{Originally posted to the author’s blog, Treppenewitz}
Yesterday, the Knesset finally passed a controversial bill into law that will allow Israeli lawmakers to expel a Member of Knesset who supports armed struggle against the State of Israel and/or incites racial hatred. The new law – which many assume is meant to target Joint Arab List MK, Hanin Zoabi – will require at least 90 of the 120 MKs to vote in favor of their colleague’s removal.
The law passed by a margin of 62-47, but one has to wonder how such an obvious idea wasn’t unanimously embraced and approved!
Not surprisingly, since it was a right wing coalition majority that passed the new law, many left wing MKs are calling it ‘anti-democratic’, and are bemoaning it as ‘the death of Israeli democracy’.
Yet, interesting, the Israeli left had no problem whatsoever passing an amendment to the Israeli election law back in 1988 which had essentially the same intent; albeit to keep someone from entering the Knesset rather than creating a provision for removing them.
That 1988 amendment had the stated goal of barring Rabbi Meir Kahane’s far-right Kach party from participating in that year’s Knesset elections where polls predicted it would likely increase its Knesset representation from 1 to 3 (or maybe 4) seats.
The 1988 amendment codified into election law that a party could be prevented from participating in Knesset elections for even one of the following:
- Negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people
- Negation of the democratic character of the State
- Incitement to racism
While I don’t think anyone would call me a Kahanist, I find it puzzling that none of our lefty lawmakers ever felt the need to invoke the above-mentioned amendment in order to ban Zoabi and her party from elections, since she has repeatedly and unequivocally met all three of these legal conditions.
So, to the Meretz and Zionist Union MKs who are currently bleating about this evil new law I say that, had you pushed for the fair and honest application of the election law amendment your predecessors passed back in the 80’s specifically to block a far right party from entering the Knesset, the current right wing coalition government would have had no need to pass a new law to allow for the removal of a far left wing lawmaker who espouses anti-democratic / anti-Israel values.
Sadly, the Israeli far-left subscribes to a chillingly Orwellian worldview of fairness and entitlement where, under the law, some are more equal than others.
In a real democracy, what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
