In Israel, Two Appointments Give the Lie to Amnesty International

Two appointments not noticed by the world media – now why is that, I wonder? –took place in Israel this week. Both offered further proof that Amnesty International’s charge that Israel is an “apartheid” state was both false and grotesque.

First, there were four new justices appointed to Israel’s fifteen-member Supreme Court. While Israel has had several Christian Arabs serving on its high court, until now it has not had a permanent Muslim justice. Now it does: Judge Khaled Kabub was appointed to the high court in mid-February.

Here is more about Judge Kabub’s career in “apartheid” Israel:

He studied at Tel Aviv University, completing a BA in History and Islam in 1981 and a BA in Law in 1988. In 2011, he completed a master’s degree in commercial law with honors, which was awarded jointly by Tel Aviv University and the University of California, Berkeley.

From 1989 to 1997, Kabub worked as a lawyer in private practice. In September 1997, he was appointed a judge on the Netanya Magistrate’s Court, and in 2003, he was appointed a judge on the Tel Aviv District Court. Since then, he has also taught courses in corporations and economics at Bar Ilan University and Ono Academic College. In August 2010, he was appointed to serve in the economics department of the court. In 2014, he was on the list of candidates for the Supreme Court, but he declined to be considered.

Kabub gained a reputation as an outstanding jurist in the economic, civil, and criminal fields. As a judge in the Tel Aviv District Court, he tried such high-profile cases as those of Nochi Dankner, an Israeli magnate whom he sentenced to two years in prison and an NIS 800,000 fine for securities fraud, and that of the director of Israel Electric Corporation, Dan Cohen, whom he sentenced to six years imprisonment and a NIS 10 million fine for fraud, breach of trust, and obstruction of justice.

Judge Kabub, 63, who currently serves as vice president of the Tel Aviv District Court, will be the Supreme Court’s first permanent Muslim justice. All previous Arab Israeli justices on the Court have been Christians. Amnesty would do well to mull over the significance of Judge Kabub’s rise to the very top of the judicial profession in “apartheid” Israel.

The second appointment that undermines the Amnesty Apartheid Libel is that of MK Ghaida Rinawi Zoabi — an Arab, a Muslim, and a member of the far-left Meretz Party — who has just been named Israel’s consul general in Shanghai. Several Arab men have served as diplomats for Israel. Among them the best known are the late Ali Yahya, who was ambassador to Finland and Greece,  George Deek, who is now Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, and Hisham Khaldi, Israel’s first Bedouin ambassador, currently serving in Eritrea. And there have been others. But Ms. Zoabi is the first Arab Muslim woman to have been appointed to such an important diplomatic post, the most senior Israeli diplomat in the commercial capital of one of Israel’s most important trading partners.

A report on her appointment is here:

Knesset member Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi was named on Tuesday as Israel’s new consul general in Shanghai, marking the first time an Arab woman assumed such a high-ranking Israeli diplomatic position.

A member of the left-wing Meretz party, Zoabi reacted to her appointment by saying, “It is a great honor to be the first Arab woman in such a high diplomatic role,” Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported.

“I am happy that it has been made possible for me to contribute to the important mission of strengthening economic, commercial, and cultural cooperation with one of Israel’s most important economic partners in the world,” she added….

The appointments of Judge Kabub to the Supreme Court and of MK Zoabi as Consul-General in Shanghai within a few days of each other play havoc with Amnesty’s snarling charge that Israel is an “apartheid” state. Will Agnes Callamard, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, or will Philip Luther, the Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director for Amnesty, the two people most responsible for that preposterous charge, ever understand that they have managed to make their organization — and themselves — appear both sinister and absurd at the same time? No, of course not. For Amnesty officials, the rule is simple: when it comes to Israel, never apologize, never explain.