Quick Update: Israeli Supreme Court Overturns Ban On Two Arab Parties

According to Ha’aretz, the decision was unanimous.

Obviously, I’m pleased by the decision, but it is not a positive sign for a putatively liberal democracy that it needs to be bailed out by a notoriously aggressive judiciary in cases like this. It never should have come to the court’s attention, because we have the right to expect that the Knesset will behave like a mature, democratic body and not vote to ban parties it doesn’t like. Had the decision by the Central Elections Committee stood, Israeli Arabs were threatening to boycott the upcoming elections, and they would have been fully justified. And those of us invested in defending Israel as “the only liberal democracy in the Middle East” could have no longer made the argument in good faith.

I don’t think any Jew of good conscience can support the parties — including the ruling Kadima, and the left-of-center Labor — which supported this stunt. That means that, as a Zionist Jew, anyway, my only option is Me’retz. So there I am.