The formation of the new Netanyahu government is taking much longer than was generally expected and only this week he announced to President Herzog, that he succeeded in building a coalition that is based on a majority in the Knesset.
The main reason for the delays are the continued claims of his coalition partners, who continuously came up with new demands, some more absurd than others but always accompanied by the threat to bold the coalition, which would prevent Netanyahu from forming a government. And since for the incoming Prime Minister, his own interests are way more important than such trivial issues as the interest of the State of the welfare of its citizens, he would give in to all demands, which merely resulted in new ones.
While one of the main scandals is the agreement to legislate an “override clause”, taking away the powers of the Supreme Court, and destroying basic elements of Democracy, this will be done with the support of Netanyahu and his party. This week two new demands came to light that apparently Netanyahu had more reservations about, but in the end still became part of the coalition agreements.
One is the removal from the Basic Law governing the Knesset, the clause that prevents people that incite to racism will not be allowed to run for the Knesset. The “Racism” clause successfully prevented Kahana’s Kach party to run for the Knesset in 1985, and was also invoked by the Supreme Court to prevent three racist members of the Ultra-right party “Jewish Strength” to become Knesset members. This simply means that fascist racists like Michael Ben Ari, Baruch Marzel and Bentzi Gopstein will be able to run in the next elections, bringing to the Knesset their racist views.
The second demand by the ultra-right wing coalition partners is even more explicitly racist, but Netanyahu apparently had no choice to give in to this one as well. The agreement demands an amendment to existing laws that would allow private business to refuse to provide a service or a product based on the business owner’s religious beliefs. Two examples were given by Knesset members, where this amendment could be invoked.
MK Orit Struck claims that a doctor should be allowed to refuse medical assistance to members of the LGBTQ community, if the lifestyle of these people is against his beliefs. MK Simcha Rotman claimed that according to the amendment, a hotel owner should be allowed to refuse to rent a room to a gay couple if this goes against his religion. The implementations of such a law would be a lot broader even and “religious beliefs” may encompass almost every action and may easily include not only the gay community, but others as well and of course, even though it was not said out loud, Arabs and women. (Women are already being discriminated against in many ways, in particular in the orthodox community). But according to Struck, Halacha laws are Israeli laws and they represent Israel’s moral code.
It is unclear at this point, if the right-wing parties main aim will be the Arab community but the threat from this law is larger than anything Israel has seen, ever. It will place religious laws above civil laws, which will result in severe discrimination, as well as violation of International Civil Rights laws that Israel is committed to.
Reactions to this outrageous demand, which was given in to by Netanyahu, have been fierce and uncompromising. The Israel Medical association stated that the doctor’s oath does not allow for discrimination of any kind, President Herzog expressed his worries about the amendment and the racial implications it has for Israel; even one of Israel’s leading banks already proclaimed that it will not extend credit to businesses that will discriminate based on this legal amendment. Of course this outrage is important and may leave some hope but it is becoming more and more obvious that Israel, and Israelis, must ask themselves a very painful question.
The fact that these ultra-right parties are making these demands is based on a very simple truth: they have the political power to do so after the last elections that took place two months ago. And Israel should ask itself: how did it come to pass that these racists were voted into the Knesset in numbers large enough to make such demands at all. The argument that we didn’t know, simple doesn’t hold. While, (obviously) the demands go beyond our wildest dreams (or worst nightmares), they have expressed their views and ideals often enough and loudly enough so that anybody who wanted to hear did hear (and as a result voted for them). Does Israel really want these people, with these racist ideas to be given the power to convert their ideas to realism?
And when we are already soul-searching: how come that a large group of Israeli parliamentarians (32 Likudniks), of which at least some do not agree with these racist changes, still approved them or at least, for cheap political reasons, did not oppose them? Don’t they care or are they simply worried about their own future, more than worried about Israel’s future?
Food for thought? Maybe, but only in a kosher restaurant of course.
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