Last update - 00:00 11/11/2007
Ministers slam AG for prohibiting punitive power cuts to Gaza
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent
Cabinet ministers criticized Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Sunday for barring the defense establishment from cutting off electricity to the Gaza Strip in response for persistent rocket attacks against southern Israel.
Last month, Mazuz prohibited the state from cutting off electricity to parts of the Gaza Strip, as was outlined in the plan adopted earlier by the defense establishment. The attorney general said that the plan must be examined further before such a measure can be implemented without causing a humanitarian crisis, as the prime minister had promised a week earlier not to do.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told his colleagues at the cabinet meeting on Sunday that the defense establishment was developing a technical solution which will allow Israel to curb power to the Strip without cutting it off entirely, thus avoiding a humanitarian crisis.
The new plan, which calls for a technical device to be placed on Gaza power lines to significantly reduce the electricity supply, will be brought before Mazuz for approval in the near future, Barak said.
"The idea is to weaken the Hamas government, even in its ability to provide basic national services to its constituents. With this reduction [of electricity], we are implementing our separation from Gaza as a hostile entity" Barak said, adding that the state would not cross the following red lines: actions that could cause a humanitarian crisis in the Strip, or actions that would go against the wishes of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on issues that could weaken his standing.
Barak briefed the cabinet on the reduction of the supply of fuel to the Strip already underway, as well as the restrictions already in place at border crossings and on money transfers.
Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, who addressed the cabinet directly after Barak, harshly criticized Mazuz's intervention in an issue that, according to him, should be decided by the cabinet alone. He said that in the current situation "the government is paralyzed and the [attorney general's] counsel is not counsel. An adviser must give advice: it's good, it's bad. Here, the advice has become a command. The adviser [Mazuz] has become a commander of the government. There are things that advisers do, and there are things that a government does. The adviser should advise, and the government should act."
Friedmann explained that there is definitely room for legal counsel within the confines of the cabinet's considerations on whether to impose sanctions on another state or entity, because in many cases there is confusion regarding a state's actions on the international level, including actions required for self defense. In such a case, he said, "the job of the legal adviser is to present every scenario that can be interpreted in more than one way, and allow the state to decide."
Vice Premier Haim Ramon took a similar stance, saying that "it is insane that the other side is bombing and causing power outages in Sderot, and we can't impose a power outage on Gaza, even without bombing them. We are failing to do the required thing against the terrorist policy of Hamas and the persistent Qassam fire that is continuing like a plague of nature."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to defend the attorney general, saying that the cabinet acted wisely by following Mazuz's decision. Olmert reminded the ministers that this issue had already been examined in July of 2006, and even then it was decided that the options were limited.
Related articles: