Left Calls Ban On Armed Uprisings Undemocratic

The People must have their will expressed in real terms, but voters keep getting in the way.

Tel Aviv, August 10 – Leading figures in Israel’s progressive political community have denounced laws prohibiting coups d’état – especially by means of weapons – and called those laws a violation of democratic principles and thwarting the will of the people.

Prominent MKs from the Labor, Joint List, and Meretz parties joined dozens of social activists at a rally today to promote strategies to topple the Likud-led government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. While several of the speakers called for strengthening activities to attract votes and assure a coalition of the Left a majority in the next elections, several called the attendees’ attention to laws that define armed insurrection as a felony with severe penalties such as life imprisonment, and characterized those laws as undemocratic, as they seek to prevent an entire class of people from attaining power.

“Regardless of what the voters want, the people are fed up with this government,” insisted Opposition leader Isaac Herzog. “Concern for The People has always been the province of the political left. The People must have their will expressed in real terms, and voters keep getting in the way. Sometimes the only way for that assertion of will to happen is by force of arms, and it is a cynical exploitation by the established government to adhere to laws pronouncing such an assertion illegal.”

New Israel Fund Director Rachel Liel sounded a similar note. “The right-wing extremists currently in power hide behind such high-minded concepts as a State monopoly on the use of force, and the maintenance of the public order, but we know that’s a façade,” she charged. “They’re afraid – afraid that the will of the masses will rise up and dethrone them!” The crowed booed.

Legislators from the Joint List of Arab parties attended, but did not address the crowd. Instead, they held signs calling for an end to the ban on violent overthrow of the government. “Our constituents feel disenfranchised,” explained MK Basel Ghattas, who holds his seat by virtue of voters exercising their franchise. “They feel the government never has their interest in mind, and that the only way to ensure their interests are pursued is to take up arms and drive the Jews into the sea. The fact that successive governments since 1949, even under Labor, have worked to prevent such insurrections is the ultimate proof that this regime is undemocratic.”

In fact, he noted, it was under a government led by the Mapai Party, the predecessor to Labor, that the original laws making such actions illegal were promulgated.