The lawyer representing the government argued at one point that the Declaration of Independence should not be binding in obligating anyone today in anything, considering it was signed hastily by 32 people who were not elected by the people.
The government is really arguing that the Declaration of Independence is basically null and void? To me this seems worse than Herzl's consideration of Uganda as a [temporary] solution for getting the Jews out of danger.
The Declaration of Independence is a worthless document because it was hastily signed by 32 unelected people?
What else can be dismissed so easily?
the Balfour Declaration is worthless.
The Jewishness of the State can be dismissed
The democratic nature of the state can be dismissed.
the UN vote to support the establishment of the State of Israel can be dismissed.
The Status Quo can be dismissed (1 person signed a hastily constructed agreement with the Haredi reps of the day and it should be binding on us 70 years later?)
There are probably plenty others.
Satmar says thank you to the current government. As does Mahmoud Abbas and anyone else who decides from today that they can take Israel's right wing government's own words about the illegitimacy of the founding of the State (it was declared hastily by unelected people) to international bodies around the world to delegitimize the State of Israel.
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The signers of the Declaration of Independence were very much elected by the people.
ReplyDeleteThis whole thing makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteFirst, declarations of independence have no legal significance. They are not laws and their statements are not binding on the governments they form. They are simply statements of intent. All that matters after that is the force used to establish the independent country. If, chalilah, the Arabs had successfully overrun Israel in 1948, would anyone demand their withdrawal based on the declaration? Israel is an independent country because their army won the war. Israel is a Jewish country by virtue of its majority as well as legislation passed by the democratically elected government.
Second, yes, the declaration was hastily passed. They were editing it until the night before! And the men who passed it were elected by the agency they worked for, not through a general vote of the populace.
Third, you're right about most of your list. The Balfour Declaration was a statement of intent that was regretted about 5 minutes after it was issued but carried no legal weight, just a moral obligation. The UN GA vote had no legal weight. GA votes simply announce a position by the "world community" but impose no obligations on anyone. Otherwise, Israel would be guilty of war crimes for ignoring multiple UA GA votes to leave Yesha.
The Jewishness of the state is dependent on legislation. If Aharon Barak has been more aggressive and worked faster, he could have ruled away all elements of Jewishness from the state. A leftist government run by Meretz and the Arab parties could change the flag, national anthem and immigration rules to allow mass entry by Arabs, eliminating the Jewish majority. And yes, the Knesset could theoretically vote to cancel all future elections. You don't have a constitution to stop any of this from happening.
The people who signed the Declaration were appointed through an elected body. One remove, but ultimately elected.
DeleteIsrael, like every country, has a constitution. It's just unwritten, as is the case in several countries.
Plenty of countries with written constitutions have coups.
Rafi, your post is a little emotive
ReplyDeletethere is no legal basis in Balfour, the declaration of the state etc
consitutional politics doesn't work like that
I am clearly not making a legal argument. The government could have presented the Declaration of independence as a document from which legal status cannot be derived without dismissing the Declaration as an unimportant, irrelevant, and poorly constructed document.
Delete