Last Wednesday, less than one day after Professor Asa Kasher and retired Judge Professor Yitzhak Zamir leveled very harsh criticism at the behavior of Knesset members, reminding them during a study day on ethics that they serve as public role models, Minister Meir Sheetrit fell upon the chair of the Labor Knesset faction MK Dalia Itzik from the speaker's podium, saying, "I will shut you up! What do you think? I will shut your big mouth up!"
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Former minister Itzik rejoined with, "You shut your mouth, idiot! The person who can shut my mouth has not yet been born and you will not be the first."
A short while later, MK Nissim Ze'ev of Shas upbraided Interior Minister Avraham Poraz in the Knesset plenum, saying that Poraz's assistant was a "homosexual who disgusted anyone that came near him," and that therefore, according to halakha [Jewish law], he was "worse than an animal."
A few weeks earlier, MK Roni Bar-On (Likud) told his fellow faction member Gila Gamliel, "If I had a daughter like you, I would kill my wife."
These three strident chords are largely typical of the 16th Knesset. One might think that the Knesset could not go any lower, but since it began its activities in February of this year, the current Knesset has managed to break all records for shame and disgrace.
For some time now, the police's national fraud squad has been questioning four MKs under warning for falsifying a vote during the passage of the new economic plan. The four - Michael Gorlovsky, Yaakov Edri and Yehiel Hazan of the Likud and Wasal Taha of Balad - denied the accusations (with the exception of Gorlovsky, who admitted voting twice and was subsequently penalized by the Knesset Ethics Committee). Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) was also interrogated on this matter, but all agree he had voted twice unintentionally.
The double voting affair, which Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein called "a serious phenomenon touching on the very foundations of democracy," is also without precedent. There have already been cases of ministers and Knesset members being convicted of crimes and even sentenced to jail sentences, but never has an attempt to influence the outcome of a vote in the Knesset plenum by falsifying a vote come to light before. Never have Knesset members been suspected of fraud, forgery and breach of trust committed within the walls of the legislature itself.
No immunity reform
Also troubling was the decision by the Knesset House Committee in May to reject a request by the attorney general to lift the immunity of MK Naomi Blumental (Likud) so that she could be indicted for corruption and election bribery. The committee decided by one vote (eight to seven) not to remove her immunity for her role in an affair that involved her paying for the accommodations of Likud Central Committee members at the City Tower Hotel in Tel Aviv. Knesset representatives, including MK Gorlovsky, together with Shas, United Torah Judaism and the National Union said no to Rubinstein.
Since then, considerable effort has been made to carry out a reform in the procedure involved in the lifting of immunity. Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin blew the dust off the Nissim Committee Report - a public committee headed by former justice minister Moshe Nissim - that in 1997 recommended transferring the authority for the decision on whether or not to remove a Knesset member's immunity to an external body, and convened a debate in his chambers together with the members of that committee (Moshe Nissim, Professor Claude Klein, Professor Eliezer Lederman and attorney Uriel Linn) and Dr. Susie Navot, who is writing a doctorate on the subject of immunity for Knesset members. Afterward, the Knesset House Committee held three meetings on the subject of immunity, and it was decided to oppose transferring the authority on the matter of revoking immunity to an external body. The main argument of those opposing the proposal was that such a far-reaching step would further erode the status of the Knesset and undermine its authority. Last week, coalition chair MK Gideon Sa'ar, who supports the implementation of the recommendations, once again tried to pass a bill in this reform spirit in the Knesset plenum, but was unsuccessful.
Even less far-reaching bills promoted by MKs Michael Eitan and Roni Bar-On on the subject of immunity have been removed from the agenda. Eitan proposed that the attorney general's request to lift immunity be automatically accepted, unless the suspected Knesset member asks the Knesset House Committee to debate non-revocation. Bar-On proposed that a decision by the House Committee should serve only as a recommendation to the plenum, which would ultimately decide on the matter in an open vote.
In the current term, the dispute between the Knesset and the Supreme Court over the authority of the court to annul laws passed by the Knesset that run counter to Basic Laws heated up. The tension between the two branches of government peaked in March, when new Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin let loose a harsh attack on the Supreme Court and the "constitutional revolution" led by the President of the Supreme Court, Justice Aharon Barak. Rivlin inveighed against the fact that a Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court judge saw fit to annul a law passed by the Knesset with the claim that it ran counter to a Basic Law. Rivlin argued that judicial activism would "destroy the trust of the public in the Knesset, a trust without which it has no raison d'etre."
Rivlin's critique did not go unanswered. Barak responded in no less a critical vein: "Do not undermine the legitimacy of the court. Criticize its decisions." In his view, Rivlin had undermined the court's very legitimacy, "something unheard of." In the wake of the exchange of blows between the heads of the legislature and the judiciary, a "cease-fire" came into effect during which the Knesset would pass a law that would determine that only the Supreme Court would be entitled to decide by a special majority on the annulment of a law, at which time the Knesset would be given the opportunity to amend the law.
In the area of legislation, the current Knesset has not yet found the time to complete the passage of important laws because only six months have passed since it began its activities. The most prominent law passed thus far is the governmental law on the battle against organized crime, which for the first time determines what organized crime is, makes it possible to impose severe penalties for those heading crime organizations and gives law enforcement authorities the tools to fight against these organizations.
There has not been any real advance in the legislation of Basic Laws. However, in the discussion held in the chambers of the Knesset speaker last month, MK Avraham Ravitz (UTJ) stunned the others present when he withdrew his opposition to the legislation of Basic Law: Legislation, which would determine the normative superiority of Basic Laws over other laws.
At the same time, the chairman of the Knesset Legislative Committee, MK Michael Eitan (Likud), advanced a long list of thorough and in-depth discussion on the subject of a "broad-consensus constitution," but the discussions, some of which were academic, are still far from ripening into legislation. As of now, the Knesset plenum knocked down four Basic Laws: Social Rights bills on preliminary reading.
Crumbling opposition
The broad coalition, which enjoys the support of 68 Knesset members, has yet to encounter a close-knit, fighting opposition. Coalition chair MK Gideon Sa'ar has been steering the coalition effectively, sometimes using an iron fist. When four Likud Knesset members, David Levy, Gila Gamliel, Haim Katz and Marina Solodkin, did not vote in favor of the economic plan, they were given disciplinary penalties. In the coalition, it is still difficult to point to Knesset members whose parliamentary activities are exemplary, with the exception of old-timers Michael Eitan and Avraham Hirschson (as chair of the Knesset Finance Committee). Among the new Knesset members, the most noticeable are Gila Gamliel, as chair of the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, Roni Bar-On, as chair of the Knesset House Committee, former Shin Bet officer Ehud Yatom and the young Gilad Arden. Other promising new MKs appear to be Shinui's Reshef Chayne, Melli Polishuk-Bloch, Ilan Leibowitz and Ehud Ratzabi, National Union's Professor Aryeh Eldad and the NRP's Gila Finkelstein.
By the way, the only Knesset member that has not made a single speech in the Knesset plenum, proposed a single bill or asked a single question is the prime minister's son, MK Omri Sharon. When asked why he has not mounted the Knesset podium in the more than six months since elected, he responded, "When there is an important subject on which I have something to say, I will get up to speak. Meanwhile, I am studying the subjects, participating in the debates in both the plenum and the committees."
In the opposition, Labor faction chair MK Dalia Itzik tried to create a tight bloc that would present a united front in its struggle against the government, but in light of the diametrically opposed views on political and security matters of Shas and the UTJ on the one hand, and Meretz and the Arab parties on the other, it is difficult to conduct a common struggle on anything except social-welfare issues. The no-confidence votes against the government presented almost weekly have become an absurd tool that no one takes seriously.
It is difficult to point to any prominent Knesset members in the opposition, with the exception of a few old timers, such as Dalia Itzik and Avraham Burg (Labor), Zahava Gal-On and Ran Cohen (Meretz), Yitzhak Cohen (Shas), David Tal (One Nation) and Ahmed Tibi (Hadas-Taal). Among the opposition Knesset members of note (so far) are Yitzhak Herzog, Yuli Tamir, Danny Yatom and Orit Noked (Labor) and Yisrael Eichler (UTJ).
The hostility and tension between the Jewish and Arab Knesset members continues to characterize the debates of the current Knesset. The stormy debate over the killing of the Hamas chief in Nablus, Salah Shehadeh, or the comments by Minister Avigdor Leiberman that he is willing to provide the security prisoners with a bus that would take them to the sea are two example of the subject that have kicked up a storm in the Knesset plenum.
In one of the debates about Leiberman's buses, held in June, after Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Kahlon removed several Arab Knesset members from the plenum, MK Azmi Beshara (Balad) said, "The Israeli parliament must decide how it wants to be run. It is not doing anyone a favor when it listens to me. I will not regret it very much or be sorry if the Israeli parliament were to decide that it no longer wants Arabs here. Then the whole world would see that that Israel does not want Arabs, and that it is an apartheid state.
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