Horses also feel pain

The police cars' flashing lights and the ambulance sirens left no room for doubt: a traffic accident. After evacuating the injured - I believe one person was killed - I noticed an injured horse snorting weakly by the roadside. He tried a few times to stand up, but his legs buckled under him. His neck was bleeding.

"What are you going to do with the horse?" I asked a policeman. He gave me a strange look. He had already dealt with hundreds of traffic accidents, including some that involved animals, but apparently no one had asked him that question. "We'll find its owners and deal with it according to the law. I guess the owner will be charged with negligent homicide," he said.

"I was asking about the horse. Doesn't he get taken care of?"

"We don't have those orders for animals, but we won't let him suffer," the policeman said, and shot the horse in the head. Blood flowed out of the dying animal's mouth.

"We have to call the veterinary services to get him out of here, but that will be only tomorrow because they don't work at this hour," the policeman said.

The Knesset debate last week about animals rights reminded me of that accident. If you are a human being - good or bad, friend or foe - we'll do everything in our power to save your life. Even if you are suffering terribly as you die, no cop would ever think to put a bullet in your head. But if you are a horse, camel, cow or donkey, you'll be in your death throes by the roadside until someone puts you out of your misery with a bullet to the brain and the veterinary services cart you off and throw you into a lime pit so you don't spread disease. Media reports about traffic accidents are usually indifferent to the fate of injured animals.

This is all because animals have no rights. And now it's official: The Knesset decided not to pass a law on animal rights because a legal opinion determined that Israeli law does not recognize animals as "a legal personage having rights."

This learned legal opinion was delivered by the government's representative in the debate, Religious Services Minister Yaakov Margi (Shas). "The bill is based on the unacceptable concept that animals have rights," Margi said, adding wisdom to insight when he compared animals' legal status to that of entities like companies, ships, universities and cities.

We must say to Minister Margi that the concept of animals having rights is acceptable, even in Israel. A committee of experts recently determined that a chicken has the right to at least half a meter of space in the poultry house, and the High Court of Justice ruled three years ago that feeding methods that make geese suffer not be used.

The cows, goats, chickens, horses and donkeys that serve us have rights that no one may take away, not even the Shas wise men who are experts at taking away the rights of widows and orphans who are not Jewish. Animals have the right to shelter, rest, medical care and protection from abuse. Animals, for the government's information, are not ships or companies. Animals have feelings. They are happy and sad, just as people are. Has anyone ever seen a happy ship or a sad company?

Animal rights must be enshrined in a comprehensive law that would become a Basic Law. In the future, I hope we will also stop slaughtering cows that are too old to give milk, and will allow them to live out their lives in special barns. "Sheltered housing," if you will, for animals that have served us faithfully their whole lives.