Prime Minster Ehud Barak has expressed reservations about
recent demands to enact a constitution without a national
consensus on the issues. He said that to the best of his
knowledge, in a true democracy a constitution is not imposed.
A constitution, therefore, should be enacted only by
consensus.
Last week, the Knesset discussed the issue of enacting a
constitution. President of Israel, Ezer Weizman; Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, and additional
guests took part in the meeting.
Prime Minister Barak stated, "The constitution isn't only
supposed to coordinate society, but must also reflect and
stabilize it. Therefore, in a society such as ours with many
groups and contrasts -- in which Jews and Arabs, secular and
chareidim, those of European, Asiatic and African descent and
their children and grandchildren live side by side -- a
constitution which all sectors of the nation are obligated to
see as their own must be the result of an ongoing process
resting upon a platform of broad consensus and tolerance. Its
roots should serve as a basis for internal unity and as a
stabilizing factor."
In contrast, Avrohom Burg said that a constitution should be
enacted as quickly as possible, since it is the life force of
democracy. He expressed his hope that unlike its
predecessors, the current Knesset would formulate a
constitution. "If we want life, we must quickly establish new
basic principles instead of the `status quo,' which has
breathed its very last artificial breath. A constitution is a
new key principle, and I believe that if each person examines
himself in depth, he will discover that the [existing]
distances are not unbridgeable."
David Tal of Shas sharply criticized rulings of the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, as well as his
judicial activism. He attacked Barak's famous constitutional
revolution and said: "Since then the dispute has sharpened,
and the animosity and hatred in Israeli public affairs
between the religious and the secular, the Right and the
Left, Ashkenazim and the Sephardim have degenerated. Since
then we have been in the thick of an uncompromising battle
over the nation's character and over the question of whether
it will remain a state with a Jewish character or become a
democratic state without any spark of Jewish uniqueness."
At the close of his remarks, he declared: "Barak's motto,
`the rule of law,' has become a two-edged sword from a small,
well-publicized clique which is trying to dictate radical
political changes in Israeli society while bypassing the
elected governmental bodies and shutting mouths in a crass
manner."
Meretz members shouted back at Tal in response, while some
demonstratively left the plenum.
