"Red Ed" Edward Solomon Milliband, the first Jewish leader of the British Labour party and Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, could one day be the UK's first Jewish prime minister. Milliband's rise to the Labour political pinnacle was not impeded by his Jewish parentage.
Considering the Milliband brothers' political careers it's difficult not to recall an almost forgotten episode in British parliamentary history. It concerns the saga of another politician and coreligionist Lionel de Rothschild.
In 1847 when Rothschild was elected to parliament he was required to take an oath on the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments), swearing on 'the true faith of a Christian'. Unable to take the oath Rothschild hoped a proposed Jewish Disabilities Bill would correct the discrimination and allow him to take his seat in the House of Commons. The bill softening the requirement for a Christian oath was passed in the Commons in February 1848, but was rejected by the House of Lords. The same bill and variants of it were tabled repeatedly only to be blocked by the Lords. Rothschild was reelected five times without being able to take the oath. Finally in 1858 a change in the voting requirements overcame the opposition of the Lords and Lionel de Rothschild finally entered parliament.
Recalling the tortuous passage of the Jewish Disabilities Bill provides a hyperlink to the contentious draft amendment to Israel's citizenship law approved by the Israeli cabinet on Sunday. The amendment requires non-Jews applying for Israeli citizenship to pledge loyalty to Israel as a Jewish and a democratic state.
The proposed change further antagonizes Israeli Arabs, is unnecessary, provocative and racist. The amendment, which is subject to approval by the Knesset has encountered a storm of criticism and has driven open divisions within the coalition government.
The citizenship law change was originally proposed by Avigdor Lieberman.
It is part and parcel of the coalition agreement between Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beitenu and the Likud party . The amendment dovetails with other treats Lieberman has in store for Israel's Arab minorities. Last week I mentioned his "in situ transfer plan."
There has been widespread speculation by political observers regarding the timing of the draft amendment. Some say Netanyahu's enthusiastic endorsement of the amendment was an attempt to steal Lieberman's thunder. This is quite likely, but it was also intended to appease the right wing members of the coalition in advance of a possible concession to thePalestinians.
At the opening of the third Knesset session Prime Minister Netanyahu offered the Palestinians an extension of the moratorium on building in the settlements in exchange for their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. An offer he knew they were not likely to accept. Indeed Palestinian spokespersons rejected it almost immediately.
Naturalization applicants currently swear an oath of allegiance to the state, without elaboration.
Israelis, both Arabs and Jews, who have criticised the amendment claim that the current draft amendment is discriminatory. It applies only to non-Jews who want to become naturalized citizens. Those are mainly Arabs from other countries who marry Arab citizens of Israel, and who are likely to reject the definition of Israel as a Jewish state.
The amendment would not apply to Jews or those of Jewish descent, who immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. Ironically this would allow the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jewish immigrants, many of whom are non-Zionist and would oppose pledging allegiance to a Jewish state.
Israel's Declaration of Independence and a core group of legal statutes known as basic law, often used as a de facto constitution, both already refer to Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. The term is also used widely in other laws and court rulings, but it has never been fully defined.
While we are debating the ramifications of the amendment to the oath of allegiance Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad currently on a state visit to Lebanon repeated his call to obliterate Israel.
Today he conducted a provocative tour of south Lebanon which culminated with a mass rally at Bint Jbeil near the border with Israel, but not close enough to throw a stone at the IDF as he boasted he would do. During the enthusiastic reception at Bint Jbeil maybe the Iranian president saw the clusters of 2,000 blue and white balloons released on the Israeli side of the border and blown into Lebanon by a south westerly breeze.
I don’t know who paid for the balloons and it’s unclear what message they were meant to convey.
Observers claim Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon was timed to bolster support for Hezbollah at a time of political difficulty. Tensions are on the rise between Hezbollah, which has 13 members in Lebanon's 128-seat parliament, and the pro-Western government over a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 bomb attack that killed Prime Minister Saad Hariri's father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. The tribunal is expected to indict several Hezbollah members in the assassination in coming weeks.
On a hot summer's night at the end of August members of a Hamas terror group opened fire on a car at the entrance to Kiryat Arba . Five Israelis were killed in the attack.
Wary of Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces, Hamas in the West Bank tries to keep a low profile. The organisation is highly departmentalised, making it difficult for security forces to detect its operatives. Nevertheless, military intelligence was able to track down the Hamas cell that carried out the attack
Last Friday the eight members of the terror group were tracked down. The house they were hiding in was surrounded by a police anti-terror unit supported by an IDF infantry force and a demolition unit equipped with bulldozers. The accrued siege situation experience has yielded positive results.
Of the eight terrorists holed up in the house six surrendered while their leader and another terrorist chose to die in the exchange of fire or when the bulldozers demolished the house. The Israeli forces suffered no casualties.
In the past IDF units engaged in ferreting out wanted terrorists sometimes employed the "neighbour procedure," a method used to avoid endangering IDF soldiers. It calls for using an Arab resident of a building being entered or searched to enter the building or to open suspicious objects. The theory behind it is that a terrorist in the building is less likely to shoot one of their neighbours than to shoot an IDF soldier, or that the neighbour is more likely to know whether a certain package is booby-trapped than the IDF soldiers who might otherwise open it.
The procedure was used successfully for at least twenty years. During that time there were only two "neighbour" casualties. One was killed and another was wounded. Two too many for Israel’s human rights groups.
Five years ago seven human rights groups petitioned the High Court of Justice to forbid the use of the neighbour procedure, which it did in a detailed and reasoned ruling.
Ten days ago an Israeli military court convicted two soldiers for using the neighbour procedure when they ordered a nine-year-old Palestinian boy to open suspicious looking packages. The incident occurred almost two years ago during Operation Cast Lead. .
Following the High Court ruling the IDF strictly prohibits using civilians as human shields.
At this juncture it's pertinent to add that various forms of the neighbour procedure have been used by military forces since antiquity and are still in use, regardless of rulings against it.
I'm not qualified to argue for or against its use, however Asa Kasher is.
He is the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Professor of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel Aviv University. He is noted for authoring theIsrael Defence Forces' Code of Conduct.
Kasher claimsthe Supreme Court is wrong, although the military court that convicted the two soldiers on Sunday was right.
“What those two soldiers did was wrong,” said Kasher in a telephone interview, endorsing the military court ruling. “But there are situations in which the use of the enemy’s civilian population to defuse a potentially explosive situation is not only ethically permissible, it also saves lives.”
He added, “In many instances of confrontation between IDF forces and a terror suspect who has barricaded himself inside a building, neighbours who are either family from the same clan or friends can peacefully and effectively neutralize the situation.”… “Neighbours often have a vested interest in preventing the IDF from destroying the building where the suspect is hiding because they live in the same building; relatives also have a desire to save the terrorist’s life.
If they volunteer to do so of their own free will they should be allowed to.”
Despite the unusually hot weather summer is definitely drawing to a close.
The sea squill, the eternal season marker has flowered, the first rains caught us unprepared, but hoping that they are a sign that more will come.
Have a good weekend.
Beni 14th of October, 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment