The results of the 2013 election were supposed to have meant far-reaching change in the public's order of priorities on several urgent matters on Israel's agenda. These preferences should have found expression in the distribution of influence in the legislature and the executive. However, the months of coalition negotiations, the make-up of the government, its policy outlines, and the coalition agreements do not herald the promised radical change. As the fog clears, it appears that to a large extent things will carry on as they were. This is especially so in the anti-democratic, racist, anti-egalitarian, and sometimes even violent spirit of some of the legislative initiatives in the previous Knesset.
Section 50 of the coalition agreement between Likud-Beytenu and Habayit Hayehudi states that "the parties will promote a law, the Basic Law: The State of Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People. Although, unlike in the case of other legislation in the coalition agreements, there is no explicit commitment in this case to legislation within a specific time, and no promise of support by all coalition factions, this is a worrisome and dangerous undertaking, which gives a clue to the emerging character of the new government.
This section of the coalition adopts a bill put forward by Avi Dichter in the previous Knesset, signed by 40 members of Knesset of the right-wing parties. The proposal has now been upgraded from a private member's bill that stood little real chance of becoming law without the agreement of all the coalition factions, to the status of a quasi-government bill that, if it is held up, could serve in the future as a reason to precipitate a coalition crisis or become part of some nefarious deal over legislation or policy, as though it were a legitimate component of the government's policy agenda.
The danger in this bill is multi-layered. It mainly lies in the fact that it masquerades as a legitimate initiative to strengthen the Jewish and national elements of the country's character. The expression "the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people" was included in the past in section 7a of the Basic Law: The Knesset which allows for the disqualification of party lists in Knesset elections, and aroused legal and constitutional controversy, until it was later changed to "as a Jewish democratic state", an expression that is currently accepted as the cornerstone of the definition of the delicate balance in the state's character between the national aspirations of the Jewish people and the complex reality that arises from the fact that there is a substantial Arab minority in Israel that is part of the country's citizenship.
The bill for a basic law "The State of Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People" seeks to upset that delicate balance, to the point of nullifying it completely. Even the infiltration of the word "nation" into the expression, and making Israel "The Nation State of the Jewish People" is sufficient to change fundamentally the basic values that have underlain constitutional legislation for over twenty years. The rest of the bill's provisions also seek to strengthen the "Jewish state" component and to erase the "democratic state" component of that delicate balance.
It is not just a matter of symbolic declarations. When a provision is written into a basic law that "the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people", its negative implications are as important as what it explicitly states.
It is not necessary to be a code cracker to understand what's behind this law: you just have to read on. Besides stipulating the Jewishness of the state as the supreme value determining its character, the bill also states that "the State of Israel has a democratic regime". This section is doubly dangerous, both because it is clearly secondary to the 'Jewishness" sections, and because it loudly states the obvious. What is the practical implication of such as constitutional declaration? That the section can be amended and the democratic character of Israel can be abolished? Or perhaps its democratic character is limited by the precedent of restrictive application of laws in conflict with a Basic Law, so that it is conditional on its being "for a proper purpose and to a degree no greater than required."
The deeper level of danger in the bill lies in the constitutional standing it is liable to acquire, if it becomes part of the fabric of the state's basic laws. As such, it could become a cause for attacking regular Knesset legislation that embodies principles of human rights and equality between all sections of the population. There is not space here to detail all the practical dangers that arise from that.
From the point of view of those in Israel who seek to promote racism and undermine the rule of law there are such people this is a victory in any event: either the Supreme Court will retreat further from the use of its authority to serve as a constitutional check, or it will act, in the name of distorted legislation that is steadily being enacted, to deepen the marks of apartheid borne by Israel's regime.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 18, 2013
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