Israel Matzav

Watchdog calls to fire AG after he gives election plug for Livni

For those of you who have wondered why Prime Minister Netanyahu has not fired extreme Leftist Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, the most likely answer is that he feared media-orchestrated Leftist outrage. That fear is gone tonight. The Movement for Governability and Democracy, a non-partisan watchdog, has in essence called on Netanyahu to fire Weinstein after Weinstein broke the election laws by campaigning for former 'justice' minister Tzipi Livni. Netanyahu now has the political cover he needs.

The Movement for Governability and Democracy on Thursday wrote to Netanyahu, who holds the legal portfolio and essentially functions above the attorney general.

"A reality in which the attorney general of the country allows himself to act against the law, or even in the gray area of the law, can't be allowed, especially when we are dealing with invalid involvement in elections proceedings," wrote the movement.

Yehuda Amrani, head of the movement, wrote to Netanyahu in the letter "I ask you to act accordingly to your authority as prime minister and justice minister, and take the steps at your disposal against the attorney general."

The letter, which was also sent to Central Elections Committee chairperson Judge Salim Joubran, included a clause from the election laws determining that state employees can not take part in election propaganda.

Likewise, the letter noted that Weinstein also breached the guidelines of the attorney general, which state "a description of personal achievements of the minister or of a worker in the ministry," or an announcement "that has an emphasis and preference for controversial policy in the public that isn't in the frame of clear declared policy of the ministry," is forbidden in election periods.

The movement argued that Weinstein's statement that "the public in Israel can't give up on your skills" is election propaganda, and his references to Livni as a "guardian of democracy" in context of the Jewish State Law "are surprising and raise difficulties in context of the obligation on state workers to avoid propaganda."

Here's hoping Netanyahu has the spine to take the bait from Amrani. 

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli democracy, Knesset elections 2015, Tzipi Livni, Yehuda Weinstein

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:49 PM 1 comments

My comment to the Beit Shemesh election

The Beit Shemesh 'do over' election is over. The public paid millions of shekels to have a second election and the results show that it was a total waste of money.

If you read the Kalman Liebskind piece that was linked above, you will see that a total of 36 people were found to have voted without their identification cards. That's it. And in perhaps the biggest sign that the result was correct the first time, the difference between this time and last time was FOUR votes. If Moshe Abutbol (the incumbent who won both elections by a little less than a thousand votes) had not been Haredi there would never have been a second election. But don't expect anyone to apologize for the fraud perpetrated on the Israeli taxpayer. The media are still acting like there was fraud the last time.

As to the 'found' identification cards the last time, everyone who has been here in the Haredi community for long enough knows that Neturei Karta pays people not to vote and takes the identification cards for the day to ensure that those who are paid don't vote.

Labels: Beit Shemesh, Haredim, Israeli democracy, lies, Supreme Court

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:47 AM 2 comments

Government passes new election law 67-0, law effectively does away with no-confidence votes

In a vote on the first of three bills that are to be passed between now and Thursday, the Knesset voted 67-0 to enact electoral reform.

I'll come back to the substance of the vote in a minute, but the JPost has accused the Knesset of stifling dissent because the manner in which the bills are being passed. It's important to look at why it's being done this way.

But it seems there is another reason for the government’s haste in pushing through the three bills before the end of the Knesset winter session on March 23. The parties making up the coalition are split on support for the three bills.

Members of the more zealously religious Tekuma faction in Bayit Yehudi and some other MKs in the party are sympathetic to the haredim and therefore oppose the use of criminal sanctions against yeshiva students who refuse to serve in the IDF. Tekuma, which is considering running on a separate list in the next elections, also opposes the bill to raise the threshold for getting into the Knesset.

Meanwhile, members of Yesh Atid and Hatnua oppose the referendum bill, designed to put another obstacle in the way of a government asked to vote on a territorial compromise with the Palestinians in a peace deal. And Yisrael Beitenu MKs are disgruntled that the draft law does not obligate Arab Israelis to perform national service.

To overcome these points of dissent, the heads of all the parties making up the coalition have been asked to sign a document committing their MKs to vote in favor of all three bills as a single package deal. Coalition heads fear that if the votes are delayed until after the Knesset break is over, the shaky arrangement that was cobbled together might fall apart and one or more of the bills will not pass.

There is nothing unlawful about this sort of parliamentary wheeling and dealing. The coalition is permitted to speed up the legislation process, particularly ahead of a looming deadline like the one facing the Knesset, in order to pass a bill. Coalition parties regularly strike quid pro quo deals, where one party agrees to support the legislation of another party on condition that this support is reciprocated.

But the conflation of both of these tactics is a bit much, particularly when the bills up for discussion are so controversial and when their passage is far from time sensitive.

For the first bill, at least, the coalition held. But then, you wouldn't think it would be so controversial to raise the threshold for getting into the Knesset from 2% of the vote to 3.25% (minimum three MK's to minimum four MK's), would you? I thought this bill ought to be a slam dunk. Aside from the threshold, it limits the number of cabinet ministers to 18 and the number of deputy ministers to four, and gets rid of the title "Minister without Portfolio." That's all good because ministers cost millions of Shekels. So what's bad in this bill? This:

The new law also requires the opposition to form an alternative government and appoint an alternate prime minister as a precondition for submitting no-confidence measures.

The current opposition consists of the left-wing Labor party, the further left-wing Meretz party, the Haredi parties and the Arab parties (who may have a hard time making the threshold unless they unite). What are the odds on those disparate groups reaching an agreement on an 'alternative government'? Given that no Arab party has ever been in the government and that the Haredim and  the Left have agreed on very little over the last 35 years, I would say that the odds are quite poor. So essentially, there are no more no-confidence votes.

Given that we vote for parties rather than individuals, the coalition parties will be strengthened by this measure and 'Israeli democracy' will become even more distant from its constituency than it is already.

None of that bothers Avigdor Lieberman. He thinks that the opposition has to humor him by showing up for the vote rather than going on vacation for three days of futility.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday denounced the opposition as a group of "whiners, post-Zionists, and terrorist representatives" in response to its decision to boycott the Knesset vote on a bill which limits the number of government ministers and raises the minimum vote threshold for parties to win representation in parliament.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli democracy, Israeli elections, Israeli Knesset

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:58 PM 2 comments

Israeli 'justice' in action

I really did not want to get involved in Beit Shemesh's 'do-over' Mayoral election (a family friend is running one candidate's campaign), but this is really too much and has to at least be pointed out.

For those who are not familiar with the story, in the Beit Shemesh Mayoral election in October, the Haredi incumbent defeated the secular challenger by less than 1,000 votes. During the day, police supposedly found 'hundreds' of identification cards in a home in Beit Shemesh. But it turns out - at least if this story by a supporter of the secular candidate (link in Hebrew, but I'm embedding an English translation below) is correct - that the total number of identification cards found was... 161. Those identification cards were not used to vote. They were turned in by people who were paid (yes, that happens in the Jewish state) not to vote, and who deposit their identification cards for the day in order to ensure that they really don't vote. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Jerusalem district court ruled that the elections should be done over, and the Supreme Court upheld that ruling. The new elections are taking place on Tuesday. 

I'm embedding the English translation below. A comment will follow (Hat Tip: Asher G).



President Obama and his Chicago friends have nothing - nothing - on the Israeli court system.

But the key to this article is the last sentence:

It is difficult to imagine that there is any other sector, other than the Chareidi sector,  whose election victory the court could feel so free to invalidate based on such flimsy evidence.

Indeed. 

Labels: Beit Shemesh, Haredim, Israeli democracy, lies, Supreme Court

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:18 PM 0 comments

Freedom of Speech, Israeli style, part 2

In Beit Shemesh in a few days there's a re-election, the result of a Supreme Court appeal after a very close election last October. The election pits a Haredi candidate against a secular candidate. The election is very hotly contested, and there are posters all over the city.

The poster above pictures Yair Lapid, the national leader of the secular Yesh Atid party. It says "This man is counting on your indifference. Come together and stand up for [your] lives." (The second sentence is a verse from the Purim Megilla to be read one week from tonight in Beit Shemesh and one week from tomorrow night in Jerusalem).

The poster - which was posted on the side of a private home - has gotten the Haredi candidate's campaign manager called in for questioning by the police, even though the posters are apparently being put up by individuals and not by any official campaign. The proposed charge is 'incitement.' (Link in Hebrew).

The Yesh Atid party filed a Supreme Court appeal against the sign, and Israeli Arab judge Salim Jubran has ordered it taken down, because it exceeds the permitted size for campaign signs. Yesh Atid admitted that the sign had been posted anonymously on a private home, but Jubran ruled that he has been in many election campaigns and posting oversized posters on private homes is forbidden.

Gotta love Israeli 'democracy'.....

Labels: Beit Shemesh, freedom of speech, Israeli democracy

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:35 AM 0 comments

Israel Democracy Institute deputy director blasts new draft law

Professor Yedidia Stern, the deputy director of the Israel Democracy Institute, has blasted the new 'equality of burden' law.

Prof. Yedidia Z. Stern, Vice President of the Israel democracy Institute – for demonstrating "the  bill for equal burden in its current form is not smart, not constitutional and could lead to a civil war!"

The equality bill took not only fails to equalize the burden - it makes the burden less equal.

In our assessment, there is concern that the proposed arrangement is unconstitutional. This Bill is suspect this may deteriorate the Israeli society into a civil war.

Hmmm.

Labels: God, Haredim, IDF, Israeli democracy, Torah

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:39 PM 0 comments

We are North Korea

Israel has taken a step in the direction of North Korea.

In light of word that the yeshiva that was expelled from Gush Katif (Gaza) hung a sign on their bulletin board congratulating everyone on Ariel Sharon's demise, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aronovich announced that he is opening an investigation into those who expressed happiness over Sharon's passing (link in Hebrew).

Those under investigation might include Jewish Home party MK Orit Struck, who lives in Hebron, and who thanked God on Sunday morning for stopping Sharon from perpetrating further tragedies on the revenants. Struck promptly retracted her comment when she came under attack by Sharon's ideological successor, Tzipi Livni.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said Struck's remarks are "disgusting incitement that embarrasses the Knesset."

"This displays her lack of intelligence. She isn't reflecting what [Sharon] did, it shows she's evil," Livni told Army Radio, repeating the word "evil" several times.

I didn't think the Knesset could possibly be embarrassed any more.

Another Israeli who may come under Aronovich's spotlight is Baruch Marzel.

Baruch Marzel, the activist from Struck's hometown of Hebron, said he's "satisfied that a threat on the Land of Israel was removed."

"Sharon was an enemy. He was one of the biggest traitors in Israel's history," Marzel told The Jerusalem Post.

Marzel is not planning any demonstrations for Sunday or Monday, but said he may reconsider later in the week.

And another is Daniella Weiss, who worries about where praise of Sharon might lead. 

"Sharon caused the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria - his old age shamed his youth," assessed Weiss. "The media uproar around his gradual death is a prelude encouraging the continued expulsion of Jews."

Weiss explains that "when they make (Sharon) a hero despite the expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes and his casting aside the security of the state of Israel, they essentially give (Prime Minister Binyamin) Netanyahu the message that he too will be crowned a greater hero if only he follows Sharon's path."

Indeed, Netanyahu reportedly offered to lease communities in Judea and Samaria from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for a limited period of time in ongoing peace talks.

But we're still in the only democracy in the Middle East. so long as you say what we want you to say.... 

Labels: Ariel Sharon, freedom of speech, Gaza expulsion, Israeli democracy, Judea and Samaria

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:04 PM 1 comments

'Democracy' is not a reason for a 'Palestinian state'

Eugene Kontorovich writes that Israel doesn't need a 'Palestinian state' for Israel to be both democratic and Jewish.

The problem with the democracy argument is that it is entirely disconnected from reality. Israel does not rule the Palestinians. The status quo in no way impeaches Israel’s democratic identity.

It is true that the Palestinians are not represented in the Knesset. But Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria are similarly not represented in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Simply put, both the Palestinians and Israelis vote for the legislature that regulates them. That is democracy (though obviously it does not play out as well in the Palestinian political system).

The Palestinians have developed an independent, self-regulating government that controls their lives as well as their foreign policy. Indeed, they have accumulated all the trappings of independence and have recently been recognized as an independent state by the United Nations. They have diplomatic relations with almost as many nations as Israel does. They have their own security forces, central bank, top-level Internet domain name, and a foreign policy entirely uncontrolled by Israel.  

The Palestinians govern themselves. To anticipate the inevitable comparison, this is not an Israeli-puppet “Bantustan.” From their educational curriculum to their television content to their terrorist pensions, they implement their own policies by their own lights without any subservience to Israel. They pass their own legislation, such as the measure prohibiting real estate transactions with Jews on pain of death. If Israel truly “ruled over” the Palestinians, all these features of their lives would be quite different. Indeed, the Bantustans never won international recognition because they were puppets. “The State of Palestine” just got a nod from the General Assembly because it is not.

Whether the Palestinian self-government amounts to sovereignty is irrelevant and distinct from the question of whether Israel is denying them democracy. Indeed, Israel’s democratic credentials are far stronger than America’s, or Britain’s–the mother of Parliaments. Puerto Rico and other U.S. controlled “territories” do not participate in national elections (and this despite Puerto Rico’s vote last year to end its anomalous status). Nor do British possessions like Gibraltar and the Falklands. These areas have considerable self-rule, but all less than the Palestinians, in that their internal legislation can ultimately be cancelled by Washington or London. The Palestinians are the ultimate masters of their political future–it is they who choose Fatah or Hamas.

To be sure, Israeli security forces operate in the territories under Palestinian administration. But that has nothing to do with democracy; it is about security. Democracy does not give one political entity a right to harm others. And that is why American security forces conduct raids–assassinations, even–in countries around the world. While many object to America’s aggressive policies in these countries no one thinks it has anything to do with the democratic credentials of one side or another. Similarly, the Palestinian military operates throughout Israel–through rocket and missile strikes from Eilat to Ashdod. Yet no one suggests Palestinian military activities in Israel–which determine when there will be school in Beersheva and when not–mean that they have deprived Israel of democracy.

This is no longer a dispute about democracy; it is a dispute about territory. The Palestinians have their own government; now their demand is to increase the geographic scope of their legislative powers to “Area C,” where 100 percent of the Jewish settlers live, some 400,000 people, and only 50-75,000 Arabs. The Palestinians want their “no Jew” law to apply there as well.

Palestinian self-determination is one of the biggest developments that no one has noticed.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: democracy, demography, Israeli democracy, Palestinian democracy

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:03 PM 0 comments

That's all? Plurality of Israeli Jews say only Jews should decide on territorial concessions

In an annual poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, a plurality of 30% of Israeli Jews believes that only Israeli Jews ought to decide on territorial concessions in Judea and Samaria. I'm actually surprised the number isn't much higher.

The poll found that for final approval of a peace deal that includes withdrawal from the West Bank and evacuation of settlements, 30.6 percent said the matter should be decided by a Jewish majority in a referendum.

Another 24.7% said that all citizens of Israel should decide in a referendum, 24.9% said that the Knesset should make the decision, 9.1% said that it should be decided by rabbis and religious leaders, 3.8% said that no one has the authority to make such a decision, and 6.9% refused to answer.

The numbers were very different among Arab respondents, 45.2% of whom said all citizens should make the decision in a referendum. A surprising 11% said there should be a Jewish majority, 9.7% said the Knesset, 9% religious leaders, 13.5% said no one has the authority to make such a decision, and 11.6% refused to answer.

Those who are opposed to having 'all citizens of Israel' decide rightly fear than an evenly divided Jewish population will place the decision in the hands of the Arabs. As I have stated many times, the Knesset is not truly representative because we vote for parties rather than individuals and in most cases we have no control over whom the party sends to the Knesset and how they vote.

I wonder why they didn't give the Supreme Court as an option. After all, that's who really controls this country.

Labels: Israeli democracy, Israeli Knesset, Middle East peace process, Supreme Court, unilateral concessions

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:32 PM 0 comments

Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah: 'Jewish and democratic is an oxymoron'

Nearly thirty years ago, the Knesset passed a law banning from Knesset elections parties that refuse to accept the 'Jewish and democratic nature' of the State of Israel. The law targeted, and was used to ban, Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D's (May God Avenge his blood) Kach party from the 1984 Knesset elections.

The Central Elections Committee voted 18-10 today to bar Rabbi MelrKahane’s extreme rightwing Kach list from participating in the July 23 Knesset elections. There were seven abstentions.

The decision was the first time in Israel’s history that a Jewish political faction was banned from an election. An Arab “Socialist List” was banned 19 years ago on grounds that its objective was to undermine the existence of the State. Supreme Court Justice Gavriel Bach, chairman of the Elections Committee, maintained that Kahane’s list undermines the principles of democracy itself. Kahane said he would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli democracy, Jewish Home party, Ofer Shelah, Yesh Atid party

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:02 AM 0 comments

The real threat to democracy

In a piece that's behind JPost's paywall, but which I received by email, Evelyn Gordon reports that Israel really does have a dictator and that his name is not Netanyahu or Beinish or Grunis. It's the attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein.

After years of dismissing leftists’ hyperbolic claims that Israeli democracy is under threat, I’ve decided they may be right after all. What they’re wrong about is the source of the threat. It isn’t our “anti-democratic” elected representatives (whose “anti-democratic” bills usually aren’t anything of the sort, while the few that are routinely fail); rather, it’s our unelected legal establishment.

After all, citizens elect governments primarily to implement specified policies. Thus if unelected legal officials routinely prevent governments from doing so, even on the most important issues of the day, what’s the point of having elections? And as two incidents of the past two weeks make clear, that’s increasingly becoming the case.

The first was the National Labor Court’s shocking ruling on July 30 ordering the government to freeze two tenders for constructing private ports and instead negotiate with the port unions for permission – thereby potentially killing the most important reform on the government’s economic agenda.

A 2009 study by the Antitrust Authority found that Israel’s ports are 30% less efficient than similar-sized ports elsewhere, costing the economy some NIS 5 billion a year. The 2011 Trajtenberg Committee on socioeconomic reform similarly concluded that “inferior service and low production in Israel's ports cost the economy, which depends heavily on the ports, hundreds of millions of shekels a year. This is before taking into consideration the indirect damage, stemming from the business uncertainty imposed on the economy by the disruptions [in the ports' work] and delays in developing new port infrastructures.”  

Nobody disputes that the ports’ inefficiency and high costs stem primarily from their monopoly status. This enables their unions to extort excess wages (the average dockworker earns 2.5 times the economy’s average wage), dictate outrageous perks such as paying “on-call” port pilots full salary to sit at home and do nothing, and shut down the ports on any trivial pretext, including demands for additional meal vouchers, a desire to dictate the identity of the port CEO’s personal assistant, or even a union member’s wedding. Nor does anyone dispute that numerous past attempts to bribe the unions into better behavior have produced nothing but higher government wage bills.

Consequently, the government concluded that the only solution is to introduce competition by building new, private ports that the existing unions won’t control. This has become a top priority for three senior ministers: Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett and Finance Minister Yair Lapid. Moreover, it’s clearly within the government’s prerogative: On what conceivable grounds should the government need the unions’ permission to build a new port, or any other vital bit of public infrastructure? After all, it’s the government – not the unions – that’s responsible for meeting the country’s infrastructure needs, and for coming up with the necessary funds.

But the labor court thought otherwise: It ordered the government to negotiate with the Histadrut labor federation. And that decision, if not overturned (Katz vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court), will sound the death knell for the government’s flagship economic policy. Even if the court’s interference doesn’t scare off the eight foreign companies that have expressed interest in the tenders, the new ports will be pointless if they require the Histadrut’s consent. The labor federation has already said it will agree only if these ports, too, are under the unions’ thumb.

The second incident was Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein’s equally shocking ruling last week ordering the Knesset to finish enacting new legislation on drafting Haredim by August 20. This legislation, which passed its first Knesset reading only on July 23, is one of the most important bills the current parliament is likely to consider. A good law could spur Haredi integration into the army and workforce; a bad one could set this goal back decades.

Consequently, the committee charged with preparing the bill scheduled multiple hearings at which outside experts and interested parties could present arguments pro and con and propose changes. Moreover, several MKs are demanding major revisions – which in fact are sorely needed, as David Weinberg aptly explained in this paper last week. But Weinstein’s ruling, by allotting a mere four weeks for these discussions, would make this impossible. Knesset committees typically spend months on major legislation when it requires significant changes; bills can be rushed through only when they’re left virtually unchanged.

To his credit, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein bluntly told Weinstein that parliament’s legislative timetable is none of his business. Indeed, as Edelstein’s letter correctly noted, the Knesset would be neglecting its duty if it didn’t give such an important bill thorough consideration: “The job of the Knesset and its committees is to examine bills the government submits, hold a public discussion and listen to the people involved in the matter, including those the government did not hear, and use its judgment.”

But given the Supreme Court’s long-standing position that the attorney general’s legal opinions are binding on the executive, Weinstein has enormous power to extort Knesset compliance by pressuring the executive even if he lacks the power to dictate directly to parliament (which, incidentally, isn’t guaranteed; the court has never fully addressed this issue). In this case, for instance, existing law technically mandates drafting some 60,000 Haredim immediately. The government deemed this untenable, so the defense minister issued deferrals until the new law (which ostensibly stipulates a gradual phase-in) passes. But court petitions have been filed against these deferrals. Hence Weinstein could simply threaten to issue a legal opinion backing the petitioners unless the Knesset meets his legislative timetable.

Thus we have a labor court seeking to stymie one of the government’s flagship reforms, and an attorney general seeking to prevent MKs from influencing one of the term’s flagship pieces of legislation. And in both cases, they may yet succeed.

Under these circumstances, why should citizens even bother voting? And why should anyone with a desire to effect change want to run for office? After all, you don’t need any kind of elected government – much less one staffed by talented people with good ideas – merely to rubber-stamp the whims of unelected legal officials. For that, an automatic stamping machine would suffice.

Indeed. 

Labels: Ashdod port, Haifa port, Haredim, IDF, Israeli democracy, Israeli Knesset, Labor court, Yehuda Weinstein

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:42 AM 0 comments

Is Israel a democracy?

For those of you who think that Israel is a democracy or has 'representative government' (and I know that's most of you, and I admit that Israel is the closest thing to a democracy in this region by far), please consider the case of Yesh Atid MK Adi Kol, who had the gall to abstain in a Knesset vote on changing the electoral system in the wee hours of this morning.

After her controversial vote, Kol had a heated conversation with Shelach in the back of the plenum and was visibly upset. About 15 minutes later, she sent the following message to the press: "Today, I abstained in the vote on the electoral reform bill. This was a decision that mainly hurt my fellow faction members, and I apologize." Even though the bill passed, Lapid and Shelach removed Kol from chairmanship of the Knesset Public Petitions Committee and from membership of any Knesset committees. In addition, she won't be able to propose bills through the party.

Sources in Yesh Atid expressed discomfort with the decision, saying the party's leadership went too far.

Shelach, however, defended the decision, pointing out that the vote was so important to the coalition that MKs who were abroad flew back to Israel.

"This was a cardinal vote. Coalition discipline isn't about being a dictatorship. There is no coalition without discipline," he told Israel Radio.

Huh? If this had been a no-confidence vote, there might be a place for that kind of claim. But it wasn't a no-confidence vote. And if she had voted against it and/or it hadn't passed, they might have had a reason to be upset. But she abstained and it passed. At what point is a member of Israel's Knesset allowed to have a conscience? At what point is a member of Israel's Knesset allowed to represent the people of Israel and not her party?

Sorry - this is really wrong.

Labels: Israeli democracy, Israeli Knesset

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:34 PM 3 comments

Why successive Israeli governments have feared a referendum on a 'peace treaty'

The Prime Minister and much of the Likud component of Likud-Beiteinu favors a public referendum on any agreement that turns land over to the 'Palestinians.' The usual suspects are opposed, and the 'Jewish Home' cannot make up its mind.

"I support and respect the process, because if we reach a diplomatic agreement, it can't pass with a happenstance majority [in the Knesset]," Netanyahu said at a Likud faction meeting.

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, however, said that he is not a proponent of the idea, but would support it if the coalition does.

"A referendum is a way of running away from making decisions," he stated.

The issue of a referendum on a peace treaty rose earlier this week, as Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett hopes to turn the existing law into a basic law, giving it constitutional status.

The current law, proposed by coalition chairman Yariv Levin (Likud Beytenu) requires a referendum on any treaty that includes giving up land under Israeli sovereignty. This means that a referendum would not be necessary to give the Palestinian Authority control over more of the West Bank, but would be required to authorize land swaps.

In addition, the Bayit Yehudi has yet to submit a bill on the topic and has not clarified whether making Levin's bill a basic law would suffice for the party, or if they would want to expand it.

...

"A referendum only gives the nation veto power. It doesn't let citizens overturn the Knesset's decision if it rejects a peace treaty," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said.

Livni added that she believes the public will support a peace treaty, and if not, it can vote in a new government.

"I don't fear the public, but it's [the government's] job to make decisions," she stated.
Leader of the Opposition Shelly Yacimovich (Labor) pointed out that Israel is a representative democracy, and that every few years citizens vote for parties they support, which are supposed to make decisions.

"There is not a hint of democracy behind the idea of a referendum specifically about a diplomatic treaty," she said. "The opposite is true. The selectiveness [in referendum topics] speaks for itself."

These are precisely the issues. With all that Israelis supposedly 'want' a 'two-state solution,' when you get specific, very few actually are willing to pay the price that 'everyone knows' we would pay - which is not enough to satisfy the 'Palestinians' anyway.

Saying that we could vote out the government if it made a peace deal Israelis didn't like is meaningless; it would be shutting the barn door after the cow has escaped.

And calling Israel's government representative is questionable at best and farcical at worst, given that you can only vote for a party into whose slate you have no input.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli democracy, referendum law, Shelly Yacimovich, two-state solution, Tzipi Livni

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:46 PM 5 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, August 23.

1) Mackey squared

In his entry about the attack of Arab teenagers by Israeli teenagers, Robert Mackey of the New York Times wrote:

Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli-American writer and translator, included a translation of the witness account in a post on the Israeli news blog +972.

Anyone familiar with +972 knows that it isn't a "news" site, but rather an anti-Israel site. By the way the term "anti-Israel" does not exist in Mackey's vocabulary.

Since then he's written about Pamela Geller's provocative ads on San Francisco's public transportation. He has no problem calling those ads "anti-Islam," though more accurately they should be called "anti-Islamic terror." Mackey also took pleasure in observing:

This week, some of the San Francisco ads were edited by Ms. Geller’s opponents to invert their message. An image posted on Facebook on Sunday by an Oakland blogger showed that text was added to the side of one bus so that the ad now reads: “In any war between the colonizer and the colonized, support the oppressed. Support the Palestinian right of return. Defeat racism.”

The irony of that sentiment escapes Mackey. Supporting the Palestinian right of return means supporting the destruction of Israel, which makes it anti-Israel, if not racist. Mackey left the implication unsaid, suggesting that he too supports the right of return.

Worse, later on he refers to the dishonest Metro North ads.

After that ad appeared in stations, a local CBS news reporter spoke to the man who paid it and to the editor of a Jewish newspaper in New York, The Algemeiner. The newspaper editor, Dovid Efune told CBS that the ad was anti-Semitic because “it paints Jews as aggressors, as imperialists — people that are stealing or taking land from others.”

Of course, what Mackey doesn't write is that the ads were knowingly deceptive.

Robert Mackey continues to pass of his work at the New York Times as news reporting though, when dealing with Israel, it is just crude anti-Israel propagandizing.

2) Efraim squared

There are a couple of articles by two different Efraims worth noting. Efraim Karsh wrote The War against the Jews, which begins:

The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people's national liberation movement, anti-Zionism—as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions—means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known.
By any conceivable standard, Israel has been an extraordinary success story: national rebirth in the ancestral homeland after millennia of exile and dispersion; resuscitation of a dormant biblical language; the creation of a modern, highly educated, technologically advanced, and culturally and economically thriving society, as well as a vibrant liberal democracy in one of the world's least democratic areas. It is a world leader in agricultural, medical, military, and solar energy technologies, among others; a high-tech superpower attracting more venture capital investment per capita than the United States and Europe; home to one of the world's best health systems and philharmonic orchestras, as well as to ten Nobel Prize laureates. And so on and so forth.
Why then is Israel the only state in the world whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged while far less successful countries, including numerous "failed states," are considered legitimate and incontestable members of the international community? The answer offered by this article is that this pervasive prejudice against Israel, the only Jewish state to exist since biblical times, is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds.

The article is an extensive list of the hypocrisies evident in the arguments of Israel critics - or perhaps they should be called condemners.

A complementary article written by Shmuel Sandler and Efraim Inbar is The fading Left and Israel's flourishing democracy. The article is summarized:

Many of Israel's detractors on the left argue that Israel's democracy is in a state of decline. A closer look shows that Israeli democracy is thriving. A gradual decentralization of power since Likud's rise to the top in 1977 has given more political groups a chance to share power. The judicial system is strong and independent, and fearless in its prosecution of senior politicians.
The end of party-affiliated journalism has allowed greater criticism of the government by the Israeli media. Minority groups enjoy greater rights than ever before. The army has become more professional and plays a smaller role in decision-making than before. When taking these factors into consideration, it is clear that Israeli democracy is doing quite well, despite the assertions of the fading left.
The frustrated Israeli left that failed to garner support in recent elections has adopted a new strategy. Already before shrinking in the 2009 elections to only 16 Knesset members (represented by Labor and Meretz), several leftist figures decided to turn to external forces "to save Israel from itself" rather than struggle for the hearts and minds of the Israeli people. They argued that Israel's democracy is in danger and tried to mobilize European and American public opinion to pressure Israel in their desired direction. A recent example of this strategy is an opinion piece in The New York Times titled "Israel's Fading Democracy."

Labels: delegtimizing Israel, Israeli democracy, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:46 PM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, August 6.

1) The "culture" war against Mitt Romney cont.

Here are the first four references to Gov. Romney's "culture" statement in the New York Times, in order according a search of the paper's website:
Romney's charm offensive at the Taking Notes blog of editor Andrew Rosenthal.

Another non-surprise: Just like in London, he held a fundraiser, attended by high-profile donors including Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who bankrolled Newt Gingrich’s hard-hitting attack on Mr. Romney before he started bankrolling Mr. Romney’s hard-hitting attack on Mr. Obama. And at this fundraiser he suggested that Israelis are more economically successful than Palestinians because of cultural differences. (A senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas had a different explanation: “this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation.”)

Romney's comments on Palestinians draw criticism at the Caucus blog.

“Culture makes all the difference,” Mr. Romney said. “And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”
“As you come here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality,” he said.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called Mr. Romney’s remarks “racist.”

Mitt Romney stumps in Israel is an unsigned editorial.

The message — on Iran, Jerusalem, the Palestinians — was all anti-Obama: Mr. Romney would be a much better friend to Israel than Mr. Obama ever could be. He would be much tougher on Iran. He would recognize Jerusalem as the capital. For good measure, he insulted the Palestinians by declaring that cultural differences — not decades under Israeli occupation — are the reason Israelis are more successful economically. It’s hard to say how this could affect policy if he were president, but it is not encouraging.

Romney angers Palestinians with comments in Israel is the news story.

The remarks, which vastly understated the disparities between the societies, drew a swift rejoinder from Palestinian leaders. In an interview with The Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called Mr. Romney’s remarks racist.

The Caucus blog item appears to be the earliest coverage of Romney's remarks and it was rewritten to become the news story. There is important background to Erekat's remarks.

John Nolte at Big Journalism noted an aspect of Erekat's response that Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast uncovered:

Hunt made no attempt to seek comment from Romney press aides, either on the ground or during a subsequent 4 1/2-hour flight to Poland, where Stevens sat near reporters for part of the trip. Buzbee’s explanation? Hunt “didn’t know whether it was going to cause a big flurry or not.”
When they landed, Hunt saw on her BlackBerry that another AP reporter had gotten a sharp reaction from Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Erekat accused Romney of having made “a racist statement.” The controversy exploded at that point.
This is the nub of the dispute. The AP “could not have given Erekat a correct quote to respond to because they didn’t have it” with its reporter in the air and unreachable, Stevens told me. “The greatest sin here is that this was not a breaking news story. They could have waited three or four hours and gotten the story right.”

(Daled Amos has more.)

The Erekat quote was a response to an incomplete recounting of Romney's remarks. Since Erekat's statement was a great soundbite no news organization dug any deeper.

In addition to this early flurry of activity, the New York Times has run an ongoing campaign against Romney over the past week. For example, the Times published an op-ed by Jared Diamond, one of the authors cited by Romney, Romney hasn't done his homework, arguing that the candidate had misrepresented his thesis and that of David Landes. (The Times did not publish an op-ed by Landes's son arguing that Romney got his father's ideas correct. The Wall Street Journal did.) A column by Thomas Friedman argued that the Palestinians are doing well economically despite the occupation, echoing Erekat.

The other day, the New York Times added the oddest critique to its campaign, Munib Masri's op-ed Occupation not culture, Is holding Palestinians back:

As one of the most successful businessmen and industrialists in Palestine today (there are many of us), I can tell Mr. Romney without doubt or hesitation that our economy has two arms and one foot tied behind us not by culture but by occupation.
It’s hard to succeed, Mr. Romney, when roadblocks, checkpoints and draconian restrictions on the movement of goods and people suffocate our business environment. It is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of our Palestinian culture that we have managed to do so well despite such onerous constraints.

But as Barry Rubin pointed out four years ago in a column about Masri called None Dare Call in News Coverage (reprinted here in The Lid):

“Critics say some of the profits were made possible by a lucrative telecommunications monopoly the company held for several years.”
We are not told from whence this monopoly came—from the PA. The word corruption is never mentioned. Such a lack of curiosity about the sources of his wealth does not accord with journalistic practices in covering other stories.
Indeed, the story of the telecommunications monopoly is one of the best-known stories of corruption among Palestinians. How PA and Fatah factions competed over the loot, how Arafat intervened directly into the issue.

In other words if there was an exhibit of the problems Palestinian culture presented to the development of a functioning economy, Munib Masri would be a prime candidate. No doubt the editors of the New York Times don't expect its readers to know Masri's background; maybe they don't either.

In one week's time, the New York Times reported that a serious critique offered by a presidential candidate was a politically influenced gaffe, published a number of disputes to that critique and topped it off by publishing a rebuttal to the critique by a man who personified the critique.

2) If Burg's correct he will be arrested this week

The New York Times is very concerned with Israeli democracy. Not only does the paper treat us to regular laments of the "demographic threat" Israel faces. (The arguments take the form of "soon there will be more Palestinians than Jews between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River and Israel will face a choice between being a Jewish and a democratic state." These arguments ignore that demographic projections are notoriously unreliable and that as of 1995, 90% of the Palestinians lived under the authority of the Palestinian Authority.

Last year there was an editorial, Not befitting a democracy. That was followed a few months later by an op-ed In Israel, Press Freedom under attack, which was a dishonest reading of the Anat Kamm case. Last month there was an overwrought editorial, Israel's embattled democracy. Now Avraham Burg weighs in with Israel's fading democracy.

The winds of isolation and narrowness are blowing through Israel. Rude and arrogant power brokers, some of whom hold senior positions in government, exclude non-Jews from Israeli public spaces. Graffiti in the streets demonstrates their hidden dreams: a pure Israel with “no Arabs” and “no gentiles.” They do not notice what their exclusionary ideas are doing to Israel, to Judaism and to Jews in the diaspora. In the absence of a binding constitution, Israel has no real protection for its minorities or for their freedom of worship and expression.
If this trend continues, all vestiges of democracy will one day disappear, and Israel will become just another Middle Eastern theocracy. It will not be possible to define Israel as a democracy when a Jewish minority rules over a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — controlling millions of people without political rights or basic legal standing.

Jonathan Tobin characterized this tendency of the Times brilliantly:

You might think that even the New York Times would get tired of publishing rants from failed Israeli politicians denouncing not only their nation’s current government but also the entire society that had rejected them.

Just a few months ago the New York Times reported over the controversy of an Arab judge who refuses to the sing Israel's national anthem. It would seem contrary to Burg's blanket statement, non-Jews are not excluded from Israel's public spaces. So the Times doesn't even require that an op-ed columnist base his arguments on facts; even facts that are reported by the paper itself.

Given how rare it is for anyone at the Times to lament the lack of democracy of the PA, where elections are years overdue, President Abbas is fighting against free speech and the Hamas government is oppressing Christians, its phony concern for the state of Israel's democracy is beyond absurd.

Labels: Israeli democracy, Middle East Media Sampler, Mitt Romney, New York Times, Palestinian culture, Saeb Erekat, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:31 PM 1 comments

Sharansky, Cotler Discuss Compatibility of Jewish and Democratic Values in Israel

Here's a summary of the session I wanted to attend from the conference publicist.

Hebrew University President and former Knesset member Professor Menahem Ben Sasson led a panel of experts including Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and former Deputy Prime Minister, Canadian MP Professor Irwin Cotler, in which they analyzed the ramifications of a "Jewish and democratic" State as well as highlighted the challenges that Israel faces regarding tensions between religious and secular values.

“Democracy and religion do not contradict, you do not have to give up on one in favor of the other,” said Sharansky. “The basic desire to be free but to also belong, to live a life of quality, liberty and meaning are simply two dimensions of the same thing. A life of values provides strength to fight for your freedom.”

He imparted that this idea is very natural to him, having lived in the former Soviet Union with no freedom and no identity and then discovering both at the same time when he arrived in Israel. He stated that conflict is inventible among those living as both “proud and free Jews” and that Israel faces many challenges to which there is no simple solution. To this, he stresses the importance of introducing general “traffic rules” to help navigate these issues.

Cotler emphasized the important role that Jewish values, such as aiding the downtrodden, remembering and honoring the past, valuing equality, and refraining from assaultive speech and slander, can play in shaping a democratic society.

“Israel is both a Jewish and democratic State with the added challenge of living in a hostile environment,” he said. “The fundamental Jewish values of respect for the sanctity of human life should frame our discourse and policy when it comes to national issues, including Israel’s current African migration challenge.”

Too bad they didn't add anything from the other panelists.

Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli democracy, President's Conference

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:11 PM 0 comments

American ladies rock

Below is a notice I just received from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv about three concerts by a women's group called Antigone Rising. The concerts will be held in Jerusalem, Zoran (in the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv corridor) and Tel Aviv.
Antigone Rising

I'd be more impressed if there were concerts in Judea and Samaria, but these ladies are being brought here to promote an agenda.

But as long as no one is forced to attend, I doubt you'll see any protests outside, and the embassy may have to scramble for publicity.

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Israeli democracy, US embassy in Tel Aviv, women and song

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:12 AM 1 comments

A reminder of how little say you have

If you're an Israeli, this will remind you of how little say you really have in this country.

Labels: Israeli democracy, Israeli Knesset

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:39 PM 1 comments

Why the 'Hilltop Youth' have no respect for the law

I know that a lot of you have been outraged by some of the actions of those acting in the name of the 'Hilltop Youth' lately, and especially the 'invasion' of an IDF base last week. There have been many calls here in Israel for the youth of Judea and Samaria to be 'educated' in the 'rule of law' by their rabbis and teachers. Evelyn Gordon says that won't work, because the same elites who are leading the calls for 'democracy' and the 'rule of law' have corrupted both concepts themselves.

Unfortunately, this article is behind a pay wall at the JPost. I have received it via email, and will post a large portion of it below.

The rule of law? Don’t make them laugh
By EVELYN GORDON
20/12/2011
Kids won’t respect law and democracy if elites abuse both with impunity.


Last week’s upsurge of right-wing extremist violence – which included breaking into and vandalizing a West Bank army base, stoning Palestinian cars, torching two mosques and assaulting and injuring an Israel Defense Forces officer – sparked a wave of denunciations, and rightly so. Such violence can’t be tolerated, and more can and must be done on the law-enforcement front. That some 50 extremists could invade an IDF base without soldiers arresting a single one, for instance, is outrageous.

But solving the broader problem of the extremists’ utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law is much more difficult, because, contrary to popular wisdom, better education by rabbis and teachers won’t help. In fact, nothing will, as long as these youngsters continue to see democracy and the rule of law being flagrantly abused by the same elites who preach those virtues most loudly.

Most of the hooligans are old enough to remember how settlers helped former prime minister Ariel Sharon to a landslide victory in 2003, only to see him implement the very policy he campaigned against: unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. They also remember how settlers secured a sweeping 60 percent victory in the subsequent Likud Party referendum by going door-to-door, lobbying against the pullout, only to see Sharon and his fellow Likud MKs ignore the results and leave Gaza anyway.

They grew up hearing about how activists successfully lobbied against the 1995 Oslo II accord, only to see then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin reverse the 61-59 majority they secured by bribing two MKs to switch sides, then retroactively amending the law to legalize the previously-illegal benefits he promised them. And they saw and heard how all the journalists, academics, politicians and jurists who talk so grandiloquently about “democracy” applauded Sharon and Rabin for these anti-democratic maneuvers.

Yet, after all this, people expect rabbis and teachers to convince young people to put their faith in democratic methods of suasion? The youngsters would laugh in their faces.

Then throw in what these youngsters learned about the “rule of law” from former Shin Bet agent Avishai Raviv, a provocateur run by the security service in an effort to gather information on right-wing extremists. As Haaretz’s Hebrew edition noted in a damning retrospective last month, the Raviv trauma runs so deep that, 16 years later, the Shin Bet still finds it almost impossible to recruit informants from the settler community.

Raviv’s information produced neither high-profile indictments nor any warning of Rabin’s 1995 assassination, but he did stage several well-publicized provocations, like a swearing-in ceremony to Eyal, the fake terrorist organization he created; a staged “terrorist training camp” for teens and T-shirts with pictures of Rabin in an SS uniform that Eyal members sported at an anti-Oslo demonstration. All were broadcast on national television, shocked the country and served to smear the entire settler community.

The Shin Bet, along with the senior prosecutor who personally oversaw Raviv’s employment, periodically authorized him to break the law, and ensured that cases against him were closed even when his law-breaking was unauthorized. The prosecutor also concealed Raviv’s role from her bosses, two successive attorneys general.

But what befell those who authorized Raviv’s anti-settler smear campaign? Then-Shin Bet head Carmi Gillon was forced out for failing to prevent Rabin’s murder, but suffered no penalties for the Raviv affair. Indeed, far from being disgraced, he was showered with prestigious appointments, including ambassador to Denmark, CEO of the insurance conglomerate Avner, director of the Peres Center for Peace and seats on the boards of several leading companies; he was also elected mayor of Mevaseret Zion.

The prosecutor did even better: Today, Supreme Court judge Dorit Beinisch is president of the Supreme Court, the “rule of law” personified. And then people wonder why these youngsters despise it?

Nor is such impunity exceptional. Just last week, the state agreed to pay two million shekels to formerly-accused murderer Yosef Zohar, who spent five years being wrongly accused of murdering his father, Moshe. Though an ambulance crew said Moshe died of natural causes in 2002, his second wife persuaded police to investigate. Both Zohar and his father’s caregiver told police that Zohar left his father at 9 p.m., rushed back at midnight when the caregiver called and arrived to find his father dead. Since police initially neglected to check the house’s second phone line, proof that the phone call indeed occurred was discovered occurred only after Zohar’s arrest. But then, instead of releasing him, police browbeat the caregiver into concocting a new story, and prosecutors accepted it as grounds for an indictment.

In 2007, a court cleared Zohar, saying there was no evidence his father had been murdered, that there was strong evidence supporting Zohar’s story and that police had bullied the caregiver to lie.

But instead of being penalized for their conduct, the police officer who headed the investigation was promoted, another who worked on it was commended and the lead prosecutor was elevated to a position as a judge. In short, three law enforcement officials were rewarded for an unwarranted prosecution that put an innocent man through five years of hell.

...

Thus when these youngsters look at how the “rule of law” actually operates, they see a “rule” that only applies to ordinary Joes. Those who belong to the in-group of well-connected journalists, academics, jurists, security officials, businessmen and politicians can commit abuses with impunity – and, in some cases, be rewarded.

So how, given these realities, is any rabbi or teacher supposed to convince these youngsters to respect the rule of law? They would laugh at anyone who tried. And I couldn’t blame them.

Indeed.

Labels: Israeli democracy, price tag attacks

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:52 PM 2 comments

Clinton's worries

We now have more details on what Hillary Clinton said about Israel on Friday to a closed forum at the Saban Center.

In a closed session at the Saban Forum attended both by Israeli and American decision-makers Clinton addressed the issue of discrimination against Israeli women. She expressed concern for Israel's social climate in the wake of limitations on female public singing and gender segregation on public transport.

Among the Israeli representatives taking part in the forum were Minister Dan Meridor, Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Clinton, a longtime advocate for women's rights, noted she was shocked at the fact that some Jerusalem buses have assigned separate seating areas for women. "It's reminiscent of Rosa Parks," she said, referring to the black American woman who refused to give up her seat to white passengers in the 1950s.

As it happens, Israel's Supreme Court ruled several months ago that no one can prevent someone else from sitting anywhere they want on a public bus, so to the extent that this exists (and my neighborhood is one of the places where it nominally does exist), it is totally voluntary. We do not have separate men's and women's buses and no one asks women to give up their seats when it gets crowded at the front of the bus. In fact, the back two thirds of the bus tend to be mostly women on the buses into and out of ultra-Orthodox dominated neighborhoods.

Referring to the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing, she said it reminded her of the situation in Iran.

We've had arguments about this in the comments section, but Jewish law regards a woman's voice when heard by a man not her husband or son as erva (nakedness) in most circumstances and erva is something to be avoided at (literally) all costs. I don't understand the fuss about that incident. No one argued that it couldn't take place - only that religious soldiers who were offended by it should not be forced to stay and listen to it.

This year's Saban Forum has been focusing mainly on issues related to Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Some members of the forum said that Clinton's statements about Israel stemmed from genuine fear for the country's future.

Yeah, sure....

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Israeli democracy, Saban Center, women

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:32 PM 2 comments