Reasonableness

For the past thirty weeks hundreds of thousands of Israelis have protested on the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere about the Israeli government’s proposed legislation about the Supreme Court and the so-called Reasonableness Standard which was passed 64-0 by the Knesset on 24^th July 2023.

While there has been some activity in support of the measures principally by settlement dwellers in the West Bank many in mainstream Israeli society have formed an unlikely alliance to protect, as they see it, Israeli democracy and their freedoms.

But Arab Israelis have by and large been absent from the demonstrations and only a fraction of the pro-democracy protesters sees a connection between the package of laws Netenyahu’s right wing coalition partners are looking for and the expansion of settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories which they want to carry out with haste. An even smaller fraction see any connection with the systematic, systemic injustice faced by Palestinians for more than fifty years.

Unlike in the UK and the US there is only one legislative body in Israel, so the Supreme Court is the only check and balance in place. So far this year, Israel’s High Court of Justice disqualified Shas party chairman Arye Dery from serving as health and interior minister on the basis that his appointment was “unreasonable in the extreme” as he has been convicted three times of criminal offenses and failed in his previous public positions to “serve the public loyally and lawfully.” Dery’s convictions include tax evasion, corruption as a public official, bribery and fraud.

Netanyahu’s own conflict of interest as someone with a current court case against him has been scrutinized.

And the new legislation is itself under scrutiny in the court.

But to call the Israeli government and legal system ‘reasonable’ is really a stretch of the meaning of the word when considering recent court cases. The soldier who killed Eyad Halak the Jerusalem adult with autism was found not guilty of any wrong-doing, despite evidence that a caregiver with Eyad was shouting to the soldier not to shoot.

The Nasser family of the Tent of Nations https://tentofnations.com/ have been going to court for more than twenty years to assert their family’s right to land for which they have papers, and the case is still not settled.

Western governments have expressed concern about the Middle East’s democratic state dropping into authoritarianism. But whole sections of the population are disadvantaged systemically both in Israel itself and in the occupied Palestinian territories. Authoritarianism is already here.

Recently Mary Robinson and Ban Ki-moon visited Israel/0Pt as representatives of the Elders – a group of elder world leaders- and their report highlights the deterioration of the situation ‘on the ground’. https://balfourproject.org/elders-warn-of-consequences-of-one-state-reality-in-israel-and-palestine/

Ban Ki-moon, Deputy Chair of The Elders and former UN Secretary-General, said: 

“I leave Israel and Palestine with a heavy heart. I have seen and heard compelling evidence of a one-state reality, with systemic impunity for violators of international law and human rights. There is a lack of political vision and leadership in Israel and Palestine and among Israel’s allies, who continue to revert to a short-term approach. The people of Israel and Palestine, and the world, deserve better. And they deserve it now, before it is too late.” 

From all around there is evidence of an emboldment among those who seek to impose an ultraorthodox religious Zionism on everyone whether in local planning issues or in an increase in attacks by Settlers on Palestinians.

One of the cruelest and stupidest things I have seen was a video of soldiers pouring concrete into an agricultural water source in south Hebron. I had to check several sources before I could believe it. There have been no arrests and no injuries but the environmental stupidity and the cruelty of doing this to a water source used by 25 families beggars belief.https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230727-israeli-soldiers-seal-palestinian-well-with-concrete/

No, there is nothing reasonable about this.