Because we need another Israel thread!
Not sure what to make of this, I’m not really up to speed on internal Israeli politics. From an outsider’s perspective - boy this sure seems heavy handed and, well, bad.
Ironically, the last party to be banned from Israeli politics was one advocating the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
Apar-what?
I can’t stand the fact that my tax dollars are being spent to help prop up that government.
Silly joke, the committee voting them off is composed or congress man, i.e. people that will get these votes instead. As before, the court will probably overrule this.
I’d love to this Balad and Raam-Taal get kicked off, because they’re composed of fundamental islamistic “lets kill the Israelis” type of people. But this obviously ain’t the way.
Don’t make a story out of this, it will be canceled by the court.
EDIT: Wikipedia’s page for Balad has the info about the last time this happened BTW if you’re interested:
I think you’re missing the point here. An Israeli parliamentary committee deciding to ban ethnic-minority political parties with an overwhelming majority is the story, whatever happens in court.
That’s Israel’s political base right there. Just because the court system can stop them from enacting wrong-headed decisions doesn’t mean that their decisions are meaningless, nor does it take away from the message they’re sending.
Fine, make a story out of this, these specific parties thrive on that anyhow.
Also, I would be hesitant to rely on the courts too much. They can and will be influenced in the general direction of the majority over time.
I get not nothing from the link.
missing the last character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balad_(Israel)
Because LK is too cool to do it (or perhaps just ineffective).
fixed
They tried to arrest the leader of Balad for espionage too, since he supposedly passed targeting information on Israeli cities to Hezbollah, which makes exactly as much sense as accusing Cynthia McKinney of giving al’Qaeda vital intelligence about airline schedules. It was obviously a ham-fisted effort to shut up a dissident.
When it comes to their Arab minority, Israel really fails on the whole democracy thing. Hint: freedom of speech entails supporting the right to speech you find abhorrent. Otherwise you don’t have freedom of speech, you have freedom of assent.
Nice stealth edit. For next week I’ll schedule a Wikipedia search function tutorial for you.
As has been said, they had previously banned Kach. A violence advocating Jewish political party. It will be interesting to see how the Court reacts. That’s a true test of the balance of power. They have already overruled prior committee decisions.
However, the bans on both parties were overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.[8] Supreme Court Justice Misha’el Kheshin told the election committee that Bishara’s past expressions of support for Hezbollah in Lebanon had angered him, although he voted to allow him to run in the elections because “Israel’s democracy is strong and can tolerate irregular cases”, and thought that there was insufficient evidence for the ban
Balad (political party) - Wikipedia
The decision to ban the parties bothers me, but its still better than anything else in the mideast.
Being the lesser evil is a horrible justification for supporting anything.
But the reality is people do it all the time. It’s most likely how Bush got elected…twice.
Can you reconcile your position of Balad as the “lets kill the Israelis” party, and their stated aims of (from your link):
*the struggle to transform the state of Israel into a democracy for all its citizens, irrespective of national or ethnic identity.
*supports creation of two states based on pre-1967 borders
Stealth edit? You mean the ineffective part? I would have thought it beneath your notice.
FYI, the state constitution of the Soviet Union (written by its ruling Communist Party) that was accepted in the middle of the Stalin’s rule was one of the most liberal and progressive constitution in the world in its time. Nevermind the fact that the regime itself was a horrible tyranny that killed 30 millions of its own people…
That comparing people and parties to Stalin is silly?