There Goes a Bit of Democracy

Justice Minister Haim Ramon (with whom I attended the special Shaliach [Emmissary] Seminar of the Jewish Agency in 1974-75 at Kiryat Moriah) is sounding the death knell for freedom of expression in Israel.

In addition, he is (oh, no!) circumventing the judicial decisions that Aaron Barak, Chief Supreme Court Justice, has set out as a measure.

Haaretz reports:

The Knesset yesterday approved by a 7-2 majority, with two abstentions, the first reading of a bill on incitement seeking to increase the state's ability to file indictments on charges of incitement to violence.

The bill, which constitutes an amendment to a penal-code clause "forbidding calling and inciting to violence," eliminates the need for a likelihood test when there is "a real possibility" that the call to violence will cause actual violence. Justice Minister Haim Ramon says the amendment is necessary because the current law makes it nearly impossible to try anyone for incitement.

That "real possibility" test is what makes Israel a liberal democracy. Its elimination undoes all that character.

Will Israel's liberal and progressive forces rise to the occasion?