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The raising of the issue of a constitution as a potential way out of the political impasse over the future of Israel’s legal system is nothing but a red herring on the part of the opponents of judicial reform.
By Martin Sherman
I don’t think it is right for the Supreme Court to change fundamental things in accordance with what it refers to as the judgment of ‘the reasonable person.’ That’s an amorphous and completely subjective definition that the Knesset never introduced to the legal code –Yair Lapid, articulating his opposition to the reasonableness clause.
If the reasonableness clause is abolished, all lines will have been crossed. It will demolish the authority of the Supreme Court and our democratic structure—Yair Lapid, articulating his support for the reasonableness clause.
As the obsessive, borderline-maniacal Bibi-phobic opponents of judicial reform continue with their destructive and lawless demonstrations-cum-riots across the streets of Israel, protesting all—and any—government decisions of which they disapprove—whether major changes in the judicial system, minor changes in the judicial system, the dismissal of elected ministers or appointed bureaucrats—a new demand is emerging as a panacea-like balm for the nation’s tribulations.
This is the idea of a Constitution for Israel. Usually touted as to be based on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, it is suggested that the formulation of such a constitution would placate the demonstrators opposing the coalition’s legislative initiatives.
A constitution for Israel is a seductive idea and gives the impression of adopting the example of the USA, the leader of the democratic world. But it is also a highly deceptive notion—being far more declarative than substantive in terms of being an effective template that determines the functioning of the political system.
For, the existence of a constitution is no guarantee of individual rights or civil liberties or any of the enlightened goals that the opponents of judicial reform profess to cherish.
Indeed, a brief jaunt through Google would reveal that countries such as the USSR (and later, Russia), North Korea, and Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) all boast constitutions that include(d) an array of lofty human rights. Yet the demonstrators are very unlikely to endorse any of these states as a model democracy for Israel to emulate.
Thus, it should be clear to any serious student of political science that an authentically substantive constitution cannot, in and of itself, create societal values. On the contrary, it can only reflect them. For if it does not, it will remain nothing more than a worthless piece of paper, bearing meaningless words and empty promises.
Just how irrelevant the text of a constitution can be, when it does not rest on values a society embodies, is vividly portrayed by the words of the 1991 Rwandan Constitution, formulated just three years prior to the brutal genocide that ripped through that luckless country. It read: “The National Council for Development, meeting as Constituent Assembly …Faithful to democratic principles and concerned about ensuring the protection of human rights and promoting respect for fundamental freedoms, in accordance with the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’… Does establish and adopt this Constitution for the Republic of Rwanda…”
Of course, the terrible carnage that followed soon after the instatement of the constitution served to underscore the staggering distance that can separate noble words and benign intentions from the gory realities in several “constitutional democracies.”
To illustrate the point, consider Article 31, of Burkina Faso’s 2015 Constitution, which proclaims that “Burkina Faso is a democratic, unitary and secular State. Faso is the republican form of the State.” Yet, describing realities on the ground, Human Rights Watch paints a dour picture: “Burkina Faso’s human rights situation seriously deteriorated in 2022 as deadly attacks by Islamist armed groups against civilians surged, military forces and pro-government militias committed violations during counterterrorism operations, and political instability deepened as a result of two military coups.”
Accordingly, with religious radicalism, government abuses, and military rebellion, so much for a “democratic”, “unitary” and “secular” State as optimistically set out in the Constitution.
This all goes to underscore the vast potential disconnect between the formal structure of a national polity and the mode of its substantive political routine.
Take Pakistan for example. The formal structure of the Pakistani political system has many similarities with that of the US.
Like the US, Pakistan has a bicameral legislature, a federal system of government, a president elected separately from parliament, and a constitution, which purports to ensure civil rights.
Yet Pakistan is only in the 102nd place (out of a total of 164 counties) in the 2023 Democratic Index Rankings. Significantly, the US ranks 26th, below Israel in 23rd place! (This finding is not a quirk of this particular ranking system.
Indeed, very similar results emerge from an alternative 2023 assessment, with Israel surpassing the US democracy score, while Pakistan—despite its president, bicameral legislature, federal system, and constitution—ranks far lower than both.)
Of course, the converse is no less telling. Just as a formal constitution is no guarantee of substantively democratic governance, so the lack of a formal constitution does not necessarily mean the lack of democratic governance.
Thus, eminently democratic countries such as New Zealand, Britain, and Canada—like Israel—do not have a formal constitution. Yet this has not prevented them from providing their citizens with political freedoms and human rights that are among the most comprehensive on the face of the globe.
Of course, the raising of the issue of a constitution as a potential way out of the political impasse over the future of Israel’s legal system is nothing but a red herring on the part of the opponents of judicial reform. A constitution has been an elusive ideal of Israel, literally from its very inception. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, Israel’s founding document, stipulates that a constitution should be drawn up by October 1948—yet for three-quarters of a century it has not been formulated because of hitherto unbridgeable fissures in Israeli society.
However, despite not having a formal constitution, Israel has for almost eight decades, developed, progressed, prospered, and withstood changes of government, political assassination, grave external threats, and internal unrest, while managing to provide its citizens with domestic freedoms and material welfare among the highest in the world.
So while, in principle, a formal constitution may be a worthy objective, its absence has hardly precluded democratic governance or economic development. Moreover, the opponents of judicial reform know full well that just as no agreement could be reached with them on the reforms, no agreement with them will be possible on the content of an overarching constitution for the country, which would go well beyond the scope of the judicial system and extend to many other walks of life in Israel, over which there are also deep divides.
Accordingly, the offer of the advancement of a formal constitution for Israel in exchange for dialing down the maliciously and mendaciously choreographed protests against judicial reform is nothing but a devious deception to delay the advancement of the reform. Indeed it is an offer that those proposing it cannot deliver on—nor do they wish to.
As such it, should be robustly rebuffed.
Dr. Martin Sherman spent seven years in operational capacities in the Israeli defense establishment. He is the founder of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a member of the Habithonistim-Israel Defense & Security Forum (IDSF) research team, and a participant in the Israel Victory Project
The post ‘Excuse du jour’: Israeli protesters demand a constitution – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.
Workers and supporters at a rally to mark two years on the picket line at the Pacific Gateway Hotel in Richmond, British Columbia, May 25, 2023. (Emma Arkell)
The owners of a Vancouver-area hotel raked in millions from government programs while workers have been on the picket line for over two years, resulting in Canada’s longest ongoing strike.
Since March 2020, over 140 workers at the Pacific Gateway Hotel — recently rebranded as a Radisson Blu — have been laid off, only to be subsequently fired. The firings disproportionately impacted racialized women, some of whom worked at the hotel for decades.
Pardeep Thandi rallies with her coworkers to mark two years on strike on May 25, 2023. Thandi worked at the Pacific Gateway Hotel for nearly two decades before her position was terminated in May 2021. (Emma Arkell)
Kevin Wu had been working at the Richmond, British Columbia hotel as a night auditor since 2011. At a rally in December 2022 to mark the workers’ second Christmas on strike, Wu described how difficult it has been for many of his coworkers to make ends meet since March 2020.
“They have a family to raise, they have to put food on the table, they have to pay the rent or their mortgage — it has been tough for everyone,” said Wu.
But Wu said that he and his coworkers refuse to back down.
“We know if we give up right now, all the things we’ve done for the past nineteen months will be just for nothing,” said Wu. “So we’re going to keep on fighting till we get a good result for us and we can bring everyone back.”
Just weeks after workers were told that there was no work for them at the hotel in March 2020, the hotel owners notified workers through an internal company app that the hotel would be used as a quarantine site managed by a federal government agency and staffed by the Red Cross.
The quarantine facility contract with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was extended on a month-to-month basis. While the workers were initially covered by their recall rights — essentially a guarantee that laid-off workers would be offered their old jobs should they become available again within a certain time frame — the contract extensions outlasted those rights.
In December 2020, the hotel owners refused to extend the workers’ recall rate, and the workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 40, sounded the alarm.
Not all hotels responded to the tumult of the pandemic in the way the Pacific Gateway did. Other hotels in British Columbia that hosted quarantine facilities rehired and retrained their workforces to staff the facilities rather than bringing in contractors. In September 2021, UNITE HERE Local 40 and the bargaining agent for over thirty hotels and resorts in British Columbia reached a recall agreement. This agreement guaranteed that laid-off workers would be recalled until either July 1, 2023, or until the pandemic was declared over by the World Health Organization.
In early May 2021, the remaining workforce at the Pacific Gateway went on strike in solidarity with their laid-off coworkers. Over two years later, they’re still on the picket line. Over the twenty-one months that the hotel was used as a quarantine site, the hotel owners are estimated to have made around $33.6 million dollars from the PHAC contract.
Santa Claus walks the Pacific Gateway Hotel picket line in December 2022. (Emma Arkell)
Michelle Travis, research director for UNITE HERE Local 40, said that the union estimated that amount based on what’s been revealed about other quarantine hotel contracts: documents released by Calgary, Alberta Conservative Party MP Michelle Rempel-Garner revealed that the Westin Calgary hotel was contracted at a rate of $120 per room per night. Both the Pacific Gateway Hotel and the Westin Calgary are owned by PHI Hotel Group.
On the picket line in the fall of 2021, workers said that they suspected that there weren’t many people staying at the Pacific Gateway: they traded stories of driving by the hotel in the evening and not seeing any lights on. Those suspicions were validated by documents acquired by Vancouver-Kingsway New Democratic Party MP Don Davies. In September and October 2021, the Pacific Gateway saw a total of only fifteen people quarantined. Over the twenty-one-month contract, 2,204 travelers quarantined at the hotel.
In late January 2022, members of parliament contacted the union to inform it that the contract between the owners of the Pacific Gateway and the PHAC was nearing its end.
In a statement to Richmond News, a PHAC spokesperson said that the agency was “no longer doing business with Pacific Gateway Hotel” and that the hotel’s actions “were concerning,” in reference to its “treatment of unionized workers.”
On February 1, the hotel posted job ads online looking to replace laid-off workers.
In the first months of the pandemic, the Canadian government rolled out several benefit programs to support workers and businesses impacted by the pandemic. By far the largest of these benefits was the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), which provided a 75 percent wage subsidy for eligible employers for up to three months. According to a report by the auditor general of Canada, by the program’s close in October 2021, the CEWS provided more than $100 billion to over 440,000 employers, making it the largest government spending initiative in Canadian history.
An archived page on the government of Canada website states that the CEWS “prevents further job losses, encourages employers to re-hire workers previously laid off as a result of COVID-19, and help [sic] better position Canadian companies and other employers to more easily resume normal operations following the crisis.”
Despite laying off 70 percent of the Pacific Gateway’s workforce, both PHI Hotel Group and Van-Air Holdings Ltd., two entities with ownership stake in the hotel, received money from the CEWS, according to the searchable CEWS registry. In a report on pandemic support programs, the auditor general noted that while the CEWS supported employers in sectors hit hardest by the pandemic’s economic downtown, it was ultimately difficult to assess how effective the program was because of the “limited information” employers were required to submit when applying. As the report notes, “the program did not require employers to submit any information on rehiring.”
The report identified $15.5 billion in CEWS payments that should be investigated further. In January 2023, the head of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) told members of Parliament that it “wouldn’t be worth the effort” to fully review the flagged ineligible payments. An investigation by the Globe and Mail found many CEWS recipients “posted solid results, paid out higher dividends, had money to spare for acquisitions and laid off workers to contain costs.”
Meanwhile, the CRA has contacted over one million Canadians requiring them to repay payments received through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which provided Canadians who lost work due to the pandemic with $2,000 per month.
For workers like Wu, hearing about the money that went into the hotel owners’ hands during the pandemic — while he and his fellow workers have been out on the picket line — is frustrating. “We all know that the owner benefited from the federal government during the pandemic,” said Wu. “At least give us a fair contract, right?”
Last time the owners of the hotel and UNITE HERE were at the bargaining table was in May 2021. Travis said that the owners tabled a “deeply concessionary contract” that proposed decreases in pay, fewer benefits, and worse working conditions.
“The employer wanted to roll back some of the workers’ pay from a living wage to minimum wage,” said Travis. “Under the contract, housepersons were making $21.73/hour, so that would have meant a $6.53 reduction in hourly pay under the owner’s proposal.”
Sukhi Rai, owner of Jayen Properties, of which PHI Hotel Group is an affiliate, told the Tyee that the layoffs were a result of plans to phase out food and beverage services at the hotel. But according to Travis, the layoffs were not limited just to workers in food and beverage services.
UNITE HERE Local 40 president Zailda Chan gives a speech outside the hotel on May 25, 2023. (Emma Arkell)
“He terminated 90 percent of the housekeeping department, and there were other departments that were hard hit. It’s not just food and beverage,” said Travis. “It really cut across departments.”
“You can’t run a four-hundred-room hotel without any housekeeping staff.”
Earlier this year, the hotel rebranded as a Radisson Blu. Since reopening the hotel to the public, the Radisson Blu has been undergoing renovations, and is currently operating with fewer rooms available to the public.
UNITE HERE Local 40 is encouraging the public to boycott the hotel. The British Columbia Federation of Labour, the Canadian Labour Congress, and Richmond City Council have all committed to not doing business with the hotel until a resolution is reached with the workers.
For workers like Wu, the support from members of other unions is heartening. “They all really support us in this fight,” he says.
On May 25, at the two-year strike anniversary rally in front of the Radisson Blu, UNITE HERE Local 40 president Zailda Chan spoke on the picket line about the resilience of the hotel workers. “No matter what you call this hotel, it’s the workers that have made this hotel successful and they’re not going anywhere until they get back in there and they raise their standards.”
Three Arabs from northern Israel were arrested for terrorist plot against security personnel.
By Pesach Benson, TPS
Israeli authorities arrested an adult and two minors from the Nazareth area for planning to carry out terror attacks inspired by Hamas, police announced on Monday as indictments were filed.
Indictments were due to be filed on Monday in the Nazareth District Court.
An investigation by the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Israeli Police found that the three produced Molotov cocktails which they planned to throw at security forces.
The adult was identified as Mobin Ahmed Younes, a 19-year-old resident of Reina, an Arab village adjacent to Nazareth. The minors were only identified as from northern Israel.
The 19-year-old Younes frequented the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount during Ramadan and participated rallies while wearing the terror group’s flag. He was also filmed inside Al Aqsa expressing his identification with Hamas.
Tensions on the Temple Mount were high during the Islamic month of Ramadan, which overlapped with the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday. Palestinians barricaded inside the Al Aqsa Mosque were evacuated by Israeli police.
In another case, one of the suspects was photographed on the roof of a house in his village holding a weapon and wrapped in Hamas flags.
The indictments added that the three actively read material written by Hamas.
Palestinian terror are known for exploiting social media to recruit children.
“The terrorist organization Hamas continues to work to spread its ideology among the citizens of the State of Israel and its residents and, among other things, works to recruit them through propaganda distributed on the Temple Mount and on social networks, with the aim of promoting terrorist activity in Israel,” the Shin Bet said in a statement announcing the arrests.
The post Adult, 2 minors arrested in Nazareth for planning Hamas-inspired attacks appeared first on World Israel News.
Army veteran and former U.S. Senate candidate Jake Bequette breaks down Biden’s presumed gaffe revealing a military ammunition shortage on live television during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday evening.
The post WATCH: ‘Embarrassing, humiliating’ – Biden shares US secrets on live TV appeared first on World Israel News.
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