Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin spoke about Israeli democracy and the upcoming Jewish National La, in a discussion between himself and a Professor Mordechai Kremnister from the left-leaning “Israel Democracy Institute”, with an introduction by reporter Zev Kam discussing the upcoming Jewish National Law (in whatever form it will take).
The entire discussion is fascinating (but in Hebrew).
Here are some translated excerpts from Feiglin’s statements, as well as from some comments that Feiglin wrote down after the video was posted.
I don’t think Israel is democratic enough. If it was, I don’t think Israel would have been able to send the army to expel 10,000 people from their homes in Gush Katif, to name one example. An act that Professor Kremnister supported and encouraged.
If Israel was more democratic, we wouldn’t see a law like the “Yisrael HaYom Law” where the parliament nullified a newspaper, and the Israel Democracy Center didn’t say a word against it.
Their goal here is not democracy. It is to transform Israel into a “state of all its citizens” instead of a Jewish state.
The word ‘democracy’, does not appear in the [Israel] Declaration of Independence. The reason is that democracy is not an end, democracy is a system.
“Democracy is a very poor method” – Churchill once explained – “But I do not know do any better.” I do not know a good method for implementing liberty.
So I’m a democrat – more than all those fighting against the National Law.
All the dreamers and pioneers, immigrants and warriors, builders and planters – who returned to our holy land after 2,000 years of exile, did not do so in order to establish a democratic country. If that was the goal they could have gone to America and Australia. Most of them actually did so.
Those who came here wanted a Jewish state. The vast majority Jewish state seeks to implement the democratic system, but to place on the same level – the identity [of the country] with the system [of government] with which to implement it – is left-wing demagoguery, which comes to confuse the public and take away the Jewish state.
The National Law is not in any way detrimental to democracy, on the contrary, it preserves the values of the majority and doesn’t allow a small minority to act against its will.
The National Law blocks this frantic quest to obliterate the Jewish identity of the state.
That, and only for that – is what is igniting the opponents of National Law.
