The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, chaired by MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), convened last Wednesday and began to prepare for the first reading of the Emergency Powers Bill (Detentions) sponsored by Committee Chair MK Rothman.
Simcha Rothman and Donald Trump
It is proposed to stipulate that the provisions of the Emergency Powers Law (Detentions), 1979, and the provisions of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations dealing with restriction orders, will not apply to Israeli citizens unless the Minister of Defense has a reasonable foundation to presume that a citizen of the State of Israel is a member of a terrorist organization listed in the addendum to the law. The addendum will include terrorist organizations working to undermine the State of Israel’s existence or to commit acts of terrorism against its citizens.
Committee Chair MK Rothman: “This bill is being presented after many attempts on my part to receive answers and solutions. I begged, more or less, not to have to present this bill, and I requested a response to cases that we will probably all agree need to be dealt with.
The dismissal of a Defense Minister is not a cause for joy, but it should be noted that per month of his term as Defense Minister, Minister [MK Yoav] Gallant (Likud) used this tool much more than [MK Benjamin] Gantz (National Unity Party) as minister; highly excessive use. (…) During two years, more administrative orders were issued against Jewish citizens of Israel, while at the same time, the number of terrorist attacks in Israel committed by Arab citizens of Israel increased sharply. No one knows why a person is in detention, besides the fact that he made a documentary film about the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).
(…) The reality in Israel is irregular and unique, with a plague of terrorism that is unparalleled around the world, particularly in the Arab population of Judea and Samaria, in which over 80% of the residents said that they supported the October 7 massacre; a population that names city squares after terrorists. For this reason, the bill states that if there is a concern that a source could be exposed in a terrorist organization that is acting against the State of Israel, I am willing to grant this tool of administrative detention. The bill is designed to place a very serious stop sign against the inflation and misuse of the administrative detention tool. If we conduct a substantive debate, we will succeed in finding a solution that is not populist. I intend to advance this bill to make Israel into a state as all other democratic states, in which the Government deals with difficult and severe phenomena with tools that safeguard human and civil rights,” said MK Rothman.
Katz in obligation
MK Limor Sonn Har Melech (Otzma Yehudit): “I welcome this bill, which does justice. There was very great frustration when we saw the injustice that cries out to high heaven when on the present watch there was great ease in signing administrative detentions for settlers. I see how human rights organizations raise an outcry against administrative detentions for organized crime groups, but conversely, they make light of detentions of settlers. This is hypocrisy. I am shocked that the tool of administrative orders became a routine tool in the hands of the outgoing Minister MK Gallant, under pressure from foreign countries.
There was opposition from the Attorney General’s Office to administrative detentions against leaders of organized crime groups. Still, a hilltop youth can waste away in prison under impossible conditions, and a father of children is torn from his bed at night before his children’s eyes because he wished to build a house on Israeli soil. There is no evidence, only an administrative order signed by the Defense Minister. Where are the opposition members, who always fight for human rights and are now silent; are human rights only for one side of the political map? I am asking incoming Minister Israel Katz (Likud) to give instructions to reexamine each case and to provide instructions to release the detainees now.”
MK Alon Schuster (National Unity Party): “The army is begging us not to harm its power to protect the law, the lives of Jews and Arabs, the ability to maintain our moral fibre, and the human, Jewish and Israeli morality. Don’t harm Israel’s diplomatic global resources. The bill undermines our ability to cope with nationalist crime, which exists, regrettably, among native Hebrew speakers as well.”
Riki Shapira, mother of Avraham, an administrative detainee: “He has been under administrative detention for nearly three of the six months handed down against him. He lives in Tkuma in Yitzhar, and is a father of children, a documentary filmmaker and a photographer; his detention stopped the family’s normal routine. Within the great fiasco of administrative detentions against Jews, the emphasis is now that while we are fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, it was chosen to put my son behind bars with the pretext of harming state security, but if you had addressed the harm to security beyond the fence, you would have succeeded in saving many more lives.”
Based on the press release of the Knesset (8.11.2024). Selected/edited/shortened by VonNaftali. Poc from Pexels.com