Israeli Committee Votes To Ban Two Israeli-Arab Political Parties
Larger summary here. Look: I’m sure the two parties have taken stances I consider wrong-headed or even appalling. It doesn’t matter. That’s true of a lot of parties in a lot of states (including the risible and frankly racist Yisrael Beiteinu among Israeli parties). Insofar as Israel claims to be a liberal democracy, it needs to act like it, and that means not taking creepy fascist actions like banning the only two Arab-run parties in the Knesset (there are Arab MKs who represent other parties, but the Israeli Communist Party — Hadash — is the only Israeli political party even remotely integrated). I am confident and hopeful that the Israeli Supreme Court will overturn this action (as it has several similar actions before), but nonetheless this must be condemned in the harshest of terms.
* The Israeli Knesset (parliament) consists of 120 total members. The largest party is the centrist Kadima, consisting of 29 MKs. Yisrael Beiteinu is the fifth largest party in the current Knesset, with 11 members. The two Arab parties which may be banned have a combined 7 MKs.
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3 Responses to “Israeli Committee Votes To Ban Two Israeli-Arab Political Parties”
may not be democratic…but it is consistent
they banned the kach party too….a racist israeli party, founded by rabbi meir kahane
the supreme court did not reinstate that party
I am very upset with Israel. The country needs all the positive PR it can with the World given what they are doing in Gaza. Like it or not, justified or not, images of dead children are doing Israel no favors. Topping this off, Israel makes a move that appears undemocratic to the outside world making their image even less clean. But most important is the negative message it sends to their arab population and to the Palestinians. Moderation and using the political process to air grievences rather than violence has just been shut down.
If the High Court doesn't overturn this, expect arab citizens of Israel to become more disenchanted with Israel and creating more danger and chaos to Israel. On the otherhand maybe this is what Israel has in mind – disenfranchise the arab citizens so that Israel has an excuse to revoke their citizenship and solve their demographic problem in one quick move.
In an act of fairness then they should dissolve the Likud Party.Then Bennie Nut-in-Yahoo will go away.