Members of my generation who grew up and lived in Israel were privileged to see in their lifetime a multitude of American trends that washed over their ancient homeland: from the "jeans drinking queens generation", which accompanied our childhood, through frozen yogurt to today's reality shows.
But the American trends that really affect our lives are not imported by merchants, but by academics and law.
Last week a little girl and her family paid dearly for this import.
When I read the judges' reasons for the light sentence of the Bedouin youth who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in her bed - "The accused stayed for a year and a half in a locked institution and went through a program of treatment and rehabilitation there...", or "The accused went through a lengthy treatment procedure, taking into account the difficult circumstances of his life ..." - I understood that a new and extremely problematic American trend had landed in Israel.
This trend is called "restorative justice", and its fashion icon is Larry Kreisner, the Attorney General of Philadelphia.
Kreizner is one of the leaders of the "progressive prosecution" revolution in the US. Prosecutors like him prioritize the rehabilitation of the criminal and his integration into society, at the expense of deterring potential criminals and the victims' sense of protection. After about five years in office, Kreizner boasts of the achievement of reducing the occupancy of the district jail by 40 percent during his term His. There is only one problem with Kreizner's tenure, which he doesn't like to talk about and which is why he is now a candidate for impeachment: the last year was the year with the most shooting victims in the city's history - almost 2,000 casualties and about 400 casualties.
Larry Kreizner's "restorative justice" made the prison in Philadelphia more spacious, and the streets hell.
Kreizner, for his part, refuses to recognize the connection between the dramatic increase in shooting incidents, and the wholesale closing of cases on illegal weapon possession offenses in his office.
One can understand the background for the growth of the "restorative justice" and "progressive prosecution" trends in the USA. The background is America's racist history. One can appreciate a nation that looks at its recent past, horrified to include the extermination of the Indians, the enslavement of Africans and the dropping of two atomic bombs on the Japanese, And wondering how to atone for it.
When such a nation deals with crime in Philadelphia, a city whose majority is black, it is natural, and even commendable, for the authorities to ask themselves whether they have done enough to allow a young black man caught carrying an illegal weapon an equal opportunity to integrate into society, or whether they have a part in him becoming a criminal, because at home The upbringing into which their history has forced him has no choice but to bear arms.
In fact, American progressivism is an extreme allergic reaction to an extreme racist history.
But what about us?
We didn't destroy, we didn't work and we didn't drop an atom bomb on the Bedouin diaspora.
Why do we need to adopt legal trends, which are the product of a scumbag that is not ours?
The Israeli justice system should adapt itself to conditions that include serious crime on a nationalistic background, and not to fashionable American trends.
Whoever this week still holds the opinion that the system does not need shaking, probably has frozen yogurt instead of a heart.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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