Three Judicious Choices

At the center of the judges' bench, hunched over his papers, sat the softspoken, bespectacled President of Israel's Supreme Court. On his right was a scholarly fellow Justice who, with his impassioned manner and shock of black hair, cut the panel's most arresting figure; on his left, a trim, mustachioed, usually silent retired major general. The three members of the investigative commission—Yitzhak Kahan, 69, Aharon Barak, 46, and Yona Efrat, 56—are known respectively for integrity, independence and intrepidity. They are admired collectively for their dispassionate rectitude. No one had quarreled with their initial...