Opinion/JPost..
03 January '13..
Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) chairman Naftali Bennett’s statement that he would not obey an order to expel Jews from their homes, the criticism it engendered and his subsequent retraction comprised only the latest example of how, seven years later, the disengagement from Gaza continues to cast a shadow over our national life.
That it still haunts us is appropriate considering what it was: the forcible transfer of thousands of people, in which only Jews – by nature of the plan’s goals – were targeted.
Though the Supreme Court did not strike down the plan, it found that it “infringe[d] the human dignity of evacuated Israelis” in a number of ways, violating their property rights and their right to build their lives where they choose, and destroying their communities, businesses and professional livelihoods, in short, their entire way of life.
Putting aside the mortal dangers it posed (all of which and even more have since been realized) the disengagement also sought to answer the most divisive issue our nation faces – setting the final boundaries of the state – a constitutional matter which even the Constituent Assembly, Israel’s first and only constitutional convention, deemed too controversial to decide on.
DESPITE THE enormity of the violations, the controversy surrounding it and the lasting impact it would have, the disengagement was a relatively easy thing for then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to accomplish.
The government presented its plan, the Knesset approved and the judiciary allowed it be executed. And even that outline makes the process seem more rigorous than it was. In the end, it was a simple matter of majority rule.
Technically, the Knesset could have disapproved a prime minister’s initiative, but in a parliamentary system, this is unlikely.
The government represents a majority of parliament and the cabinet is comprised of that coalition’s most powerful members.
Israel’s proportional system makes Knesset opposition further unfeasible: Even if some coalition members disapprove, in the fractured political landscape produced by the electoral system, allies can always be found outside the coalition. And, as the public does not choose members of Knesset, but only a prepared slate of candidates, MKs are first and foremost accountable to party bodies that set the slate, over which the party chairman typically has substantial control.
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