The Liora Glatt-Berkovich Tale




The Holy Praklitut

The Praklitut (General Prosecution) is one of our favorite institutions. The Praklitut indicted Yaakov Neeman and by doing so forced him to resign from his post as Minister of Justice. He was later acquitted of any wrongdoing. Rafael Eitan was barred from being the Minister of Internal Security because of an indictment from the Praklitut. He was also acquitted. Avigdor Kahalani also enjoyed the special treatment of the Praklitut. Mr. Kahalani was also acquitted. In spite of the acquittals the Praklitut succeeded in hampering the careers of these undesirable politicians.

Glatt Kosher

Liora Glatt-Berkovich (a.k.a Glatt-Berkovitz, a.k.a. Glatt-Berkowitz) is a lawyer, a senior member of the holy Praklitut Mehoz Tel Aviv, the General Prosecution of the Tel Aviv District. Liora Glatt-Berkovich is a typical member of the enlightened community. She learned at the holy Tel Aviv University. She sports a hyphenated family name just like Ophir Pines-Paz, Amnon Lipkin-Shachak, and other distinguished members of the enlightened community. From an enlightened point of view the lady is Glatt Kosher. Ms. Glatt-Berkovich is a civil servant who is privy to information regarding investigations that are in progress.

January 28, 2003, the date of the elections for the Knesset, the parliament of the New Middle East's post-Zionist entity, is rapidly approaching. The polls show that the holy Labour (the enlightened like using the British spelling) party, led by CRAP award winner Amram Mitzna is trailing the Likud by a large margin.

What's A Mother To Do?

Another date is also rapidly approaching. Liora Glatt-Berkovich's son's induction date into the IDF. The IDF is an abbreviation for the Israeli Defence (the enlightened like using the British spelling) Force. The IDF is the military force of the post-Zionist entity, an organization that has become irrelevant ever since the sun of peace has risen above the New Middle East. Even though we signed peace agreements with our peace-loving Arab neighbors, it is still dangerous to be a soldier. Our peace-loving Arab neighbors enjoy murdering IDF soldiers as well as civilians. Lawyer Liora does not want Ariel Sharon, the head of the Likud, to be Prime Minister. She's enlightened. She believes in Mitzna . She believes that Amram Mitzna will advance the cause of peace just as our master Yitzchak Rabin did. But what's a mother to do? She only has one vote! How can she advance her cause and the cause of thousands of other enlightened mothers?

Enlightened Law Breaking

As we already mentioned, Liora Glatt-Berkovich is a civil servant who is privy to information regarding investigations that are in progress. She knows that Ariel Sharon is being investigated in regard to a $1.5 million loan that his son Gilad received from South African businessman Cyril Kern. If the New Middle Eastern public knew about this loan, maybe they would see it as a sign of corruption and vote against Sharon! The only problem is that it is against the law for a civil servant to pass on information to an unauthorized person. The penalty for such a crime, according to paragraph 117 of the penal code is up to three years in prison! Oy Vey! What is Prosecutor Glatt-Berkovich going to do? Will she break the law that she has devoted the last 20+ years of her life to uphold?

Lawyer Liora decided that this is an exalted cause. The public has the right to know! Glatt-Berkovich contacted Baruch Kra, a reporter from Israel's most enlightened newspaper Ha'aretz. Baruch Kra published the information that he received from our law-breaking lawyer and BINGO! The Likud started dropping in the polls! Mission accomplished! The enlightened community has been saved.

The Knitted-Kippah-Wearing Attorney General Steps In

Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein was upset by the leak in the Sharon investigation. He knew that the law had been broken by the police or by the prosecution. He set up a team to investigate who leaked the information to the press. According to the holy Maariv newspaper, two police investigators Elinoar Mazuz and Shlomi Ayalon interrogated our hero, lawyer Liora. At first Glatt-Berkovich denied having any connection to the leak. Afterwards they showed her all kinds of juicy evidence: records of her phone calls and transmissions from her fax machine. Only then did she admit that she was the source of the leak. The Attorney General who wears a kippah (Yigal Amir also wears a kippah) called a press conference and announced that the culprit had been found.

Defending Liora

In contrast to their detestable behavior in the Amira Hass Tragedy, Ha'aretz, the newspaper that benefitted from Glatt-Berkovich's crime, made an all out effort to defend Liora and Baruch. On Thursday, January 23, 2003 , Ha'aretz published an article by Amir Oren entitled Focus / Rubinstein - the victim . In the article Oren ridicules Elyakim Rubinstein:
"Elyakim Rubinstein is a victim - a victim of the Bar-On-Hebron affair, which plucked him out of the District Court and landed him in the attorney general's seat; a victim of his character, which is more suited to the role of adviser, in the narrow sense of the word, than to that of a legal spearhead, as is called for by the Israeli reality; a victim of the most prominent of his predecessors, primarily Meir Shamgar and Aharon Barak, in the face of whom he pales and is pushed onto the side of the weakest of legal advisers such as Yosef Harish; a victim of the expectation from him to prove his ability to make it all the way to the Supreme Court; and perhaps also a victim of the "seven-year itch," an incessant stimulation that befell him already last year, in his sixth year on the job. "

"Rubinstein is not a bad man. He has never been known to transgress any of the Ten Commandments. Guilty is the director who cast a supporting actor into a role too big for him, a starring role. "

"The netting of attorney Liora Glatt-Berkovich gave him, as it gave Sharon, a tactical victory with an inherent strategic defeat. He has delivered a critical blow to the general prosecution, at the head of which he stands."

No doubt that the enlightened public was delighted to read Oren's blows below the gartel directed at Elyakim Rubinstein. The "Ten Commandments" jibe was especially witty. Oren goes on to praise our hero Glatt-Berkovich:
"Had Ariel Sharon and the remaining suspects and accused, who are keeping the State Prosecution and courts busy, been friendly to their interrogators and had they cooperated with them, as Glatt-Berkovich did, there would have been no need for complex investigations. "

"Glatt-Berkovich did not play the innocent; she didn't exercise her right to remain silent so as not to incriminate herself; and she did not seek the help of lawyers and media advisers prior to the investigation. Without her confession, the investigation team, comprising her colleagues from the Justice Ministry, would have come up with "circumstantial evidentiary material," without a motive, without a hint of criminal intent."

"She spared the team the bother, which generally ends in the closing of investigations due to the lack of guilt, when not dealing with regular citizens, but rather the top brass, whose sweat in the interrogation rooms stains the white of their collars."

"In Glatt-Berkovich's position, prime ministers, ministers and mayors would have sat looking doe-eyed at their interrogators. "

"Rubinstein hurried to cast doubt on the State Prosecution (and police) already at the beginning of the inquiry, appointing a Shin Bet security service agent to monitor them, until the High Court of Justice stepped in to put an end to that. If he suspected a mutual cover-up, it turned out he was wrong: Even without the Shin Bet, the Justice Department people managed to catch their colleague."

Maariv says that it was the police that managed to catch lawyer Liora, as we mentioned above. In any case, on the very same day, January 23, 2003 , Ha'aretz published an editorial entitled Obstruction of the right to know . Here are some gems from the editorial:
"The judicial temperament and reasoning displayed by Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein in the wake of the leak about the investigation into the loan Ariel Sharon's family received from Cyril Kern was very worrisome and deeply disappointing to all those concerned about freedom of speech and for whom the rules of democracy are precious. Rubinstein's manner in the affair, from the moment he decided to investigate the leak, through his decision to involve the Shin Bet, to the authorization he gave to summon reporter Baruch Kra (who reported on the investigation against Sharon in Ha'aretz), is testimony to a grave failure of judgment on his part to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff, compounded by a distorted understanding of the role of the press in a democracy. "

"From the start there was no justification for an investigation to discover the source of the leak: the issue under discussion is not a highly classified state secret, and the publication caused no harm to the national interest. With those facts in mind, there is no other conclusion than the investigation to discover the leak was meant to please the prime minister, who was personally harmed by the publicity. Even if the argument is made that the publicity harms the actual investigation, the decision to put all the emphasis on exposing the source of the information instead of accelerating the investigation of the loan, demonstrates a faulty order of priorities. "

The Enemies of Peace Incite

A so called "Dr. Berel Dov Lerner" who teaches at the so called "Western Galilee Academic College" wrote the following which was posted on the IMRA web site:
Liora Glatt-Berkovich is a white-collar Yigal Amir.

"In today's Ha'aretz editorial, "Obstruction of the right to know", the left's desperate political situation has led Ha'aretz to completely disregard its own much-touted devotion to the rule of law. For God's sake, a senior prosecutor chose to influence the outcome of a national election by shamelessly revealing details of an on-going investigation! By her own admission, she did not even do this because of anything pertaining to the matter she was investigating! She simply wanted to abuse her power in order to profoundly affect Israel's foreign and defense policies in a way that is unavailable to law-abiding citizens. Liora Glatt-Berkovich is a white-collar Yigal Amir."

"With all due respect to press freedom, one would hope that Ha'aretz would have something to say about the terrible damage that has been inflicted on the rule of law by this criminal. A grave taboo has been broken. We can only pray that Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein's decisive action has averted catastrophe. Otherwise, from now on, we will never be sure again whether the work of public prosecutors is not politically motivated."

"Ah, yes, you will say, but this crime was not motivated by politics, it was motivated by "ideology" or "morality". Does anyone waste their breath to ask whether Yigal Amir's treachery was "politically motivated" or "ideologically motivated"? Why does Ha'aretz devote space to this meaningless question?"

The public prosecutors are politically motivated? Ma Pitom!!! Liora Glatt-Berkovich is a white-collar Yigal Amir? This is an outrage!!! We at CRAP are fuming! Why doesn't Elyakim Rubinstein investigate Dr. Berel Dov Lerner for incitement?!

Will She Go To Jail?

Needless to say that Liora Glatt-Berkovich has finished her career in the civil service. Legal experts say that Glatt-Berkowich's indictment in the case is inevitable. But will she go to jail? No way! Jail is for dangerous criminals like Arye Deri and Margalit Har-Shefi! The Church of Rabin And Peace will do all that is in its power to prevent an enlightened one from such an unfair punishment! Haverim! Make your voice heard! Don't let Liora rot in jail! And don't forget to write an email to Baruch Kra to congratulate him for his contribution to the enlightened community.

CRAP Logo

Copyright 2003 by The Church of Rabin And Peace.  All rights reserved.