Israeli Supreme Court overturns ban on Arab parties

By Cernig

It's shameful that the Israeli Supreme Court had to take this step in the first place. As usual, the biggest threats to democracy are politicians with a sense of entitlement ginning up fear of 'the other' for votes.

Israel's Supreme court overruled on Wednesday a parliamentary panel which had decided to bar Israeli Arab parties from running in next month's parliamentary election.

The court issued its decision in response to an appeal filed by Arab politicians against the ban. A spokesman for the Courts Administration said judges overturned the ban in an unanimous vote Wednesday.

The Central Elections Committee (CEC) last week banned the Arab parties United Arab List-Ta'al and Balad from running in February's parliamentary elections amid accusations of racism from Arab MKs.

The original ban was sponsored by the ultra-right Yisrael Beiteinu party and the National Union-National Religious Party.

And it's not over yet.

In response to the Supreme Court's decision, Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday called the ruling "unfortunate, since no boundary was established to prevent the disloyalty of some of the Arab MKs toward the state of Israel."

Lieberman added that "[former chief justice] Aharon Barak once said that a democracy does not need to kill itself to prove its vitality. The court threw away this declaration and in fact gave the Arab parties license to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish democratic state," adding that his party will not back down. "In the next Knesset, we will pass a citizenship law that will prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel's Arabs," he said.

A democratic state may not have to kill itself to prove its vitality, but the notion that it can vote itself out of existence is essential to preserving any democracy. "A motion to adjourn is always in order", as R. A Heinlein would put it. It remains unclear that any democracy that puts an exclusive descriptor in front of "democratic" - be it "Jewish", "Christian", Muslem", "Wiccan", White", "Socialist" or whatever - and then acts to disenfranchise naysayers, is actually democratic in the first place.

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[Mahmoud from Gaza]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDxak15kDbU