By Jonathan Benedek/TPS

Jerusalem (TPS) – Controversy swirls surrounding Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s recent comments that she plans to apply Israeli law to all the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

“My eventual goal is that within a year any law passed in the Knesset will automatically translate to Judea and Samaria,” Shaked said on Sunday at the annual conference of the International Legal Forum in Jerusalem.

The remarks sparked a fierce backlash from [radical left-wing] politicians in the opposition, such as Meretz leader MK Zahava Galon who denounced the plan as “de-facto annexation of the occupied territories” and “apartheid.”

Although Israel took control of Judea and Samaria during the Six-Day War of 1967, the regions were never formally annexed by Israel and thus remain under military control, not governed by Israeli law. Shaked’s proposal would essentially replace the authority of the IDF’s Central Command over Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria with standard Israeli law.

In an interview with Israel’s Army Radio on Monday, Shaked clarified that she intends to form a committee that will determine if each Israeli law should apply to Judea and Samaria on a case-by-case basis. This differs from the “law of norms” proposal that was floated in the previous government, which would automatically apply all Israeli laws to Judea and Samaria. The “law of norms” never got off the ground due to objections by former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein. However, the idea has regained traction under the new attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit.

MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union), who was Justice Minister in the previous coalition, argued that Shaked’s plan endangers Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.

“The end result will be the collapse of the idea of ​​two states, two systems of law in one country, press, pressure and significant international damage, and finally 2.5 million Palestinians with the right to vote and a majority in the Knesset,” said Livni. “It will lead to a binational state with a Palestinian majority in the Knesset.”

Naftali Bennett, Education Minister and chairman of Shaked’s Jewish Home party, has proposed annexing all parts of Judea and Samaria controlled by the IDF’s Central Command as well as granting citizenship to the thousands of Arabs living in such areas.

“It is a pernicious combination of annexation and apartheid,” Galon said. “Applying Israeli law [to Judea and Samaria] is de facto annexation of the occupied territories, and the decision to apply it only to the settlers creates racial discrimination between blood and blood.”

“Minister Ayelet Shaked continues to kindle a fire and pour oil on the flames of Israel’s relations with the world,” added Galon. “This move will sabotage the prospects of any political agreement.”

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) on Monday stated that she is working, together with AG Avichai Mandelblit, on an outline for imposing Israeli law on the Israeli-controlled part of Judea and Samaria. Established by the 1993 Oslo accords as Area C, it covers 60% of Judea and Samaria and is home to an estimated 350,000 Jews who live in 225 communities (including outposts yet to be approved), and 30,000 Arabs. Israel already has control over security and land-management in Area C, and many in Israel view the area, for all intents and purposes, as a future part of Israel, as opposed to Areas A and B, which were designated as the foundation of a future Palestinian autonomous territory.

Speaking to Army Radio, Shaked said she plans to appoint a committee based on the new outline, to examine every law passed by the Knesset and decide whether it can be imposed concurrently on the Jewish communities in Area C as well, via a military decree (Tzav Aluf). Past attempts to impose an automatic application of new Israeli laws in Judea and Samaria have failed, including two separate attempts by Habayit Hayehudi. These included a minimalist bill to apply Israeli laws in the “Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria,” and even a bill prohibiting discrimination in the supply of goods and services to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, which has been waiting for a Knesset vote since 2011.

Shaked is hoping that establishing “a team who will examine every single law” for its applicability in Judea and Samaria will indirectly create a promotional device that would be on hand to pressure the IDF General Officer Commanding (GOC) and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to pay better attention.

At the moment, the legal picture in Area C is very complex, whereby the law there is comprised of Ottoman and Jordanian laws, combined with military decrees of the GOC, with the Supreme Court playing referee. In recent years there has been a growing tendency on the part of the GOC to apply new Israeli laws as soon as they had been passed. Last March the Knesset passed a law enabling settlers to receive on gains inside the green line the same tax benefits they are entitled to in Judea and Samaria; and a law coordinating home buying taxes so settlers won’t have to pay twice. Despite the fact that both laws—which were passed late at night when the leftwing parties were not paying attention—the legislation was condemned as “crawling annexation” of the “occupied territories.” MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Camp) said it was a quiet way for the Netanyahu government “to impose its ideology.” Which, presumably, is what you do when you win.

The last time Livni’s party was the big electoral winner, she and her partners used their power to transfer some 8,000 Jews from their homes, the first time a Jewish community had been forcibly evicted from its homes since the end of WW2.

On Sunday, in a similar vein, Shaked said that she intends to equalize the legal conditions for Israelis on either side of the green line, either by using the military decree or by new legislation. Speaking at the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, Shaked added that “It’s important that the Justice Minister have political power and political ability.”

Yes, it is, and this Justice Minister appears to be using hers wisely and bravely.

(JNi.media) Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked accused the Israeli courts of ignoring Jewish law and promised to set up a steering committee to promote implementing the principles of Jewish law in the Israeli legal system, Kippa reported. “As is well known, in practice the courts are ignoring the legislature and the spirit of the law, and rarely draw inspiration from Jewish law, both in statutory interpretation and in filling lacunae in the law,” said Shaked, referring to the Foundations of Law legislation, enacted in the 1980s, directing the courts to rule on issues without a precedence according to “the principles of liberty, justice, integrity and peace of Jewish tradition.”

“They prefer to turn to foreign legal systems and not to Jewish law — which is the products of the best minds in our nation. It is regrettable and we must act to repair the damage,” said Shaked, who spoke at a special session of the Hotam Forum of Torah-based research foundations at the Ramada hotel in Jerusalem Wednesday.

Shaked added that “Jewish law, the masterpiece of Jewish creativity for 2,000 years, is yet to acquire its permanent station in our legal system, probably mainly due to a lack of knowledge about it,” and said that she believes “Jewish law can and must be a link between the values ​​of the past and the present values ​​and needs, not only on the declarative level. To me this link seems essential to the State of Israel as a Jewish state. ”

Shaked cited laws passed by the Knesset such as the Law of the Guards, the Facilitation of Rehabilitation ‏‏‏‏Act, the Do not stand over your fellow’s blood (good Samaritan) law, and the law of the dying, noting that they “were deeply influenced by Jewish law and prove that the link is possible and yields fine fruit.”

Shaked qualified her statements by saying that she does not intend for Jewish halakha to become Israel’s law, saying “obviously we can’t copy verbatim the norms that have been formulated in exile without sovereignty and independence, onto the reality of the Israeli legal system. Our society is not a community but a state, and the socioeconomic reality has changed completely regarding the status of women, the rights of employees, etc. My call is not for a mechanical imposition of Jewish law, but for true and brave dialogue between the Israeli law and our cultural and national sources.”

On Monday, May 18, newly-appointed Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) gave an address to the Israeli Bar Association at the southern seaside city of Eilat.

Depending on whom you ask, Shaked either continued her pledge to honor the role of justice by pushing to de-politicize the activities of the Supreme Court, or, as the Haaretz crowd asserts, continued her mission of inserting politics into the Supreme Court.

The Israeli Supreme Court is highly activist, and has derailed significant legislation passed by the Knesset. For those who believe in the right of the popularly elected branches, the two branches of government which must answer to the people, the notion of the non-elected branch having broad power to overrule the will of the majority is unnerving.

It is even more unnerving when membership in that branch is conferred, as it is in Israel, by a nine-member committee, most of whom are not accountable to the electorate. Two of those votes are cast by completely private parties, chosen by the Bar Association itself — whose members routinely appear before the very judges they put on the Court.

The 39-year-old Shaked said: “only a genuine separation of powers will ensure the survival of democracy, the balance of which is subtle. The meaning of the word ‘democracy’ is the rule of the people. The people are sovereign and choose their representatives.”

“I would like to reinforce the authority of the executive branch, while maintaining the independence and status of the judicial branch,” Shaked continued.

“In recent years it seems a large part of the public has been under the impression that this outlook (of judicial restraint) has diminished. It seems decision making – governance – is no longer under the control of the people – their elected officials in the Knesset – but is held by the judiciary. The issue is at the heart of a contentious public debate,” Shaked stressed.

It is expected that Shaked will work to re-assert the separation of powers during her tenure as Justice Minister. During the coalition negotiations she submitted several bills the purpose of which would be to limit the Supreme Court’s interventionism. One example of such a legislative effort is to enable the Knesset to ratify laws struck down by the Supreme Court.

Following an angry government debate, the Netanyahu government decided to accept the recommendations of Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi). Ariel recommended that all laws directly affecting and relating to citizens be automatically applied to citizens living in Judea and Samaria without special additional legislation or rulings. The Ministry of Justice has been told to begin working on this significant change to have it apply within the next few months, according to a report by the Tazpit News Agency.

Until now, anytime a law that was passed that affected private citizens, a second law or ruling needed to be passed to apply to citizens living in Judea and Samaria. The doppelganger law needed to be passed either in the Knesset, or by the IDF military commander in Judea and Samaria.

MK Orit Struck (Bayit Yehudi) recently initiated a doppelganger bill so that a new labor law for women, would also apply to women in Judea and Samaria.

Surprisingly, her bill raised the hackles of certain members of the Knesset, and in particular Minister Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party, who attempted to block the legislation from passing.

As a result, the discussion was elevated to the level of the government, where in the end Minister Uri Ariel’s position was accepted.

Ariel argued that Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria fulfill their obligations as every other citizen of Israel does, and it makes no sense that they need to fight separately that every law will also apply to them.

Previously, Ariel taunted Lapid with a variation of Lapid’s campaign slogan, “If there are no rights, there are no obligations”, openly stating that if Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria don’t benefit from the rights of Israeli law, then why should they have the obligation to pay income and VAT tax.

An Israeli “national religious” girls high school (“ulpana“) fired a teacher who was pregnant…and single.

This headline has been floating around the web yesterday, especially in light that the teacher sued the school in court for damages, specifically for having broken the law which prevents women from being fired if they are pregnant.

When an ulpana expects their teachers to be more than educators, but also role models for their students, did the school do the right thing even though they broke the law?

I could almost understand the ulpana’s point of view until I looked around and found that our story above is missing some important details (courtesy of The Marker):

1. The teacher is religious, and observes a religious lifestyle in school and outside of it. 2. The teacher was 41 years old and single. 3. Not finding a husband by her age of 41, the teacher decided to undergo artificial impregnation so she could have a child and she would raise the child as a single parent. The Ulpana claimed they fired the teacher not because she was pregnant, but because she was not observing a religious lifestyle (i.e., had she been married and pregnant, they wouldn’t have fired her). The plaintiff’s lawyer stated that the Ulpana should have taken into account her unique situation of being a single, religious teacher who wanted to have a child before she would be biologically unable to.

The court ruling stated an important point:

The court does not make light of the defendant’s right to determine their school policy, but the right of the defendant is less than than the right of plaintiff, and doesn’t justify terminating the plaintiff’s employment while violating her right to parenthood. The court awarded 180,000 NIS in damages to the teacher, which is a rather expensive lesson in democracy and “freedom of employment” to the Ulpana. In my opinion, if the ulpana truly wanted to act as a role model for their students, they should not have fired their teacher.

Visit the Muqata.

Thanks to IMRA for posting the details of the government coalition law in English. 

At present, a period which has lasted months already, the State of Israel has had a version of a “lame duck government.”  It’s not the same sort of “lame duck” that exists in the United States.  In the Israeli version, it has the following characterisitcs:

* the ministers are of the previous government coalition
* the new MKs have been sworn in and are working as MKs
* the MK who has been given the responsibility/opportunity to form a new coalition hasn’t yet done it

Political pundits are floating all sorts of scenarios about possible coalition deals and even possible new elections. Recently, Netanyahu has requested and was granted a 14 day extension to form a new coalition government by President Shimon Peres.

If Netanyahu fails to create/negotiate a new coalition, that doesn’t mean that we’re going directly into elections.  There are a few more stages, and if a majority of this Knesset never manage to agree/compromise enough to work together as a coalition, we won’t have elections for a few months.

Here’s the time table according to IMRA:

Elections
Publications of results
Max 7 days President assigns task of forming government after consultations
28 days first attempt to form government
14 days extension
3 days maximum before assign task to a second MK
28 days to form government by second MK
21 days for a majority of MKs to nominate third MK to form a government
2 days for President to announce appointment of the third MK
14 days for third MK to form government President announces government cannot be formed.
Last Tuesday before the end of 90 days elections held

In all that time the previous Prime Minister remains. So like it or not, coalition or not, Netanyahu may continue as Prime Minister for quite a while.  Who wants to add up the days to see how many months he may last without needing a coalition?

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