ISRAELI COURT POSTPONES RETRIAL OF JEWISH DISSIDENT

Israeljustice.com

  JERUSALEM -- An Israeli court postponed the retrial of a Jewish dissident after the state prosecution, which appealed the acquittal, failed to provide a prosecutor.  
    Jerusalem Magistrate David Mintz acquitted Nadia Matar, head of the Women in Green right-wing group, of insulting a public official after she wrote a letter to a senior official responsible for the relocation of 10,000 Jews in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank in August 2005, which compared him to the Nazi-appointed Jewish administration during World War II.  
    In her September 2004 letter to Disengagement Authority director Jonathan Bassi, Ms. Matar said Bassi represented "a modern version of the Judenrat."  
    "Any time we are dealing with freedom of speech, criminal law does not present the correct and effective tool," Mintz said in dismissing the indictment on Sept. 10, 2006. "I am therefore ordering the erasing of the charge."  
    The state prosecution appealed the acquittal but on Jan. 1, Mintz postponed the retrial because prosecutor Erez Padan was called up to serve in the army reserves in the Gaza Strip during Israel's military campaign against Hamas.  
    "The reason the prosecutor is on reserve duty is because of the expulsion of 8,000 Jews [from Gaza] and the person who stands trial today is the person who protested against this," defense attorney Yoram Sheftel said. "The Supreme Court had ruled that the expulsion would result in an improved situation but attorney Padan is on reserve duty and the defendant is on the trial bench."  
    Matar, who published the letter to Bassi on the internet, said her only regret was that the letter was too mild.  
    "It's most bizarre and surrealistic that this case is still taking place," Matar said. "The crime is so enormous and it has been shown that they expelled the Jews to put them in sewerage pipes [provided to expellees against the missiles from Gaza] for protection which basically reflects what the government wants to do with us. I only regret that the letter [to Bassy] was so mild."  
    The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19.