jewish lives.

As usual, sadly, I could have included many more examples of both the Israeli and American legal and political systems failing us. Obviously, this will not change until we are unified, as one Jewish voice, to demand change.

Never give in. Never give up.

Am Yisrael Chai!

This article originally appeared in Orange County Jewish Life.

Joshua Namm is a longtime Jewish community pro, passionate Israel advocate, and co-founder/co-CEO of Moptu, a unique social platform designed specifically for article sharing, and dedicated to the principle of free speech.