Lawfare: how to lose a war through litigation

Caroline Glick, Israel's Cassandra, discusses Israel's recent legalistic approach to fighting enemies that seek its destruction and juxtaposes it with a recent debate at the Hebrew University between former Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak, a judicial activist who makes William Douglas look like a conservative, and Richard Posner, the most influential American jurist not appointed to the Supreme Court.

The Israeli Supreme Court is the most powerful institution in that country, and Barak made it so. It intervenes in political disputes and imposes its will over the Knesset -- often to the detriment of Israel's national security.

Her verdict on the debate is clear, and correct:

. . . as the war in Lebanon showed, the "lawyerization" of Israeli society affects the lives of all of us. Again, this process has not made us more sensitive to human rights. Israelis have always been respectful of human rights.

But before Barak established the supremacy of lawyers, we respected human rights and won wars. Today, we respect human rights and lose wars.