![\"Supremcourt\"](\"http:\/\/marcschulman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Supremcourt.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBoth supporters of law and its opponents were unhappy with the decision. \u00a0Unfortunately supporters and opponents largely broke down along left right lines. \u00a0 The left believes that a law that violated the civil rights of the refugees should not\u00a0be upheld at all, and the right was angered that the court would dare overturn part of a law a third time. \u00a0Before the decision was announced \u00a0Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaket posted on her Facebook feed a warning that if the Supreme Court overturns the law she would push to pass the law that would allow the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court decisions.<\/p>\n
I find all of this very disturbing to say the least. \u00a0On one level there is no question that the court bowed to political pressure in the same way that the Supreme Court of the US bowed to FDR when it approved\u00a0\u00a0Social Security, at a time when Roosevelt was threatening his famous court packing plan. \u00a0The situation here \u00a0is a little different.\u00a0The US was in the midst of a crisis and FDR had extremely broad support to make far reaching economic changes. \u00a0 Here we have a country pretty much split down the middle and \u00a0a court that is trying to uphold the very basic human rights prescribed in Israel’s own Basic Laws. The somewhat frightening part of the story is the fact that politicians on the right do not seem to understand the concept of separation of power. \u00a0They keep on saying that the Knesset is the ribon,\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0meaning the ultimate authority and no one should question that. \u00a0They actually believe that it undemocratic for the judicial branch to question actions of the Knesset. \u00a0There is a second related matter that I have previously referred to, and that is the willingness to change Basic Laws. \u00a0Like I mentioned before there was a consensus among parties not to touch basic laws that has now broken down.<\/p>\n The wider problem of course is the refugees. \u00a0Before the fence was built (something I must give PM Netanyahu credit for) it was an almost impossible situation with thousand arriving every month and no end in sight. \u00a0Thanks to the fence, six refugees came last year. \u00a0All together there are 40,000 African refugees here. \u00a0This is a world wide problem. \u00a0Europe is being swamped with refugees. \u00a0There is no question that having them here is a challenge especially to the residents of South Tel Aviv who tend to be poor. \u00a0But the reason that its such a challenge is that we have done nothing to try to accommodate the refugees. \u00a0The attitude has been, if we make it to nice for them more will come. \u00a0Of course that ignores the fact that we now have a very high fence and none have been able to come. \u00a0As a result the are officially forbidden to work, and authorities have made sure that it takes literally years to review requests for refugee status.<\/p>\n After the Supreme Court \u00a0decision Likud Minister of Public Safety \u00a0Gilad Eradan, continued the Likud’s attempt to demonize the left and posted\u00a0“now the left is caught between the poor residents of south Tel Aviv and their concern for human rights.” \u00a0Amos Shocken, the publisher of Ha’aretz, who rarely directly attacks politicians then responded angrily how could he, a member of the party who has been in power for the last six years, blame the left. \u00a0I have to ask who hardened our\u00a0hearts 70 years after the Holocaust that we cannot find innovative solutions to the problem of the refugees. \u00a0How is it that we can import 100,000 foreign workers and yet we have to round up and detain in a detention center these refugees. \u00a0Finally how did this become a right\/left problem? \u00a0It certainly would not have been in the time of Menachem Begin. \u00a0How did the right become so xenophobic that we can only help victims when they in Nepal and Haiti and not on our doorstep?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earlier this week the Israel Court mostly upheld the law that allows the government to keep asylum seekers in a special detention facility for a period. \u00a0This was the third time that the Knesset passed a law on the subject of the refugees. \u00a0The first allowed almost unlimited detention and the second law \u00a02 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcschulman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}