Nahum Barnea
צילום: לע"מ
As dumb as a shoe
Shoe attack on Beinish highlights need for restrained debate on legal establishment
Chief justice Dorit Beinish has a sense of humor. She also maintains her sportsmanlike spirit, even in the face of tough situations. Once she realized what kind of shoe was hurled at her at court, she said she was grateful that it was a sneaker and not a shoe with an iron sole.
Her immediate response was shock. And she wasn't the only one, of course. It appears that this time around the whole of Israeli society was shocked. There is plenty of violence in Israel, but one place is supposed to be immune from it; almost a temple. That's the Supreme Court.
Beinish viewed the incident as the act of a mentally unstable man. She was surprised by the quick reactions from politicians and by the extent of the drama. The phone call from President Peres, from Berlin, reached her even before she reached her office.
She scrutinized the incident soberly. There are questions that pertain to security. The guards were preoccupied with another man who aroused their suspicions. In no way could they come between her and her attacker, Pini Cohen.
Looking to the future, how can the public nature of the court and its duty to open its doors to anyone be reconciled with security needs? Will it be possible to hold back people who carry no weapons, merely a pair of shoes or a keychain? After all, visitors cannot be required to enter the courtroom in their socks.
And then there is the other question: Is there a link between the bitter debate involving the Supreme Court in recent years – a dispute that divided the legal, political, and media establishment into two camps – and the shoe hurled by Pini Cohen? Beinish did not think there was a link, but she did think that the atmosphere that emerged around the Supreme Court may have played a role. It would be enough to read the talkbacks.
When she returned to the courtroom, after more than an hour, she could have delivered an impassioned speech regarding the attack on the Supreme Court. Yet she preferred to end the affair with a brief statement that only conveyed "business as usual." She had no interest in drama.
Beinish drew great satisfaction, a sense of triumph almost, from the fact that the court ended up hearing all the cases before it Wednesday. All the work that needed to be done was completed.
Pini Cohen is a footnote in Israel's legal history; a man whose sanity is questionable. We should hope that the media will not be fooled by his story and inadvertently turn him into a hero. However, the way he made use of the shoe shows us how contagious and global violence is. What one man with a chutzpah did in Iraq is now being emulated across Europe and is turning into a mission; a challenge really. Shoes have become the last resort of people who obsessively seek publicity.
Once upon a time we used to say that some people are "as dumb as a shoe." Yet the truth is that the shoe isn't dumb, but rather, the person who throws it is. Mr. Cohen needs to be locked up for a long time, to deter others. Meanwhile, the debate over the legal establishment's future needs to be managed in a restrained and dignified manner.
Words are not shoes: When they are being thrown around recklessly, they end up coming back, like a boomerang.
