When courts and laws become political weapons, from Sheikh Jarrah to Brazil
October 5, 2026 · 13 min read
Mohammed El-Kurd calls law a political instrument in the Sheikh Jarrah expulsions, Michael Shellenberger describes censorship ordered in Brazil, Mike Benz discusses transitional justice in Poland and Brazil, and Harvey Silverglate criticizes political prosecutions in the United States. Each claims that legal process can be used to target opponents, a charge worth comparing across very different countries.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- The shared charge: law used against an opponent under the cover of neutral procedure.
- These are each speaker's own claims about very different situations.
- El-Kurd: courts accepted one side's documents and refused the other's.
- El-Kurd: about 95 percent of permit applications are rejected, so building becomes illegal.
- El-Kurd: legality does not necessarily mean morality.
- Shellenberger: one Brazilian justice secretly ordered bans across every platform.
- Shellenberger: a labor video was treated as election misinformation.
- Benz: transitional justice prosecutes a defeated government to block its return.
- Benz: a captured justice system is worse than bad press.
- Silverglate: federal law is broad enough to pick the person first, then the crime.
- Silverglate: a target can be guilty of something and still be wrongly prosecuted.
- They disagree on outside pressure: abuse for Benz, protection for El-Kurd.
- Not every prosecution of a politician is political.
- Tests: could the rule be obeyed, what evidence was refused, is the order public?
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.