By Yaakov Hagoel, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization
When talking about the Declaration of Independence, one usually focuses on its resounding opening sentences:
“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books“, or in one of the following paragraphs, which talk about the natural and historical right to the land, the call for peace with all the inhabitants of the land and the partnership in the fight against Nazi evil.
All this is good and important. The Declaration of Independence is truly a work of thought of precise wording, every word of which was examined and weighed by the heads of the Jewish population on the eve of the establishment of the State. But no less is the last part of the scroll, dedicated to signatories.
David Ben-Gurion at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1948 (Photo: GPO)
Thirty-seven people were privileged to sign the founding document of the State, headed by David Ben-Gurion of course, and among them also Golda Meir, Moshe Sharret, Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaCohen Fishman Maimon and many others. Every time I look at the signature section, I come across David Remez‘s signature.
Why specifically Remez’s signature? Because it is the most prominent of them all. Most of the signatories used a pen brought especially for the event by the People’s Administration that intended uniformity for the signatures. Remez brought his own pen with him, a special and thick pen, and to this day his signature stands out as the most prominent name among the signatories.
For me, the story of David Ramez’s signature – he has many accomplishments to his credit since the early days of the Yishuv, as a Knesset member and cabinet minister – is not just a historical anecdote. There is an important message, especially during these days. Recently the Declaration of Independence has become a symbol of the national controversy that is burning within us. Some say it is all mine, and others say it is all mine. There are those who maintain that the values that they support are the correct balance between the different levels of government and the other side which says that these values are actually the opposite.
But the truth is neither here nor there. The Declaration of Independence belongs to the entire Israeli public, and besides the thirty-seven actual signatures on it, there are millions more transparent signatures of every citizen. Everyone signed the scroll – each of us with his own special pen, values, stories and hopes. Over the years we learned to unite around the scroll, to add more and more signatures at the bottom, and today the Declaration of Independence is the place where all these signatures are gathered, and on the basis of which the Israeli partnership grows.
The Declaration of Independence must not be read as if it supports only one side of the political map. Such an appropriation will erase from it many signatures of Israelis, partners on the way. What we must do is the opposite: take out each and every one of us his special pen, re-sign the scroll, find our unique place within this founding text – and then take all these pens and continue to write, together, the great Israeli story.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Following Israelis expressing their anxieties within society today from protest to poetry, lay of the Land publishes another in our ongoing series. From fractures in Israel society to a sharp rise in terrorism, the son of Holocaust survivors reflects through this poem of living on the edge. Even something as mundane as commuting on a bus, becomes in Jerusalem today an existential experience. Is it paranoia or reality? David E. Kaplan Lay of the Land Editor
UNTIL 120 – A REALITY CHECK
By Solly Kaplinski
Every morning I normally take the 6.57 Egged bus to the light rail station in French Hill The train is usually packed but invariably, someone stands up for me a sort of back handed compliment: respect for the grey hair and me coming to terms with my ageing self – and my impending mortality Until 120, I tell myself
The 70 faces are all present and accounted for women burying their faces in the Shacharit prayers lips moving furiously young soldiers and border police high spirited and seemingly deep in superficial conversation eyes darting in all directions reluctant children going to school glued to their cellphones vatikim with empty agalot off to the shuk Our cousins are also on board conversing animatedly and a tower of babel cacophony of tourist and worker languages
Such a normal slice of life – like anywhere else in the world the rush hour for those who open up the morning. But my usual paranoid self gets the better of me – as always… I am a child of Holocaust survivors you know and I have lived with exploding buses and burnt-out restaurants and Jew butchers on the loose And I cast suspicious eyes on my fellow travelers looking for anything out of the ordinary: someone in disguise an over-stuffed duffel bag a hand in a bulging pocket or holding a scrunched-up Rami Levi sakit ready for coiled action
I step out into the sunshine and blue sky at the Hechalutz station And there’s a spring in my walk I’m almost at the office
Until 120, I tell myself
_______________________________________
Shacharit: early morning prayers Vatikim – seniors Agalot – small shopping trollies Rami Levi – a discount supermarket chain Sakit – a plastic shopping bag Hechalutz – pioneer
About the writer:
Solly Kaplinski headed up Jewish Day Schools in Cape Town, Toronto and Vancouver before making Aliyah with Arleen almost 25 years ago. His professional life in Israel is bookended by working at Yad Vashem and then at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Solly is also the author of the novella A World of Pain: A Redemptive Parable? His three daughters, their spouses and an egalitarian minyan of grandchildren all live in Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Israel should avoid replicating South Africa’s National Party shenanigans
By Peter Bailey
Counsel for the government of Israel, in applying for a postponement of the Supreme Court hearing on the Reasonableness Law said “The petitions involve historical, jurisprudential and doctrinal issues on a massive scale, and they likely lack precedent in the history of the High Court of Justice and other authorities. It’s doubtful that they have precedent in the entire Western world”. While there might not be an international precedent on the Reasonableness Law, there is certainly precedent material with regard to a democratically elected government trying to usurp the authority of a High or Supreme Court, and the end result.
The current situation in Israel is very reminiscent of political events in South Africa during the period 1951/1952 following the victory of the right wing Reformed Nationalist Party and its equally right wing Afrikaner Party partner in the 1948 general election. The primary objective of the governing coalition was to pass legislation that would ensure its continuation as the governing party in a “democratic dictatorship”, by rigging the system. Ridding the voter’s role of the Mixed Race voters, colloquially referred to as Coloured voters, whose rights were entrenched, suited the Nationalist Party’s racial policies, while simultaneously removing a substantial block of voters who supported the opposition. Doing so would almost guarantee the coalition’s ability to hold onto power in future elections. This resulted in the Separate Representation of Voters Act of 1951, disenfranchising Coloured voters. The law was subsequently invalidated and set aside by the Supreme Court of South Africa as being unconstitutional, as it had not been passed by the required two thirds parliamentary majority, but by the coalition’s slim 9 seat majority in the 150 seat parliament.
Onslaught on Judiciary. South Africa’s old Supreme Court in Bloemfontein when in the early 1950s was being undermined by the Nationalist government in furtherance of its agenda to disenfranchise the Coloured community.
The response from the governing coalition was to pass legislation in 1952 titled the High Court of Parliament Act, which would allow a simple majority in both houses of Parliament to set aside any judgment of the Supreme Court of South Africa. The Legislature consisted of an upper house, the Senate, with its members elected indirectly by the four provinces, and a lower house, the Parliament, elected by White and enfranchised Colored voters. During 1953, the Supreme Court invalidated the High Court of Parliament Act, with the Chief Justice stating:
“The so-called High Court of Parliament is not a court of law, but simply Parliament functioning under another name … Parliament cannot, by passing an act giving itself the name of a court of law, come to any decision which will have the effect of destroying the entrenched provisions of the (Supreme Court in the) constitution“.
The Government response to the Supreme Court ruling came in 1955 when the Senate was artificially enlarged with government appointed members who would ensure a two thirds majority, and so the Colored voters were soon disenfranchised with a contrived two thirds majority vote.
These attempts by the South African government coalition to set itself above the Supreme Court between 1951 and 1955, bear many similarities to the current attempts by Israel’s governing coalition to empower themselves to overrule the High Court with a simple majority in the Knesset. While the South African right wing coalition was able to manipulate the rules to its own advantage by maintaining popular support, the turn of events in Israel have shown that there is a huge groundswell of public disapproval of the intended law reforms.
Cataclysmic Clash. Determining the future character of the state of Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces off against Esther Hayut,Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel.
Returning to the South African example, once the parliamentary vote was rigged to suit the governing Nationalist Party, there was nothing to hold them back from passing a plethora of discriminatory laws which entrenched the Apartheid policies of the government. These laws encompassed every aspect of life for non-White South Africans, defining who they could marry and where they could live and work. While these three factors were crucial to enable government policies, what became known as Petty Apartheid soon reared its ugly head. White facilities such as parks, churches, shopping centers, cinemas and sporting facilities were soon denied to non-whites, with Black, Colored, and Asiatic South Africans each having to develop their own racially exclusive facilities.
Parallels between the racist policies of the South African government are very evident in the racist and divisive policies enunciated by the extreme right wing parties in Israel, as well as by some on the extreme right fringe of the Likud. These extreme racist views do not permeate the whole coalition in Israel, with the ultra-orthodox component more concerned with looking after its own constituency, while the extreme policies are designed to attend to the wants and needs of its own largely nationalist religious supporters. This brings us to the sought after law reforms of the Israeli right wing, where the similarity with South Africa ends, as each component of the coalition wants similar changes to the judiciary for very different reasons and to attain divergent ends. This desire to change the judicial system is the only cement actually holding the current coalition together.
The prime mover of the law reform has been justice minister Yaariv Levin, whose grandfather hailed from Kroonstad, a bastion of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa’s Orange Free State. Levin might well have an agenda of his own, but appears to be acting in the best interests of his boss, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is facing several criminal charges with varying degrees of gravity, which he blames on the system, including the police, the attorney general’s office and the judiciary for fabricating. Laws dubbed as the Netanyahu Law have been passed to benefit the prime minister, with the courts apparently reluctant to allow laws with personal benefits to pass muster. So the Likud wants and supports legal reform to help to allow their leader to get off the hook.
Power Broker. Justice minister Yariv Levin, whose forbears hail from Kroonstad in South Africa, introduces plan to curtail power of judiciary that would boost the power of the elected officials over the courts. (Photo Ben Hakoon)
Thrown into the mix are the extreme right wing Religious Zionism and Otzmah Yehudit parties, who would like legal changes allowing them to have free rein in the West Bank to bring about a de facto, and preferably de jure annexation of the territory by Israel. They would then probably look to introducing policies similar to Bantustan policies that held sway in South Africa during the Apartheid years. Creating Arabstans (including Israeli Arabs) looks well suited to fitting their world view of settling the Israel Arab conflict. Nothing less than a totally subjugated Arab population subject to Jewish rule will satisfy Israel’s racist extreme right wing parties.
Next up with a ‘wish list’ are the haredi parties – United Torah Judaism and Shas – representing the ultra-orthodox communities in Israel. They have an interest in changing the legal status in order to obtain maximum financial benefits for their congregants, while keeping their children out of military service. Their support for the coalition has been bought with handouts from Netanyahu that will be paid for by the Israeli taxpayers, with very few ultra-Orthodox counted among the tax paying public.
Few are Smiling Today. While there was much smiling at the President’s residence in Jerusalem on December 29, 2022, by members of Netanyahu’s new Israeli government, outside today in Israel’s streets, people protest against this government’s assault on the Supreme Court. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The needs and desires of prime minister Netanyahu, his right- wing Likud members and his coalition partners remain focused on self-gratification; they are quite prepared to see the rest of Israel suffer the fallout, from destructive damage to the IDF, right through to an economic collapse.
This article began with South Africa and the 1948 National Party victory which ushered in disrespect for the established rule of law and ended in 1994 with an economic collapse followed by precisely what the Nats were seeking to avoid: Black majority rule.
Let me end off by expressing the hope that the end result of extreme right and ultra-orthodox aspirations don’t bring about the end of the Democratic Jewish State of Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Disentangling the toxic from merit-based judicial elitism
By Lawrence Nowosenetz
Bitter divisions are wracking Israeli society over the recently passed reasonableness legislation. This legislation is part of what was a planned package of judicial reforms by the coalition government. The reforms are touted as being necessary to restore democracy and return the will of the voters to the elected representatives of the voters of Israel. The judges of the Supreme Court of Israel have been accused of overstepping the mark, entering politics, and making policy decisions based on their notions of reasonableness of government action and even legislation.
There is more than an undercurrent of criticism of the judges. Various commentators and politicians have stated that the judiciary is undemocratic as it is unelected, and the judges are an elite and unrepresentative of a large part of Israeli society. The criticism of the selection of judges at present, is that the judges control this process and appoint their own peers. Thus a small self-appointed elite is making the important decisions and is out of touch with the wishes and needs of the electorate. The reforms sought are said to aim at remedying this injustice and place the appointment of the judges in the hands of politicians and importantly the majority of whom are coalition government politicians. What can be wrong with this? Government by the people, for the people.
Sounds great except that it is not so simple. There are some gross distortions of social justice and violations of robust established principles of justice and good governance. Misunderstandings about the role of the judiciary and gross disrespect for the rule of law also inform this most abused idea of elitism being at the root of all the evil within the judiciary.
Unveiling or Unleashing?Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveils his plan for overhauling the judicial system at a press conference in January 2023 leading to protests across the country now in its ninth month. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
We are living in a populist era where the idea of a select few having a privileged position in society is looked upon with disfavour. We have become so obsessed with the notion of equality and our aversion of discrimination that we have lost sight of the moral basis of elitism, which is merit. We are all equal in worth and all men and women were created in the image of G-d. This is a noble immutable and just social principle except that it overlooks one thing: We are not equal in ability. The more able are entitled to the fruits of their talents and contributions towards the welfare of society. This entitlement is based on merit and not on patronage, popularity, political favour or background. Elitism is toxic when it is undeserved. George Orwell satirised this in his famous novel Animal Farm where the corrupt political doctrine “some are more equal than others” made a huge impact on our thought. We need to disentangle toxic from merit-based elitism.
Judges are not public representatives and never were meant to be elected. Indeed popularity, particularly temporal political approval, is no criterion at all for fitness for judicial office. As eminent US law professor Allan Dershowitz has remarked, the judiciary is actually anti-majoritarian. He has supported the existing Israeli system of judicial selection as better than the US system where the US Supreme Court is perceived as being politicised. To state the other side of the coin, judges are and should be an elite. Peer recommendation plays a legitimate role. Senior jurists are in the best position to evaluate the competence and fitness of their colleagues. Successful societies need top jurists who have earned their place by skill, character, experience, maturity, independence, and service to society. Their loyalty is to the State and the protection of the rights of all that are affected by the laws. The State is not the same as the government. Political ideologies and governments come and go but the State binds every citizen to respect the founding values and rule of law. Judges are only answerable to the rule of law.
We have elites in all walks of life and professions. Not only judges. We have engineers and scientists who design weapons and technology to protect us from attack by our enemies. There are skilled surgeons who save lives and improve the quality of our lives by their expert medical knowledge and dedication. There are hi-tech entrepreneurs who have gifted the world with innovations and computer solutions which have brought huge investments, profits and tax revenues flowing to Israel. They are the elites of the Start-Up Nation. None of these people were placed in their positions because they were popular or demographically representative. They succeeded on merit, and it made no difference what background they came from.
Judges are in a similar expert category although they differ in that they are public officials. They constitute the third layer of government but unlike the two layers of the legislature and the executive, the judiciary is independent of them. That is the essence of the separation-of-powers doctrine. Each has separate spheres of power and competency. Judicial independence is not limited to independent decision making, but also to independence in their appointment from political influence. This is an international standard protected by various declarations of the UN the EU and other international legal bodies.
Judges are trained professionals and not ideologues or politicians. They are trained in concepts of rights, procedures, and legal theory. They gain experience in real situations and have to distinguish conflicting claims of fact and law. They are required to uphold the rule of law. They are required to make decisions which may conflict with their personal political convictions and have to distance themselves from predisposed personal political or social views. The best of them have an independent outlook which does not change according to the governing politics of the day. Strong moral character and a commitment to basic justice defines them.
Judicial review is a topic which has engaged lawyers since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Marbury v Madison in the early 1800’s that established the principle of judicial review in the US, meaning that American courts enjoy the power to strike down laws and statutes that they find to violate the Constitution.
Marbury v Madison. US Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States.
Law is work in progress. There is no definitive state of the art about the powers of courts to intervene in legislative and executive action. This is a balancing act within a county’s constitutional framework. Law develops slowly and sometimes painfully as do social values. We cannot however turn back the clock. The role of the judiciary not only in Israel but in other democratic jurisdictions is constantly evolving. The days of parliamentary supremacy are waning. We have seen the slippery slope to political absolutism. It has led to the violations of basic rights, dictatorship and worse, as seen in Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa. Judges have to ensure the law meets the standards of successful, free, and prosperous democratic societies. Paul Kruger, the President of the old Boer Republic of the Transvaal (ZAR) in South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, called ‘judicial review’ the work of the devil. Neither he nor his republic lasted long.
In countries with an English common law tradition, the courts have always had what is known as an inherent jurisdiction. This includes the power to fill lacunae or vacuums in the law. This includes an interpretive function based on principles of justice. Indeed Jewish values are based on justice rather than legal rules. The Torah speaks of tzedek tzedek tirdof (justice justice shall you pursue) rather than mishpat mishpat tirdof (law, law shall you pursue).
The South African Constitution, internationally held in high regard, states in Section 173 :
“The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and High Courts have the inherent power to protect and regulate their own process and to develop the common law taking into account the interests of justice.”
The judges of the Supreme Court have few modern common law sources at its disposal as a result of the youth of the State of Israel and the repeal of English common law precedent in 1980. It therefore has to reach far wider and deeper in developing a system of law based on justice. Its inherent jurisdiction was recognised in the Israel Foundations of Law statute of 1980:
“Where a court facing a legal question requiring decision, finds no answer to it in statute law or case law or by analogy, it shall decide it in light of the principles of freedom, justice, equity and peace of Israel’s heritage”.
The best lawyers are required for this daunting task. It requires wisdom, insight, a solid grasp of established legal norms and values, as well as the roots of Israel’s heritage. Surgeons are not second-guessed for their professional decisions unlike judges who are subjected to degrading and disparaging criticism. People are often displeased with the outcome of a case and the immediate reaction is that the court is predisposed to favour or not favour a certain person or group. Few bother to examine the reasoning behind the decision.
It is up to the judiciary to interpret laws and apply the rule of law. Their role is to fill legal gaps (lacunae). Israel is replete with such gaps as it has no formal constitution, a Bill of Rights, nor a developed common law. Judges thus have declaratory powers and in this respect they have the last say as to what the law is. This does not mean they are exercising judicial supremacy. They are rather custodians of the higher legal values which constitute the foundational legal basis of the country. They do not generate legislation;they only exercise quality controland only decide on cases which are brought to them. The fact that they interpret laws and have declaratory powers about the cases before them does not make them dictators nor legislators. Anyone who reads the judicial decisions and legal literature will soon realise that judges follow a policy of caution and a reluctance when entering the arena of government policy and interfering with existing laws. Indeed in the past 30 years of judicial activism, there has been approximately one decision on average per year which has overturned a law. Judges make law as a last resort. Not a first resort.
The work of the Israel Supreme Court has been oversimplified and distorted in the public discourse raging in Israel. The loud voices proclaim that the court, an unelected elite, imposes its own agenda on government: It obstructs the will of the people. These are at best misleading allegations and at worst shocking and discrediting misrepresentations about the conduct of the judiciary. Many of the loud supporters of judicial reform possess no expert knowledge and experience in legal theory and practice. Seldom is there any meaningful discussion of the offending judgments and there is no attempt to examine and analyse the reasoning of these activist decisions. Some writers have made the absurd claim that ‘reasonableness’ depends on the whim or subjective preference of the judge. This is grossly false. The very legal notion of ‘reasonableness’ is an objective test and stringently applied. Established jurisprudential criteria are carefully weighed up.
Battle of the Buildings. Supreme Court and the Knesset (behind) in a showdown with the character of Israel’s democracy hanging in the balance.
Judges are highly disciplined professionals governed by strict ethical rules. They are restricted from public comment and cannot defend these accusations. It subverts the social order for the trust and confidence of the judiciary to be maligned. Criticism needs to be based on sound legal principles based on international best practice and not ad hominem attacks on the background and ethnicity of judges. This leads to tearing down the legitimacy of the courts and undermines respect for the justice system.
It is time to value and respect the elites in the judiciary who are the guardians of our freedom and also the custodians of righteous Jewish values according to the heritage of Israel.
About the writer
Born in Pretoria, Lawrence Nowosenetz obtained his BA at University of the Witwatersrand and LL.B at the University of South Africa. Admitted as an attorney and advocate in South Africa, he practiced at the Pretoria and Johannesburg Bar and worked as a human rights and labour lawyer at the Legal Resources Centre, a public interest law firm. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, Lawrence completed an internship in the USA and is presently a part-time Senior Commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) as well as a panelist at Tokiso Dispute Settlement – the largest private dispute resolution provider in South Africa. He has also served as an Acting Judge of the Hight Court, South Africa.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
While confidence in Netanyahu’s government drops, consumer prices rise
By David E. Kaplan
At last Saturday night’s demonstration against the governments judicial reform in Kfar Saba, a friend of mine, defying the deafening din, blasted profoundly in my ear:
“You know, never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe when I was protesting as a 20-year-old medical student in South Africa that I would be protesting as a doctor in my seventies.”
Five decades later and in another country, and we feel we are back where we started. To get seventy-year-olds and older out every Saturday night standing for hours, listening to speeches repeating what we all know and agree, bellowing “Busha” (shame) repeatedly while holding aloft the Israeli flag and then walking home saying farewells to friends, “Same place, same time next week,” then clearly, to paraphrase the Great Bard:
“Something is rotten in the State of Israel”.
Saturday Night Fever. A typical Saturday night at city square Kfar Saba with protestors. People tend to stand in same areas meeting the same people each week.
Much of the country knows it, including those brave enough in the Likud at admit it. In my recent article ‘IS THERE EVEN JUST ONE?’ I asked:
“Where is the one in Netanyahu’s coalition who is going to finally stand up and say – “enough”?”
Well, maybe cracks are appearing.
Has now the proverbial ‘penny dropped’ – the shekel has – with Likud MK David Bitan’s headline admission in the news? Using the platform ofIsrael Bar Association’s 12th annual conference, Bitan in his address to Israel’s legal fraternity, admitted that hisgoverning coalition had made a mistake with the judicial reform adding that his governmentwas failing to give sufficient attention to other important issues unrelated to judicial reform – like the soaring cost of living! He alludes that he is not alone by revealing that “There are [other] members in the Likud who think so too.” Seemingly unafraid – unlike his colleagues – he publicly admits that his Likud party:
“….was harmed by this move, and it will continue to be harmed if we don’t reach broad agreements.”
Bitan was clearly seeing what most his political bedfellows were failing see or as the astute 16th century saying goes:
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
If the coalition pursued its judicial reform legislation warned Bitan, “credit rating companieswould follow up on their threats and drop Israel’s rating.”
It was happening.
No Age Limit. Afar cry the writer recalls from the protests in South Africa against Apartheid where the average age was below twenty. Looking around at the protests in Kfar Saba, the average age appears to be 55 and over.
While affirming Israel’s rating in April at A1, Moody’s in July then warned Israel that continuing judicial overhaul legislation would have negative consequences on Israel’s economy. Ever since the judicial reform was presented, credit rating companies have warned that the situation would lead to a downgrade in ratings and hardly unexpected, at the end of July, Morgan Stanley did lower Israel’s rating.
Clearly, Israel’s government is battling with the basics. As Bitan continued in his Bar Association address, the government is failing to give sufficient attention to other important issues that are not related to the reform.
As Israel’s government struggles with bulldozing forward on judicial ‘reforms’ – a misnomer if ever there was one – consumers struggle with rising prices.
“We could be dealing with a lot of things at the same time,” Bitan continued. “The cost of living needs to be dealt with. It’s not just on the government, but the government needs to change directions. It’s not doing its part. The responsibility is ours, and we need to give attention to the rest of the issues outside of the reform. Unfortunately, only some of us are working in other fields.”
What an admission by this Likud MK and what a shocking indictment against the government in which he serves.
David Denounced. Likud MK David Bitan in the Knesset. What he had to say at the recent Israel Bar Association’s 12th annual conference did not please his Likud colleagues, who were quick to respond that it did not represent the party’s position.
Since Netanyahu returned to the premiership at the beginning of 2023, prices in Israel have only continued to rise. Despite campaign promises to address the high cost of living, most of the prime minister’s focus in 2023 has been on passing sweeping judicial reforms, something hardly addressed during the campaign. Although inflation and the rising cost-of-living were Likud campaign promises, once in government, it relegated these issues to a low priority, subordinate to the judicial overhaul. The result – as confidence in the government has plummeted, consumer prices rise.
Commensurate with Netanyahu government’s failure to grapple with reality, more and more regular Israelis are failing to grapple with their financial situation. Struggling to make ends meet, Sharona Bat Haim, a cleaner and single mother of two girls, told The Jerusalem Post’s Media Line that:
“I have no money and prices keep going up. I don’t know how I will cope. I will probably have to stop buying meat for my other daughter, but I don’t want to discriminate.”
Tapping into this cry from the people, opposition leader, Yair Lapid said at a recent protest, “Milk, fruits and vegetables, meat—all the prices are going up. We will come back to power, and we will lower the prices.”
In the first quarter of 2023, foreign investment dropped by 60%. This is according to a Treasury report revealed by Israel’s chief economist on Wednesday. The preliminary data paints a troubling picture of a steep drop in foreign investment transactions, totaling approximately $6.2 billion. Comparing with the quarterly averages in previous years, the data represents a “HEFTY PLUMMET”.
Is this not a sufficient sobering confirmation of the dire warnings for months by esteemed economists against the government’s controversial judicial overhaul?
Israel needs to recalibrate its priorities. Sadly, the Likud has distanced itself from its lamenting MK David Bitan refuting his public utterances at the Israel Bar Association as “not the position held by the party.”
Warned and Ignored. Rating agency Moody’s warned in July on the negative consequences of the government’s judicial reform for Israel’s economy.
Considering the destructive makeup of the governing coalition and the ‘March of Folly” its leading this country, what is needed is YES – a pressing overhaul – but not of the judiciary but of Israel’s present political leadership!
This is why seventy-year-olds like every other age of participating protestors across Israel, will continue to block off their calander’s Saturday nights for the foreseeable future.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
You cannot hide it nor disguise it; Israel is facing a political crisis. It’s a crisis not only of the state but the state of its people. From a decidedly happy people, we are a people less than happy at the new direction of their country since January 2023 caused by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition’s unpopular and controversial overhaul of its judicial system. This is causing anxiety.
Some have found an outlet of this anxiety by expressing what they are feeling not only in protest and prose but also in poetry. Here below is a poem by a Lay of the Land contributor from Israel’s southernmost resort city of Eilat.
David Kaplan (editor)
HELPLESS
By Fonda Dubb, Eilat
Sometimes I feel my heart beating fast My breath breathing faster How can I stand aside and say or do nothing I loathe the words that are spoken I loathe the division that is so split and divided I loathe the violence That like an inferno rips the country apart. It affects me so deeply That I have to write In the hope that there will be a change of heart That I can look in the mirror and say I did something!! So I feel forgiven But just for a little while It takes time to adjust ones thoughts to one of gratitude for the many things bestowed on me Family and friends to brighten up our days Eilat with its beauty of mountains and sea. They are not in the conflict of helplessness that I experience They are G-d given The joy of nature, of flowers and trees, butterflies and bees They too like the birds that sing and fly at night are a gift of life. I count my blessings every day To remind myself of the many gifts of life So never to forget that the opposite of helplessness is light and joy in the miracles of life. It is my fervent prayer that we all believe in gratitude To change our thoughts to one of prayer and forgiveness to make a better world to see the ” other side of life”. Just to be kind to one another is goodness itself to rid the helplessness we feel and see A belief that one hand will stretch out and touch each another So we can cling to hope that will never be abandoned But will forever with our gratitude Be intertwined together While we pray for peace in our blessed land.
*Feature picture: A protester lies in foliage during a demonstration in Jerusalem July 24, 2023 against PM Netanyahu and his governing coalition’s judicial overhaul. (photo: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters).
About the Poet:
A former South African who daringly in her own unique way challenged the apartheid regime by teaching dance and cooking in “Black areas” in the Eastern Cape and Northern Transvaal, Fonda Dubb today resides in Eilat, Israel. (See article: The Right Moves). Her lifelong concern for others has led to her receiving numerous awards, most notably in 2012 the ‘Woman of the Year Miller Prize’ for volunteerism from the Mayor of Eilat.
In recent times, Fonda has taken to writing poetry drawing from her experiences both in South Africa and Israel, her values, as well as the natural beauty of Eilat. Her guiding star she says, is “a yellowing piece of paper” that hung in the consulting rooms of her late pathologist cousin, Dr. Johnathan Gluckman, who exposed the truth with his post-mortem of the famed Black anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko, who met his untimely death in police custody. The words on that piece of paper read: “Good men have only to remain silent for evil to prevail”. These words says Fonda, “always stuck with me and influenced my way of thinking.”
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
What’s happening under the Netanyahu coalition has former South- Africans in Israel worried.
By Larry Butchins
We are under dire threat. Whether many people are ready to accept and believe or not, we are on the brink of becoming what all our detractors and enemies have claimed for decades – an apartheid state. With laws that call for discrimination against Arab Israelis – yes, when funds are held back from Arab communities, that is discrimination; when law makers on the right talk about “giving job preference” to Jews over Arabs, that is racism; when women are told to “cover up” and sit at the back of the bus, that is prejudice – whether we like it or not, and it doesn’t matter if that is “official policy” or not , it is this government which is enabling that type of thuggish, racist, discriminatory behavior. Empowering those who do believe it, to act it out.
I believe that as a former South African, who grew up and then lived under the apartheid regime all my life until making Aliyah, it is my moral duty to raise a red flag and wave it vigorously, to warn what could happen here. It is my moral duty to caution that while I have fervently defended Israel against those who condemn it as an apartheid state, we are rapidly heading in that direction, to hell in a handbasket, and I am horrified by that possibility.
Shades of Shame. Visual imagery of South Africa past that the writer never wanted to revisit elsewhere.
Allow me to hark back to the days of apartheid in South Africa, as a reminder of what life under doctrinaire and dogmatic rule, was really like back then.
One of my earliest memories of apartheid was when I was probably around 10-years-old. Late one night, my parents insisted I accompany my father to take our black maid Mavis to the central train station in Durban. I had to sit in front of the car and Mavis had to sit in the back seat. When on the drive home, I asked my father why I had to go with him, he replied that he had to have proof (me, his white little boy) that he and Mavis were not contravening the Immorality Act. Had he been stopped by the police, driving alone with a black woman, they both would have been arrested on charges under that “immoral” act. He would have copped a large fine (because he was white), and she would have been thrown in jail (because she was black), processed in the system, and not seen the light of day for weeks, possibly even months. I couldn’t quite internalize the message at that age, but it followed me the rest of my life in SA, always looking over my shoulder to check that the dreaded security service, BOSS (Bureau of State Security) wasn’t following me or checking everything I had written, said or done.
Disturbing Developments. At a change of command ceremony on Wednesday night, outgoing Binyamin Regional Brigade commander Eliav Elbaz, said in reference to increasing settler violence that “It should be said in a loud clear voice, that actions of this type are not ethical, not Jewish, and do not contribute to security.” (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
I will quote from a chapter of my book, “Train in the Distance” in which the protagonist, Adam Marks, a reporter on a weekly newspaper in the 1970s – the height of apartheid – laments about his so-called “privileged freedom”.
“Do you think I’m free?
“When I write and publish the word ‘Amandla (Freedom in Zulu)’ under my name in the columns of a widely circulated newspaper, do you believe that I will not be condemned for that? Do you not understand that I am putting my freedom – and the welfare of my family – at risk? I cannot express my opinions freely, I cannot associate with whom I please: if I wish to invite Black friends to my home for dinner, I will be watched and under suspicion. If I meet Black friends for a day at the beach…well, that’s not going to happen, because we can’t even go to the same beach! I cannot even meet them for a picnic in a public park – unless my Black friends are seen to be my servants – haulers of wood and drawers of water for my benefit.
“Do you not understand that I cannot read, or view or listen to what I want? If I wish to read ‘The Communist Manifesto’, or ‘Lolita’, or ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, or hundreds of other banned books, magazines; or see certain films; listen to music by certain musicians – can you believe Maria Callas singing Lucia di Lammermoor fell under the censors obliterating red pencil? Fats Domino, The Beatles, Rodriguez…how many more?
“Radical new ideas, by writers, artists, musicians and committed, passionate people, are influencing and shaping dynamic new thinking throughout the world…and here we sit, under the yolk of an evil system with evil intent, all because of our ‘privilege’.
“I am not free; my ideas are not free; my life is not free – despite all my privileges, I am still a white victim of apartheid. YOU are white victims of apartheid; and I don’t know when or if it is ever going to end…”
Separate entrances in post offices and banks, stairwells in train stations, trains reserved for different races; busses – those which allowed blacks on board in the first place, insisting they sat at the back – the last three rows reserved for blacks; Christian National Education – indoctrination of school children about the “right” of the white man to conquer the land and confine others to “homelands” or “locations”; the imposition of the morals and religious authority over what we could read, or view, or listen to, or even discuss…
Back of the Bus. Some of the hundreds of Israelis demonstrating against the segregation of men and women on buses in certain neighborhoods of Jerusalem, where the women must sit in the back. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)
I could write volumes on the apartheid regime, its beginnings, middle and end… and how White South Africans enjoyed a multitude of benefits, lifestyle choices and preferential treatment. About how the Afrikaner-led government set itself up as the highest authority in the land – except for the Supreme Court and a group of courageous justices. Despite virulent government opposition, criticism and the possibility of arrest, banning orders, 90- or 180-days imprisonment, they were a light of sanity in a very dark nation.
Under the General Law Amendment Act, the Special Branch was allowed to arrest anyone they suspected of being engaged or involved in any act against the State and to hold them incommunicado for 90 days (and later 180 days) at a time. The Special Branch could interrogate and extract information, and the public was not entitled to any information including even the identity or whereabouts of people being detained. Detainees could literally and effectively “disappear”. If no charges were to be laid, the Special Branch had to release the individual or individuals after 90 (or 180) days. At the time, Prime Minister John Vorster boasted that this was repeatable “until this side of eternity.” A perfect example of the absolute need for an authority higher than the government.[1]
Am I suggesting that bleak Kafkaesque scenario could happen here in Israel? Not exactly, but there are certain resonant and frightening parallels. I do believe that former South Africans, those who came to this beautiful land of ours to flee discrimination and mind control, who came here to a democratic homeland; who came to work for and build a beacon of freedom and enlightenment – albeit somewhat flawed – should now stand up and cry out:
“We are NOT an apartheid country – and NEVER WILL BE: IT CANNOT HAPPEN.”
Larry Butchins – I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and started my journalistic career as a cub reporter on Durban’s morning newspaper, The Natal Mercury, covering fires, accidents, shipping and beach news. I then moved to the Sunday Tribune’s Johannesburg branch office, covering everything from visiting celebrities to political scandals and student anti-apartheid riots. At a protest at Wits University, I was arrested along with student protesters and spent the weekend in a cell in Johannesburg’s notorious John Vorster Square.
Eventually lured into Public Relations, I opened my own PR firm in Durban. On moving to Israel with my family in 1987, I branched from classical PR into Marketing Communication, running a small English-language agency promoting Israeli products abroad, working with Israeli hi-tech enterprises. Five years ago, I self-published my novel Train in the Distance based on my actual experiences as a journalist working under (and often against) apartheid’s rules and regulations.
In addition to professional writing, I write articles and stories, travel blogs – The Offbeat Traveller – and children’s books, two of which have been published in the US and South Africa. I am now entering my third career as a screenwriter and producer for an international TV series based on my novel.
My wife, Marlyn, and I live in Tzur Yitzhak , north of Kfar Saba; have three grown children and four grandchildren who all live in Mitzpe Ramon.
Contact Details:
Email: larrybtrain@gmail.com
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Where is the one in Netanyahu’s coalition who is going to finally stand up and say – “enough”?
By David E. Kaplan
“And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never share No one dared Disturb the sound of silence”
Simon and Garfunkel (Sounds of Silence)
After 32 weeks of ‘sound’ counseling from the streets of Israel – not to bring down a government but to save it from self-inflicted folly – lamenting lines in the iconic lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel sadly resonate.
Is ANYONE in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition even listening? Are we going to be in the same situation six months from now?
Is there even one; never mind the biblical 10 from 50 righteous men that Abraham negotiated down with G-d to save the city of Sodom from annihilation?
Millennia later, it is not a desert city but the flourishing nation state of the Jewish people that is at peril and even more difficult than it was for Abraham, we cannot find even one in the governing coalition who will stand up for what is just and sensible and say to his prime minister “Maspik”- (Hebrew: “enough”).
In Whose Hands? Guiding Israel’s destiny are unabashed racist May Golan (left) with fellow arch-supporter of the judicial overhaul and far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
After eight months in power, this government has little to show for itself besides showing contempt for the protestors. Take for instance the Likud Minister for the Advancement of Women’s Status May Golan who in response to being faced by protestors at a restaurant at Ben Gurion Airport, wrote on the X media platform (formally twitter):
“To what other depths of decay will those anarchists sink?”
Anarchists?
After all these months of protestors trying to protect and preserve Israeli democracy, this government minister labels them – “anarchists”.
Is the Likud minister so unaware that an “anarchist” by definition seeks to destroy state institutions not protect them as Israeli protesters are struggling to do. It is coalition members who are behaving like “anarchists”, hellbent on weakening – if not ultimately destroying either by design or indifference – Israeli democracy. They are doing so – despite their protestations – by undermining the efficacy and integrity of the Supreme Court, the hallmark of Israeli democracy. Without a second tier of government – Israel has no Upper House or Senate – nor a constitution, what check do Israelis have on the excessive exercise of government power besides the Supreme Court? Can this government think beyond its appetites and partisan dispositions? We should be strengthening not weakening the Supreme Court. Until such time of major constitutional changes, what Israel needs and what its economy needs is a robust independent Supreme Court.
It protects the country from the dangerous mindset of the likes of Likud minister Golan.
It says much for the understanding Golan has for democracy when she characterises the protesting milieu in Israel as:
“depths of decay”.
Golan tweeted further:
“I have one message for all the anarchists: Move on. This reform will continue to advance even more vigorously …….”
There you have it from the minister and captured in the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel: “hearing without listening”. No hint of outreach, compromise or future talk; the path forward is “to advance” the judicial overhaul, “even more vigorously…”
Intoxicated like her peers with power, Golan displays only contempt for those who oppose the controversial and unpopular judicial overhaul.
Creators of Chaos. Prime mover of the judicial overhaul that is rocking the country, Israeli justice minister Yariv Levin (right) listens to May Golan during a session of Israeli parliament last month. (Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP/Getty Images)
Is it any wonder from this MK, who has made a political name for herself by denouncing African refugees in Israel, calling them, as reported in The Guardian (April 20), “Muslim infiltrators”, criminals and rapists. She said many have Aids, suggesting they were spreading HIV by working as waiters, and demanded they be expelled from the country. “If I am racist for wanting to defend my country and for wanting to protect my basic rights and security, then I’m a proud racist,” she said at a political rally in 2013 as a member of the far-right Jewish Power party, a descendent of the Kach party that was outlawed under Israeli anti-terrorism laws.
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is flush with members who think just like self-proclaimed racist May Golan. Its embedded in the rank and file.
Forty-nine-year-old Yitzhak Zarka, from the settlement of Ma’ale Efrayim, who said he has been active in the Likud party for 40 years, made headlines last month when he called anti-judicial reform protestors “AshkeNAZIM” who should “burn in hell.” In case he was not fully understood, he added, “Not for nothing did six million die. I’m proud. If only six million more would burn.” In case this man and his behaviour can be dismissed as an aberration, Zarka has been photographed cozying up with many top Likud ministers and MK’s. While there is a move to expel Zarka and others for the embarrassment caused, it is being met with opposition by some in the Likud, with one member saying:
“I do not remember any other party that expelled any of its members for excessive anger.”
Kiss of Death. Seen here at the Knesset cuddling Benjamin Netanyahu is Itzik Zarka who at last month’s protest near Beit She’an in northern Israel,while holding a sign reading “the people demand judicial reform”, said“Ashkenazim, whores, may you burn in hell” and“Leftists are traitors, you are the cancer of the country.” (Photo: Zarka’s Facebook page)
This is not the verbiage of “excessive anger”, but of a disturbing mindset that should not be anywhere near the levers of power. With this level of UNREASONABLE behaviour amongst members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, is it any surprise that the first bit of legislation they pushed through as part of the overhaul of Israel’s judicial system was the passing last month of the controversial “reasonableness” bill which strips the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable! “It was passed in the most heavy-handed way possible – without a comprehensive discussion of the law’s consequences for the economy or for Israel’s security and foreign relations, and with complete disregard for their recommendations and warnings issued by experts in Israel and abroad,” write two former Governors of the Bank of Israel, Jacob Frenkel and Karnit Flug in their chilling article ‘Stop the legislation, save the economy’. (The Jerusalem Post August 22). They so astutely observe that following the passage of the ‘Reasonableness Bill’ along narrow partisan lines that what had until its passing “been a negative scenario that might come to pass, has become a negative scenario that is now being realized. Indeed, the market reacted immediately with a sharp devaluation of the shekel, alongside a decline in stock market indices.”
Sounds of Silence to Sound Advice. Ex-Bank of Israel chiefs Karnit Flug (left) and Jacob Frenkel warn judicial overhaul is causing a severe blow to Israel’s economy that may, if not stopped, prove irreversible. (Yonatan Sindel and Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)
Is this the “reasonable” behaviour we expect from our ‘elected’ office bearers?
The former Bank of Israel governors continue that:
“As of today, investment in hi-tech, the growth engine of Israel’s economy in recent years, continues to fall. This sector is seeing a decline even as the hi-tech industry globally is showing signs of recovery. Moreover, over the past six months, almost NO new hi-tech companies have registered in Israel. Instead, they are registering abroad, which means Israe will lose out on a large share of their future economic activity and the tax revenue they generate. In parallel, there has been a sharp decline in employment and number of jobs available in the hi-tech sector.”
Following the debilitating impact of three years of Covid on the economy, the self-inflicted mess of this government’s policies might cause irreparable damage to the point that it “could become potentially irreversible,” warns former BOI governors Frankel and Flug.
We shudder to think what is “unreasonably” next from Netanyahu and his reckless band in the Knesset that are ruining instead of running the country.
Which begs the question:
Where is the one that will break rank, speak up and stop the madness?
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Israelis respond to mobs burning Christian churches and homes in Pakistan after blasphemy allegations
By Jonathan Feldstein
Perhaps you have heard the news. Fires torching hundreds of properties. Entire households burned to the ground. Every personal belonging lost. Thousands of lives destroyed. The devastation has been unprecedented, and it will take years to rebuild that which can be rebuilt. But the personal tragedies and lives lost may never heal.
If you’re in the West, you may have heard about the tremendous loss in Maui, Hawaii. Wildfires have left a trail of death and destruction. As horrible as that is, it is not what I am writing about today.
Christians look at burnt furniture and other things outside their homes vandalized by an angry Muslim mob in Jaranwala in the Faisalabad district, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
While Maui was burning in what was an act of God, Christian communities in Pakistan have been burning, torched to the ground, not as an act of God but as an act of evil. Trumped up charges of “blasphemy” by Moslems in Pakistan against two Christian men was the spark that set off a widespread rampage of attacks by Moslems against their Christian neighbors that have lasted nearly a week as of this writing.
In Pakistan, charges of blasphemy can carry a death penalty. Blasphemy can be as simple as “embarrassing” Islam. Sometimes, mobs of people take this Pakistani Islamic justice into their own hands. So much for the religion of peace.
For days, an out-of-control pogrom has been carried out against Christians, with law enforcement turning a blind eye as if there’s any legitimate excuse for that. Dozens of churches have been ransacked, looted, and burned to the ground. Hundreds of Christian homes were also attacked, looted, and burned. Personal belongings that were too big to loot were simply dragged to the street and burned. Countless bibles have been burnt, desecrated, destroyed.
A boy comforts a woman weeping after her home was vandalised by a Muslim mob. (KM Chaudary/AP Photo)
All this, displaced thousands of lives, entire extended families forced to flee their homes, their communities, seeking shelter anywhere they could, even makeshift tents in open areas. Not that this would make them safer from the attacks of their Moslem neighbors. It just made them more vulnerable, marked, open to assault. Just less to burn. They fled with the clothes on their backs, and now have nothing left, and no homes to return to.
Pakistan Muslim Mob Attacks Christian Churches, Property Over Blasphemy Charges
Even if they could return, how will they ever move back, even if their homes are rebuilt? How will they ever feel safe among the Moslem neighbors whose hate was ignited against them and their faith? But they are stuck in Pakistan, with nowhere to go, as second-class citizens, tolerated but not really accepted. The targets of evil hatred whenever there’s an excuse. There’s no recourse.
A few years ago, I posted a video on YouTube of a Christian man in Pakistan being lynched and burned to death. Apparently that – the posting not the lynching and burning – violated their “community standards” against violence. Earlier this year, because of that, YouTube blocked me. When I “appealed”, I got an immediate automated response that my appeal was rejected. I laughed at first, realizing that YouTube houses no shortage of gratuitous violence, but when it comes to posting real crimes to highlight the evil amid which Christians have to exist there, that’s too much for their sensitive community standards. I hesitate to post videos I have seen of the most recent violence, but they are real and horrific.
Unlike Maui, Pakistani Christians have no insurance. No state of federal money to rebuild. Police are not comforting, much less protecting the victims in Pakistan. Pakistani Christians exist in the crosshairs of a society that’s simply unsafe. They are tolerated, sometimes, but not protected. Second class? How about seventh class.
A Christian man emerges from a vandalised home in Jaranwala. (KM Chaudary/AP Photo)
In the past week, many of my Pakistani Christian friends have turned to me, in Israel, for prayers and support. They are heartbroken, devastated, and scared. Yet as much as they fear for themselves and their families, they are trying to help those most in need, as good Christians should for one another. However, for them, simply reaching out to me, an Orthodox Jew in Israel, could trigger more violence, even lynching. As much as they may be “tolerated” in Pakistan, Israel and the Jews are the enemy.
They also know I’ll help, because I care, and because I did a year ago when they were struck by floods of Biblical proportions and Christians suffered because of their status far more than average Moslem Pakistanis. Seventh class.
Christians remove burned furniture and other items from their vandalised homes. [KM Chaudary/AP Photo]
I undertook this effort then on behalf of the Genesis 123 Foundation which exists to build bridges between Jews and Christians and Christians with Israel in ways that are new, unique, and meaningful. This includes looking out for persecuted Christians, specifically in the Middle East. A year ago, after unprecedented flooding across Pakistan, we stepped up to raise funds to support our Pakistani Christian friends who suffered even more of the devastation than the Moslem population. Unprecedented. An organization of Jews and Christians, run by an Orthodox Israeli Jew, reaching out to protect Christians in Pakistan. It was a blessing to do so, and it was our responsibility, to be a blessing to the families of the world.
Church on the outskirts of Faisalabad was burned. [Ghazanfar Majid/AFP]
As entire families in Pakistan have been devastated, we launched a campaign again, urgently, to provide any funding, as generously as possible, so we can help with the rebuilding. Our partners and friends are reliable and have the highest integrity. One is asking for a meagre $20,000. The truth is even $120,000 is not enough. But that’s our goal. We want the impact to be felt as widely as possible because there are and will be needs far beyond the physical and tangible losses.
I pray that Jews and Christians, and anyone of good conscience, will step up and join the efforts. Maui is horrible. My heart is pained for all the loss. But as much as that’s true, there’s no aid for Pakistani Christians. Not until now.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Lay of the Land joins the call for Israel’s governing coalition members to HALT attacks on country’s security forces
Who would have thought that the army that keeps the people safe, its now the turn of the people to keep the army safe!
And safe from whom?
In 75 years of its remarkable existence, Israel has survived and thrived against all odds, only because it could depend on its “people’s army” – the IDF. When Jewish passengers were held hostage by terrorists in faraway Uganda, it was the IDF that came to the rescue as when the lives of thousands of Jews were threatened in disparate diasporas from Yemen to Ethiopia, it was the IDF that saved and returned them to their ancestral homeland in heroic secret missions. And when communities in need, irrespective of race or religion faced catastrophic natural disasters across the globe, no place, whether in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas was too far for the IDF to send salvation teams of specialists. Often the first volunteers to arrive at areas devastated by earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, landslides or disease outbreaks, they were always on arrival, ready to save lives and saved lives, they did.
Now the IDF needs to be saved, not from the “usual suspects” of Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran but from within – from members of Netanyahu’s governing (a misnomer if ever there was one) coalition. This is why in the annals of Israel’s military history, this is not only another “SURPRISE” attack it is an attack from a totally unexpected front. Long accustomed to attacks on multiple fronts, who would have predicted the latest front being – our own government!
Prime targets in the coalition’s crosshairs is the IDF’s chief of staff Gen. Herzi Halevi and air force chief Tomer Bar. A minister in Netanyahu’s government and a member of his right-wing Likud party, David Amsalem, attacked them both in a scathing rant blaming Halevi and Bar for the anti-government protests roiling their ranks and asked they be punished.
“In any normal army,”Amsalem told Israel’s Army Radio. “you treat rebels like rebels should be treated,”
A member of a coalition that is ONLY held together by the inclusion of the ultra-religious haredi community who refuse for their members to EVEN serve in the army and are presently pushing for a bill that would enshrine blanket exemptions for haredi men from EVER serving in the IDF, Amsalem’s name-calling of Israel’s IDF heroes as “rebels” is beyond disgraceful.
It gets worse.
Berating prominent judicial figures and former military figures for backing the protest movement, Amsalem demands that they:
“rot in prison until the end of their lives.”
Such vile verbiage from within the government defaming the very people who protect this country with their lives is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, the prime minister’s own son, Yair Netanyahu, a right-wing podcaster known for defaming others in order to defend his father, unleashed from his verbal arsenal a sickening attack ‘aimed’ at undermining the IDF’s stature and reputation.
He nauseatingly called chief of staff Halevi in a post on X, (formally Twitter):
“the most failing and destructive chief of staff in the history of the IDF and the State of Israel.”
Interestingly, the post was later deleted as it was a glaring embarrassment – an act of stupidity and recklessness that undermined the security of the state of Israel.
Recognising that his own coalition partners were undermining the country’s military preparedness, Defense Minister and member of the Likud Party Yoav Gallant, defended his military, appealing that “If you cannot containyourselves, attack me, the defense minister,” but “Keep the IDF out of the political debate.”
Amsalem’s remarks was swiftly condemned by opposition leaders. Leading the counterattack was former prime minister and leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid who said:
“The IDF commanders and fighters aren’t ‘rebels’. They’re wonderful Israeli patriots keeping us alive,” He added that it was the rhetoric of Amsalem that amounted to “rebellion and treason against the state…”
National Unity chief Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and army chief, blasted Netanyahu for allowing his allies to attack the top military brass. He “is allowing extremists to harm our most valuable asset,” he wrote on X, the social media outlet formerly known as Twitter.
Israel’s reservists, frequently referred to as “the backbone of the IDF,” have a personal stake in protecting not only the country but also the Supreme Court, which provides by its international reputation, a legal “body Armour”. So while “We feel like we are doing the right thing, and that we are fighting for the democracy of Israel,” as one army reservist told CNN during a protest in Jerusalem, there is also the concern that a weakened judiciary being pushed for by the government will be unable to shield Israeli soldiers from possible criminal charges in the ICC.
As former attorney general, Avichai Mendelblit warned why the country needs its courts to be independent:
“The moment that the justice system in Israel isn’t perceived as such, Israel will lose international legitimacy for its military operations and will no longer be shielded from accusations of war crimes.”
So while this government expects its soldiers to protect the country, it shirks its responsibility of protecting its soldiers. As the furor reached a danger point caused by the rhetoric from the government and its supporters, the State President felt again the need and urgency to intervene. He did so by immediately appealing for “calm”. Zeroing on where the danger to Israel’s security was emanating from – Netanyahu’s government ministers – President Isaac Herzog said:
“These are statements that harm the strength of the IDF. We have a strong army and an excellent chief of staff…We all owe them gratitude and affect for their activities to protect the security of the country.”
We, at Lay of the Land subscribe to the message in the wording of our State President. Whatever grievance this government has with the reservists over their position on an issue that is tearing the country apart, it needs to be seriously addressed by debating with the people rather than defaming the army.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
