Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Accountability is a basic Jewish concept, awesome during Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. Whereas the Torah Jew knows he is accountable to G-d, the Government of Israel is accountable to no one.
The leaders of this Government boast that Israel is a democracy. One should then expect them to be accountable to the people. But Israeli politicians are accountable to the people only during elections. Once elected they ignore the conviction and interests of those who elected them. Some 63% of the people voted for Ariel Sharon and against Oslo in the February 6 prime ministerial election. Yet Mr. Sharon appointed, as his Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres, the architect of Oslo, which has thus far claimed the lives of almost 600 Jews. Mr. Peres has not been held accountable for Oslo’s victims.
Of course the Knesset endorsed Oslo. To whom are its members individually accountable? Not to the voters, for Israel lacks constituency or regional elections, the practice of 74 out of 75 democracies. Generally, an MK is accountable to his party leader. But if he fails to receive a safe place on his party’s list, he may hop over to a rival party, as 29 MKs did in the 1999 elections!
If this were not enough to disgust us with Israel’s political system, notice how Arab MKs engage in permissive sedition, or how they and violate with impunity Basic Law: The Knesset, which prohibits any party that negates the Jewish character of the State. These Arabs are accountable to no one.
To whom is a Prime Minister accountable? To no one. The PM is above the law. He can make agreements with the PLO, a criminal organization still listed as such in the Penal Code. Indeed, Ehud Barak, in defiance of the three-fourths of the Knesset, offered Yasser Arafat eastern Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Jordan Valley!
To whom are judges of the Supreme Court accountable? To no one. The Court is also above the law. It makes its own laws in utter disregard of the ethics and jurisprudence of the Jewish heritage.
So there is no accountability in Israel—one reason why I have urged the adoption of a constitution consistent with Jewish principles. Lacking such a constitution, Israel today is governed not by the rule of law but by the arbitrary rule of men. Among these men are left-wing democrats who are waging a war against Judaism.
Judaism may or nor be democratic, but no one holding office under the Torah is above the Law. Indeed, G-d Himself must observe the Torah!
The Torah is a covenant to which G-d, as a party, subordinates Himself. In other words, G-d subordinates Himself to the law of which He is the creator. How different from the Latin maxim Princes legibus solutus est -- The Ruler is not bound by the law -- a relic of which will be found in modern Israel: "No act of legislation shall diminish the rights of the State, or impose upon it any obligation, unless explicitly stated" (Interpretation of Ordinance, section 42). Contrast the Jerusalem Talmud:
"A human king issues a decree. He may choose to obey it; he may choose to have only others obey it. Not so the Holy One, praised be He. When He issues a decree, He is the first to obey it, as it is stated: 'And they shall observe my observances, I am the L-rd,' I am He Who was the first to observe the commandments of the Torah" (Rosh Hashana 1:3a).
That G-d observes His own laws is the origin of the "rule of law" commonly but misleadingly associated with democracy. I say "misleadingly" because there are two basic types of democracy: Classical or Normative Democracy and Contemporary or Normless Democracy. Only Normative Democracy is compatible with the Torah and the rule of law.
Normatrive Democracy posits a "Higher Law" to which parliaments and kings are subordinate. In this kind of democracy all men can be held accountable for their behavior because here freedom and equality have ethical constraints. Normative Democracy recognizes distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust. This kind of democracy does not prevail in Israel, where freedom leads to permissiveness and equality levels all moral distinctions.
What dominates the mentality of Israel’s secular elites is Normless Democracy. Here indiscriminate freedom and egalitariansm reign supreme. Here both Labor and Likud governments have released and armed Arab terrorists and murderers, and with hardly a protest from the religious parties. Here homosexuals, lesbians, and prostitutes are brought to and honored in the Knesset. Here all lifestyles are morally equal. This is why loyal and disloyal citizens enjoy equal rights in Israel. This is why Israeli politicians treat Arafat as as equal. These politicnas have murdered the sense of honor and justice.
The moral equivalence they have generated erodes conviction in the justice of Israel’s cause. Men like Shimon Peres, in the name of a vacuous humanism, have been dehumanizing the people of Israel. Notice their unmanly preoccupation with “peace and security,” hence their lack of a distinctively Jewish national purpose. Notice the egotistical pluralism in Israeli democracy, where some forty (40!) members of the Knesset, representing at least eight parties, will divide the public treasury in the Sharon Government. Everything is for sale in this democracy, including Judaism. Do not expect accountablity in this self-destructive, bargain-basement democracy.
Surely this democracy must perish if Israel is to survive.