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Gaby Lasky: “The Gloves Have Fully Come Off from the Prime Minister on Down.”

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Gaby Lasky: “The Gloves Have Fully Come Off from the Prime Minister on Down.” Gaby Lasky: “The gloves have fully come off from the Prime Minister on down.” Gaby Lasky is a personal hero of mine. The first time I met her, she was wet out of law school and defended my ex-husband who was arrested in a student demonstration. I have been following her ever since. And Partners had a Conversation with her in May about the anti-boycott law. It is no surprise then that when I saw her interview with Einat Fishbein in the Hottest Place in Hell I stopped everything I was doing and sat down to read it. The interview grabbed me by the throat. At times, I couldn’t breathe. I had to translate it. I had no choice. If you follow Israeli politics as closely as I do, you know things have changed radically in the last few months. In this interview Gaby Lasky convinced me that these changes are the result of an orchestrated attack on Israel’s Left. This is not another move in the continuous dance since 1977– sometimes the Right is on top, sometimes the Left. The Right has changed the rules of the game, she says. Their delegitimizing campaign is making it impossible for the Left to voice their opinion. She met Likud members who told her that they think Meretz should be banned. As simple as that. And she is afraid. She is convinced there will be casualties in the attack on the Left. She locks the doors behind her. She is worried about her friends. She continues believing in the system and fighting. I am not sure why she still believes – the story of the defense of Nasser Nawaja certainly did not leave me confident that the system works. But she does. If she didn’t she would have left the country a long time ago. Gaby Lasky is still hopeful. Here is the translation. They’re called “traitors.” They are accused of “sticking a knife in the nation’s back.” Investigators rummaged through their garbage seeking incriminating evidence. But they have no intention to stop. Who are these leftist organizations? Who are these people? Where does your funding come from? What lines won’t you cross? What are you afraid of? Do you think you’ve succeeded or failed? On Sunday, attorney Gaby Lasky managed to release B’Tselem investigator Nasser Nawaja from custody. The next day Lasky proposed a motion to Tel Aviv City Council to provide more shaded public spaces. It’s hard to find something extreme or outrageous in this environmental proposal, but these are not good times for games of light and darkness. The two events, the release of Palestinian B’Tselem activist and the discussion about the Sun Canopy ended in a very similar way. “I had a minute left to speak after introducing the motion,” Lasky says. “I asked the city councilors to speak up in every event they attend and tell people that the Israeli democracy is in danger, freedom of speech and association are under threat, and people are called traitors if they think differently. Just as I finished speaking, Arnon Giladi, the Deputy Mayor and head of Likud in the council, started yelling at me: ‘You are a fifth columnist’ and ‘You’re a disgrace to the country.’ And all this happened at a city council meeting where usually things like this don’t usually happen. Meretz members started fighting with him. But no one joined either side except for us. The mayor said nothing. As far as I am concerned, these days, those who stay silent support evil.” Arnon Giladi, what happened? “Unfortunately, Mrs. Lisky or Lasky, whatever is her name is, confuses local and national issues. Maybe she wants to get elected to the Knesset on the backs Tel Aviv residents. But as an activist and a Breaking the Silence board member, she has no right to preach at a City Council meeting about silencing people. They [Breaking the Silence] are exposing our soldiers to foreigners and undermining the foundations of the State of Israel in the world. They cannot preach to us what is justice and what is democracy. Even a democracy must defend itself against those who try to sabotage it. Someone here is trying to use illegal means to change election results. They are an insignificant minority in Israel and they undermine Israel’s reputation around the world.” Isn’t it a bit of an exaggeration to call a few sentences in a city council meeting an attempt to change election results? “I understood exactly what she meant. And they are the ones silencing people and undermining the democratic foundations of the State of Israel. Besides, she talked about the fact that it is difficult for her to walk around in the sun. She wants Tel Aviv to be like a kibbutz. I did not understand what she wants.” Gaby Lasky, maybe the city council is not a place to speak about such concerns? “Democracy is a civic matter central to our lives. I have no doubt that a forum of elected officials is an appropriate palce to say what I said. I will continue saying this on every platform and I suggest that anyone who thinks similarly do the same.” IT WILL END WITHOUT CHARGES Lasky, 49, a mother of two, a well-known human rights activist and former CEO of Peace Now, does not deny that she would like to be in the Knesset. In the last election she was number seven on the Meretz list, and for a while it seemed possible. “I very sorry I was not elected,” she says. “Our Knesset members stand in the frontline of fire and defend our democracy with inspiring courage. I have a lot of arenas to fight in, but I think I would have served best in the Knesset’s Constitution Committee, where I would have revealed the legal measures this government takes to change the rules of the game.” Of the three who were arrested after the TV documentary “Uvda,” which was based on the work of Ad Kan, Lasky represents Nasser Nawaja, the Palestinian investigator who was the last detainee in the affair. Attorney Leah Zemel represents Ezra Nawi, the main suspect, and Smadar Ben Natan’s office represents Guy Batavia. Ezra Nawi Although she has not spoken with Ezra Nawi since his arrest, Lasky knows him well and had represented him in three different cases, all, according to her, related to “his [big] mouth.” He once called an officer “a war criminal.” On another occasion, he told an officer in the Civil Administration: “You behave like Nazis.” Nawi has either won or the charges were dropped in all these cases (he has been convicted of other offenses over the years). Lasky seems unimpressed with Nawi’s choice of words or the way he runs his business, but the police’s conduct leaves her speechless. She almost has no doubt that this case will too end without charges. She says “almost” because of the spirit of the times and not the evidence as she understands it. A brief summary of the facts: there are two interrelated cases here: the story of the deceased Abu Khalil and the story of the very much alive Musa. The first was a land dealer and the second identified as a land dealer. Nawi bragged to the Ad Kan activist that he turned Abu Khalil into the Palestinian Authority for selling land to Jews. Later he said that the Palestinian Authority tortures people like that and then executes them. Indeed, Abu Khalil is dead, but there is no evidence that he was murdered, and his family says he died of an illness in his bed. The Palestinian Authority has not executed anyone in the last decade. Musa came to Nawi on his own initiative and offered to sell Palestinians’ land to Jews. The Ad Kan infiltrator filmed the events and then the subsequent conversations between Nawi, Nawaja and Batavia about reporting the seller to the Palestinian Security forces. Musa was not harmed. He was not turned in and as far as we know and nothing happened except for those phone calls. On January 11, a few days after the broadcast, Nawi was arrested at the airport. Batavia and Nawaja were arrested a few days later. They face a series of accusations—attempted murder and contact with a foreign agent. Nawi also face his usual charges: minor drug possession, transporting an illegal alien and possessing a knife. The army arrested Nawaja at his home late at night. He was handed over to the police and brought to court for a remand hearing. He was accused of contact with a foreign agent, even though he’s a Palestinian, as is the person he supposedly approached. Two civil courts accepted Lasky’s argument that they have no authority to investigate non-Israeli citizens for offenses that did not occur in Israel and ordered him released. The second time the police used a delay that the district court allowed for filing an appeal to transfer Nawaja, against all acceptable practice, to the army. He was imprisoned in the Offer military prison and brought before a military court where he was remanded for a few days. The court released him after that because the investigation was not progressing and there was no reason to hold him. Unlike his friends, he has not been placed under house arrest. The investigating police unit is the same one responsible for the investigation of the Duma murders. It was recently the target of much settler hatred.
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