Israel Needs Civil Law, not a State of Emergency

By Moshe Feiglin

The Knesset has been asked to authorize the government request to declare that Israel is in a state of emergency. For a country that just celebrated its 66^th year of independence and whose neighboring enemies are in advanced stages of collapse, this requested declaration is superfluous and insulting. There is no real reason to declare that Israel is in a state of emergency. The government is simply too lazy to amend or nullify all the laws still on the books by virtue of previous states of emergency. Worse than that, this ‘state of emergency’ creates a twilight zone somewhere in between war and peace, in which it is easy to infringe on citizens’ human rights: administrative detention, for example, to which I am opposed for both Jews and Arabs. If the government needs a state of emergency, it should declare war. And if there is no war, then it should conduct itself like a normal state.

This farce must be stopped. It is unthinkable that in the name of emergency laws, the IDF, at any given moment, can confiscate my car or yours. It is unthinkable that employer/employee relations are still conducted according to state of emergency edicts and not according to agreements and laws. And it is unthinkable that the State of Israel continues to seize the land upon which the Knesset and some government offices are built by power of the state of emergency, never having appropriately regulated its acquisitions as befits a state that honors the rights of its citizens.

I do not intend to vote in favor of continuing this poor joke and I hope that many other MKs in the coalition will make it clear to the government that we cannot go on like this.