Q&A: Family Reunification Law: Who Is Right?
Family Reunification Law: Who Is Right?
Question
Which view does the Rabbi lean toward in the dispute over this law?
A. Does it make sense to oppose a law that is important for state security in order to bring down the coalition?
B. If the coalition agrees to support only an extension of the existing law, while the opposition will support only a Basic Law: Immigration, who can be blamed for the fact that in the meantime there is no law? On the one hand, the coalition argues that the opposition must support important laws, and on the other hand the opposition says it agrees to support it, but wants a different law that will do the same job.
Answer
A. Obviously not. This is the opposition and Bibi at their ugliest. But I always knew they have no interest in the state at all, only in themselves. Tell me something new.
B. I’m not familiar with that dispute.
Discussion on Answer
First, even according to their own view this is not really a dangerous government. There is no connection between their rhetoric and the truth (even as they themselves see it). True, lying has become a way of life for them, so that can be confusing.
Second, it is not clear that this contributes to toppling the government, so in any case it does not justify certain damage.
I don’t totally understand, though. The opposition said it would support a temporary extension of the law if the coalition would advance the Basic Law: Immigration, which in the end is basically the same law, just without the need to renew it every year. In the end, this move kills two birds with one stone for the opposition: it shows that the coalition was built without any shared foundation (except for “Anyone But Bibi,” of course), and it also won’t be seen as endangering state security just to topple the coalition.
That’s how I see it anyway.
The coalition’s ‘family reunification law’ is ‘hamstrung’ by the Interior Minister’s commitment to MK Abbas that there will be ‘consideration’ of humanitarian factors. It would be interesting to know what case of ‘family reunification’ would not be included under ‘humanitarian considerations’ 🙂
The opposition is proposing a stricter ‘immigration law.’ Presumably in the end they’ll reach some kind of compromise that will produce a ‘citizenship law’ whose implementation will not be subject to MK Mansour Abbas’s ‘humanitarian demands’.
The ‘game of chicken’ (chicken) — the conduct of two sides trying to threaten one another that they will carry the confrontation all the way to the very end, where it will be bad for everyone, in the hope that the threat of taking the extreme step will cause the rival to ‘blink first’ — was described in column 287.
And so the opposition people are threatening that under no circumstances will they support the coalition’s bill, and vice versa, until someone ‘blinks’ first or a compromise is reached. Politics is a matter for people with ‘nerves of steel’: they pull and pull, and in the end they reach compromises. No need to panic 🙂
Best regards, S. Tz. [= Rabbit Chicken]
Rabbi, I didn’t understand what the problem is from the opposition’s side. They are proposing a law of their own.
If Yamina wants to show it is right-wing, then it’s welcome to support their law. They’d have well over 61.
The same “hypocrisy” exists in the opposite direction too.
B. Yael, it’s pretty funny that Yamina is allowed to make sweeping concessions to the left-wing members and the Arab members of the religious Islamic list in the Knesset. But to go with the opposition in order to vote for a law that is a bit more “right-wing” — that they (apparently) are incapable of compromising on, and on top of that they blame the right… That seems completely bizarre to me…
Don’t read it as Yamina, but as Bennetta.
Do you really still think this is a left-wing government in security terms (as opposed to matters of religion and state, etc.)??
I recommend watching what Ayman Odeh says. There are things here that a Bibi government would never in its life have done.
I wrote that I am not familiar with the immigration law and the details of the dispute. In general, it is possible that the coalition too is not acting properly. Each thing has to be judged on its own merits. But Likud’s opposition to the law as it was presented a few days ago was a scandal.
As for the immigration law, I don’t know what exactly it is. But it is possible that this law is democratically unreasonable, and therefore there is room to oppose it. Not everything that is more extreme in this direction is necessarily more justified. There is an infringement of rights and equality here, and it has to be weighed against its benefit and proportionality.
Yishai, I don’t see a change.
I think Likud’s opposition was consistent in that they were proposing a different law. (Or almost from the very first moment that this actually became relevant.) They also agreed that if there were agreement to advance their law, they would advance the temporary law.
There are claims that even today, some of those in the coalition once tried to oppose the Basic Law they wanted to advance in 2018:
https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/law04/5344_20_lst_492667.htm
In this law, “illegal immigrant” means a person who entered Israel or is staying in its territory not by virtue of one of the following: (1) the Law of Return, 5710–1950; (2) a valid tourist visa; (3) a valid work visa; (4) a descendant of a person who meets one or more of paragraphs (1) through (3).
………………..
The State of Israel is entitled to restrict the liberty of an illegal immigrant, as defined in this Basic Law, by means of imprisonment, arrest, detention, restriction of the place of residence, removal from the state, extradition, or in any other way.
Regarding A, why not? After all, according to their view this is a dangerous government, and they prefer there to be a small blow to the state in the form of bringing down the citizenship law rather than letting this dangerous government (in their view) remain in power.