Jul 5, 2011

Why MK Uri Maklev Supported The Amendment To The Nakba Law proposal

Bills that are submitted as proposals for laws have to pass through numerous votes of committees as part of the process. The first of these committees is a presidential committee run by the Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin and a number of deputies.


MK Ahmed Tibi
MK Ahmed Tibi tried the other day to propose an amendment to the "Nakba Law". The Nakba Law is the law that denies government funding to any organization that denies the existence of Israel, uses the term Nakba in reference to Israel. Tibi's amendment would forbid government funding to any organization that denies the Nakba.

The proposed amendment was rejected within the presidential committee by a vote of 5 - 2.

Interestingly, besides for MK Tibi, the other vote in favor of the amendment was from MK Uri Maklev of United Torah Judaism (Degel HaTorah).

MK Uri Maklev
Wondering why Maklev would support such an amendment was frustrating, as the various news articles reporting on the vote did not discuss that in their reports.

Ladaat asked Maklev why he supported the amendment in the vote. MK Maklev explained that he voted in favor from a different perspective, not from the perspective of a supporter of the proposal. Maklev says his support was tactical in nature, as he is of the opinion that this proposal should have been discussed, and rejected, in the Knesset itself rather than just in a small and limited committee. The rejection by the committee could possibly lead to an appeal to the Supreme Court along with a wave of negative press from the media.

Thankfully, the other members of the committee had more brains than Uri Maklev.
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5 comments:

  1. Just a JoeJuly 05, 2011 6:27 PM

    Or perhaps Maklev represents a group of people that believe as much as the Arabs that the Zionist nature of this land is truly Nakba.

    These are the same people here in RBSA (not Bet) that don't like flags on their streets, don't honor our soldiers in Tzahal and generally dislike "Medinat Yisrael" until it comes to Kitzvat Yeladim and arnona discounts, etc.

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  2. AnonymousJuly 06, 2011 11:20 AM

    rafi,
    why do you disagree with Maklev's reasoning?
    he seems to make a good point. if the issue becomes a big media circus, Israel only stands to lose.
    I would venture to say that MAklev was the only one to think rationally and not vote from an emotional position.

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  3. Rafi G.July 06, 2011 11:27 AM

    first of all voting in favor means you go on record supporting it.
    second, sending it to the knesset instead of killing it in its infancy is dangerous. Who knows what issue the media will jump on. We have seen the media push an agenda and create a public uproar that had to be dealt with enough times to know that if this advances at all it could easily be chosen as an issue to be made into a big deal, especially because the media was not happy with the original nakba law.
    I would like to believe that this would still be rejected, but sending it further instead of killing it right away can be very dangerous..

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  4. AnonymousJuly 06, 2011 2:06 PM

    Maklev has no problem going on record either way because it is a non issue to any of his constituents so he has no reason to care. in fact most of his constituents never heard of the original law nor of this vote. he has no primaries to worry about.
    as far as your assesment that the media can jump on this if it goes to the knesset, both you and maklev are concerned for the same thing. maklev feels the fallout posibilities are worse on way and you feel a different way. he has more experience in these things and probably has a better feel than you of where the other knesset members are holding on the topic.
    you can disagree with him, but to put it down as an issue of more or less brains is silly.

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  5. Rafi G.July 06, 2011 2:08 PM

    so Maklev has the honor of voting in favor of an Ahmed Tibi's proposal to force Israeli's to recognize the Arab catastrophe. And you support him. I am proud of you.

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