What will happen if Israelis officially decide to spit over the prevalence of Human Rights International Laws?

Knesset bids to override those pesky human rights

The possibility of ‘overriding’ human rights – which Israeli lawmakers are now striving for – displays a very shallow understanding of what democracy means.

By Aeyal Gross | Oct. 27, 2014 | 1:30 AM |

Israel’s Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo by Emil Salman

The idea that “the last word” on the constitutionality of laws should be that of the legislature went out of fashion after World War II. The perception that every law that the majority prefers, even one that seriously undermines human rights, could be valid just because the majority says so, lost its luster in view of the lessons of history. Therefore, more and more countries have adopted the constitutional democracy model, in which the ability of the legislative and executive branches to harm human rights is limited by a constitution.

Israel doesn’t have a full constitution, but the ability to overcome it is already on the way. The bill to amend the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom, which has been approved by the legislative cabinet, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation, essentially empties the basic law of all meaning. This is the main basic law that deals with human rights, and that is meant to be part of the full bill of rights that we are still waiting for.

The new bill would allow the Knesset to pass a law that undermines the rights guaranteed by the basic law and doesn’t meet its conditions (not to undermine rights for an unworthy purpose, or in a way that is disproportionate), as long as it states that it is valid despite what is stated in the basic law, and is passed with a majority of 61 MKs.

The clause, known as the “overriding the limitations” clause, also states that such a law would expire after four years from the date it goes into effect, unless an earlier date is specified. This make it possible to relegislate laws that the High Court of Justice has struck down as unconstitutional, like the amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law that allowed asylum seekers to be detained without trial and was the trigger for the support for Sunday’s bill. Under the bill, judicial review can be blocked in advance for any law legislated under this clause, as long as it states that it is valid “despite what is stated” in the basic law.

The so-called precedent

The bill’s initiators, led by MK Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi), are relying on the presence of a similar clause in the Basic Law on Freedom of Occupation. That clause was included in 1994 when a concern arose, based on an passing remark by the High Court, that a law requiring that meat imported to Israel be kosher would be struck down by the court as violating the freedom of occupation law. The clause was inserted to resolve this concern, and the law on meat imports was legislated accordingly.

That precedent doesn’t bode well, because when the meat import law was set to expire after four years, the Knesset contrived a way to insert an addition to the “overriding the limitations” clause to the effect that expiration of a law after four years would not apply to a law that was legislated within a year of when the clause went into effect. This wording allowed the meat import law to be extended indefinitely, a scenario likely to repeat itself in the current context.

In any case, a comparison to the issue at hand is out of place. The possibility of “overriding” the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom gives the majority the possibility of trampling on basic rights like life, freedom, dignity and even equality. The current case proves this: The bill’s initiators want to relegislate a law that allows people to be held without trial, for indefinite periods of time, and thus, according to the High Court, fatally undermines their right to freedom.

On the short list of laws that the High Court has invalidated in the past – which could also be relegislated if the “overriding the limitations” clause passes – we find, for example, a law that permitted soldiers to be detained for a lengthy period without a court order. We also find provisions of the law on compensation to the settlers evacuated from Gaza during the disengagement, which the High Court struck down because they unlawfully denied the evacuees the money that was coming to them.

These examples show that the possibility of “overriding” human rights is liable to harm everyone, though of course the real risk is to those groups that are weak politically. Tomorrow a Knesset majority could decide that it wants to “override” – i.e., trample on – the rights of Arabs, women, gays, people with disabilities, or any other group.

The idea that a majority can deny the rights of others whenever it feels like it demonstrates a very shallow understanding of what democracy means.

(Via

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.622896 )

My Childhood Friend, the ISIS Jihadist: A Modus Operandi repeating all over Europe.

“Am I an unbeliever then?” I ask.

“What do you mean, brother?”

“I am happy to live in Denmark. I don’t think I want to live in the Caliphate.”

“Hopefully, one day you will be led on the right path. Then you’ll see how beautiful an Islamic state is.”

“But what if I don’t want to be led on the right path? What then?”

Amir looks at me questioningly.“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I mean there’s also the possibility that we two are just different and want to live in different ways. That the one does not have to convert the other.”

“Just take it easy, my friend. Inshallah [If God wills], you will be guided onto the right path,” he says.

We walk on for a bit without saying anything.

I think through the paradox that the man I am speaking to on the one hand praises fanatic movements like Islamic State, and on the other seems like a loving and old forgotten friend.

Amir asks me about my family. He says he remembers my fifth birthday, my father’s mustache and that he has seen my articles and wondered how I was doing.

Our walk continues with exchanges of old memories: angry concierges, mythical football stars, dog excrement in the park and the old woman with stubble we both were so afraid of.As we approach our childhood home, the door is open into the yard.

Amir suggests we go in to avoid the noise from the cars on the road. I tell him the story about our game of hide and seek that ended up starting our friendship.

Then Amir says something that surprises me: “You are still my friend. Aren’t I your friend, too?”

“Yes, of course,” I answer, without meaning what I say.

We look at each other and a couple seconds of awkward silence follows.

via

My Childhood Friend, the ISIS Jihadist.

A young women’s call “To Our Countries”

A new occasion to let us all remember that change in Middle East will come invariably from women. Let them be these women singing in exile from Sweden or the brave fighting women of Kobane.

Let this be a call for ALL OF OUR COUNTRIES… even those not in Middle East. 

Because this is not a tragedy for Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Israelis, Palestinians… and all MIddle Eastern People. 

The oldest remnants of human civilization are found in these lands.

so this is a tragedy in the bethren of HUMAN CULTURE.

A tragedy for all humans.

If Middle East keeps being lost… we will all loose… because it’s not “us and them”.

It’s US ALL.

And as far as we don’t change the way things are happening, this shit will never let the world advance.

So let’s help this voice to spread.

Let’s help  this women voice sound louder than the shots of a doshka in Kobane.

Louder than any invocation to Devil before killing someone in the name of a false concept of God.

Because God does not need our blood, ANY BLOOD, to stain the ground to make His point.

Please share. 

To Our Countries لبلادي

A New Normal

yeah… for someone who learnt how to kill rabbits with bare hands for cooking paella on sundays… this scenes look familiar! 😉 …

Lessons in faith for believers and not believers…

How a worshiper treats these conflicting commandments depends on the believer. If you are a violent misogynist, you will find plenty in your scriptures to justify your beliefs. If you are a peaceful, democratic feminist, you will also find justification in the scriptures for your point of view.

What does this mean, in practical terms? First, simplistic knee-jerk response among people of faith to dismiss radicals in their midst as “not us” must end. Members of the Islamic State are Muslims for the simple fact that they declare themselves to be so. Dismissing their profession of belief prevents us from dealing honestly with the inherent problems of reconciling religious doctrine with the realities of the modern world. But considering that most of its victims are also Muslims — as are most of the forces fighting and condemning the Islamic State — the group’s self-ascribed Islamic identity cannot be used to make any logical statement about Islam as a global religion.

At the same time, critics of religion must refrain from simplistic generalizations about people of faith. It is true that in many Muslim countries, women do not have the same rights as men. But that fact alone is not enough to declare Islam a religion that is intrinsically more patriarchal than Christianity or Judaism.

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Bill Maher Isn’t the Only One Who Misunderstands Religion

NYTimes.com.

Modern day “crusaders” for survival,… modern day Mossarabs at fight.

The Christian religious symbols, various forms of the cross and Jesus’s name tattooed on the hands and arms of these young fighters signify their strong determination and willingness to fight for their ethnic and religious rights.They proudly show religious tattoos that weren’t done for fashion or popular styles, but to prevent them from lying about their religion if one day captured alive by nemesis jihadists and held captive inside the enemy’s camp.Gabi Dawd, 23, who has a Jesus tattoo on his left arm, said, “I first fought alongside Kurdish comrades in the ranks of the Peoples Protection Units  YPG before joining the Sutoro. If you put yourself in our place as Kurds and Christians then you would understand why we are fighting for our rights. The regime wants us to be puppets, deny our ethnicity and demand an Arab-only state. On the other hand, Islamic forces call for Jihad, war and Islamic Caliphate. We are neither of those and would rather die fighting for our freedom.”He added: “I have the name of Jesus tattooed on my arm so I can never lie about my faith if I’m captured alive by the enemy and fear may overcome my bravery.”

via

A glimpse into the world of Syria’s Christian “Sutoro” fighters

 Your Middle East.

Another Islam is possible! (or, better said…. we must look better at it?)

…. Beyond what Islamists themselves and many miopic western politicians believe and spread as an immovable truth, Islam is not a belief from bloodthirsty – retarded – incult – intolerant – monsters.

With this I am not saying I take Islam as a truth. It is not a path that I’d take, honestly,… but I know many Muslims, myself… and I know that Reza Aslan is perfectly right in his depiction of how American Media loves to distort truth in order to sell more minutes of audience.

Media Matters for America.

The Pied Piper of Syria

Not going to say I share everything said by my fav Levantine here (I still believe in Heaven, whatever it is) … but I understand every one of these words. Up to bottom. Rest in Peace, kids… And for the families… be strong. And keep looking forward. As they would expect you to do so, if they were still alive and depending on you.
Look forward for them. Syria depends on all and every one of you, just like these kids.
Syria is these kids.

Levant woman

I wrote once here that I will only write about hope… only hope will let me look at this white screen and type my letters… today I can’t help not to write, but not to spread hope this time .. to tell a story for humanity to hear…

Once up on a time in a city called Homs in Syria, there were many families who wanted to raise their children normally despite the war torn there and the tragic around them.  they taught their children about love and life. The sent them to school believing they can build a human not a fighter..

They didn’t know that in places like Syria humans are not welcome, if you don’t know how to carry a riffle or a knife you are not welcome. If you only know how to carry your book case, your drawing crayons and your little innocent hear, then you…

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21st Century Islamic (?) Inculture.

The cultural devastation of Mecca has radically transformed the city. Unlike Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, Mecca was never a great intellectual and cultural center of Islam. But it was always a pluralistic city where debate among different Muslim sects and schools of thought was not unusual. Now it has been reduced to a monolithic religious entity where only one, ahistoric, literal interpretation of Islam is permitted, and where all other sects, outside of the Salafist brand of Saudi Islam, are regarded as false. Indeed, zealots frequently threaten pilgrims of different sects. Last year, a group of Shiite pilgrims from Michigan were attacked with knives by extremists, and in August, a coalition of American Muslim groups wrote to the State Department asking for protection during this year’s hajj.The erasure of Meccan history has had a tremendous impact on the hajj itself. The word “hajj” means effort. It is through the effort of traveling to Mecca, walking from one ritual site to another, finding and engaging with people from different cultures and sects, and soaking in the history of Islam that the pilgrims acquired knowledge as well as spiritual fulfillment. Today, hajj is a packaged tour, where you move, tied to your group, from hotel to hotel, and seldom encounter people of different cultures and ethnicities. Drained of history and religious and cultural plurality, hajj is no longer a transforming, once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience. It has been reduced to a mundane exercise in rituals and shopping.Mecca is a microcosm of the Muslim world. What happens to and in the city has a profound effect on Muslims everywhere. The spiritual heart of Islam is an ultramodern, monolithic enclave, where difference is not tolerated, history has no meaning, and consumerism is paramount. It is hardly surprising then that literalism, and the murderous interpretations of Islam associated with it, have become so dominant in Muslim lands.

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The Destruction of Mecca

NYTimes.com.

I would love to have a chance to say this is not representative of Islam, or that there is a majority of muslims that don’t follow these ways, or some other views of facts but…

How to change my header while those Angry Salafi/Wahabbi/Hanabillahi Beards, wearing their short thobes keep cheering up the destruction of every single piece of heritage that gives information about the origins of Islamic culture, neglecting centuries of history, and so many possibilities of increasing the world’s knowledge about their country and the origins of the religion they say to promote…

Israelis wouldn’t have done better if they had attempted to erase every single proof of the origins of Islam, and of course they wouldn’t have done it better to discredit Saudis, and Arabs, by extension, due to their absolute lack of interest in culture and knowledge.

There are many authors that coincide in stating that every cultural advance (except maybe algebra) that Arabic civilization gave to the world, was nothing else than an extension of what they learnt and took from what was left of Rome and Greece during their expansion… and behaviors like these just confirm those opinions.

Seeing how they treated what was left of the beginning of their history (they had already deleted everything from previous periods, as Polytheism, Judaism and Christianity were not welcome anymore in Saudia) makes me feel pain and shame.

Not, of course, from a religious point of view!.

To be honest, I can respect other people’s beliefs, as far as they don’t attack other’s… but the whole Holy Sites of Islam just awake my interest in terms of their artistic, historical and humanist value, and there is nothing beyond that, for me. No offense, please.

My opinions are about art, history, culture and all those things that apparently matter little to nothing to nowadays Bedouins… and it’s shameful that they won’t give a camel’s fart about it.

But that’s the same respect they deserve from me. And from their future generations, asking why were they deprived from ethnic roots and culture, while everyone in the world has them.

Tell them then about record-high hotels and sky-scrappers, about luxury cars and Paris Hilton exclusive handbags, tell them about how life was fun and shiny as in an Islamic Disneyland, while people kept peeing and defecating over what was left of Khadija’s house. 

An interesting study on violence and religion… and not on religious violence.

Many secular thinkers now regard “religion” as inherently belligerent and intolerant, and an irrational, backward and violent “other” to the peaceable and humane liberal state – an attitude with an unfortunate echo of the colonialist view of indigenous peoples as hopelessly “primitive”, mired in their benighted religious beliefs. There are consequences to our failure to understand that our secularism, and its understanding of the role of religion, is exceptional. When secularisation has been applied by force, it has provoked a fundamentalist reaction – and history shows that fundamentalist movements which come under attack invariably grow even more extreme. The fruits of this error are on display across the Middle East: when we look with horror upon the travesty of Isis, we would be wise to acknowledge that its barbaric violence may be, at least in part, the offspring of policies guided by our disdain.

via

The myth of religious violence

 Karen Armstrong

 World news | The Guardian.