http://aliyahblog.com/2008/07/09/how-can-israel-become-a-better-democracy/ Moving UP in the World Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:02:39 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://aliyahblog.com/2008/07/09/how-can-israel-become-a-better-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-45375 shoshana Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:47:26 +0000 http://aliyahblog.com/?p=404#comment-45375 I agree with most of your points, especially direct elections, but I think a constitution is overrated. The efforts at creating a constitution get hung up on defining what the state is in the abstract, and any language that everyone can agree on will probably be so general as to be meaningless. The basic laws pretty much function as a kind of bill of rights - you don't need a constitution to define search and seizure, you can just pass a basic law. Of course, the basic law system could be tweaked- ie make them harder to amend (they're already harder to change than regular laws) and/or add to them to cover more issues, but I'm not convinced that officially declaring Israel to be a Jewish democratic state would actually make any difference in terms of how the law affects people's lives. And speaking of laws, I would say that before you even get to equal enforcement of the law, let's start with enforcement of the law, period. (p.s. can you tell i'm procrastinating?) I agree with most of your points, especially direct elections, but I think a constitution is overrated. The efforts at creating a constitution get hung up on defining what the state is in the abstract, and any language that everyone can agree on will probably be so general as to be meaningless. The basic laws pretty much function as a kind of bill of rights – you don’t need a constitution to define search and seizure, you can just pass a basic law. Of course, the basic law system could be tweaked- ie make them harder to amend (they’re already harder to change than regular laws) and/or add to them to cover more issues, but I’m not convinced that officially declaring Israel to be a Jewish democratic state would actually make any difference in terms of how the law affects people’s lives. And speaking of laws, I would say that before you even get to equal enforcement of the law, let’s start with enforcement of the law, period. (p.s. can you tell i’m procrastinating?)

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