I Think Hagai Is Wrong

Hagai Segal, in an op-ed over at Ynet, Civil rights for all, claims that "Leftist rights groups only concerned with people who share their worldview" and explains:

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel is deeply shocked. Its director, Hagai Elad, had been detained for 36 hours recently after taking part in a protest watch (a legal one, he claims) outside the homes of Jews in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood...

Yehuda Glick, one of the most prominent rightist activists in the struggle for equalizing the rights of Jews and Arabs on Temple Mount, indeed expressed his protest. He distributed a very harsh condemnation of Elad’s arrest among rightist activists. By doing so, Glick adhered to the democratic principle whereby even if one does not agree to anything another person says, one would nonetheless fight for the other person’s right to speak up.

Yet does the Association for Civil Rights in Israel also adhere to this principle? Not at all. On most days, it does not offer legal and moral assistance to citizens who do not share its worldview on the matters of peace and territories.

...In fact, these associations barely made a sound when the rule of law abused rightist protestors during the period of the Gush Katif uprooting operation. Shamefully enough, these groups endorsed the uprooting operation, thereby making their current struggle in Sheikh Jarrah seem ridiculous. Yet despite all of the above, as noted, these people must not be detained. A genuine democracy is supposed to be able to contain even outrageous demonstrations.

My memory seems to tell me that some 15 years ago or so, ACRI actually did express its support for Noam Federman and so, I called Noam up and he informed me that as regards the Temple Mount, they did intervene on the matter of lists of persons who had to undergo special security checks or were pro forma prohibited from entering without any reason given. In another instance, they used him after being in administrative detention following the Baruch Goldstein incident in Hebron by representing him in the first court of appeal but never followed up up with an appeal to the High Court of Justice.

So, my memory did serve me well.