Reply #4: Well, My Friend

[The Magistrate]

It seemed to me fair enough to make. The thing was reported in some detail when the arrest was made, after all, and there does not seem to me much room for doubt that these people were part of a criminal organization that represents a great danger to Israel, as well as to Arab Palestinians. The sentence is reportedly the result of a plea-bargain, and so it cannot be taken as representing what could be proved in court, but as representing what it was convenient to the prosecution to press in court. Put bluntly, there are probably considerations of politics rather than proof predominant here. Leading political considerations would seem most likely that the Likud bloc is wary of greatly alienating the settler lobby, and possibly that a full-blown trial might reveal collaboration between such settler criminals and some elements of the police, who shelter and otherwise assist them, that it would be most inconvenient for the government to have made public and proved.

If you wish to urge that the legal system in Israel is superior to that of the Palestine Authority, you are on sound ground, of course.