UPDATE
7 pm Israel time, Saturday, April 25 2015
**Israel has already sent emergency rescue personnel to Nepal today to help in the search for, and medical treatment of victims.
**An IDF soldier was stabbed in the neck by a Palestinian terrorist at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron a few hours ago and is in “moderate” condition. The soldier managed to shoot the terrorist whose condition remains unknown at this hour.
**Excellent economic news this week:
—Gross domestic product per capita in Israel has reached its all-time high, $38,000.
—Israel is owed more than $100 billion dollars for various products sold.
—Israel’s ratio of debt to GDP has dropped to 65%.
—Israel now has more than $85 billion dollars in foreign currency reserves.
What does all of this mean? Israel’s economy is becoming less dependent on external factors and more attractive to foreign investors. Also, Israel’s already excellent credit rating is likely to rise in the near future. Finally and importantly, Israel has a very healthy reserve in the event of an economic–or other type–of crisis.
TODAY’S BLOG:
In an astonishing display of arrogance this past week, the European Union has ramped up its interference in Israel.
It is not enough that the Europeans threaten Israel with new boycotts and sanctions everyday or that they build illegal Palestinian settlements with no regard for Israeli laws. Now, the European Union feels free to threaten Israel over “proposed changes to laws” having to do with the Israel Judiciary.
Each country in the world has its own way of choosing Supreme Court justices.
In the United States, for example, the selection of a Supreme Court Justice involves executive and legislative input. A president nominates a person for the Court, and the Senate then votes whether to confirm that nomination or not.
In Brazil, Supreme Court justices are chosen in the same way: they are nominated by the president and confirmed (or not) by the Federal Senate.
In Sweden, Supreme Court justices are are nominated by a 9-member body consisting of high-level judges, prosecutors, and members of the Swedish Parliament. They are then appointed by the government.
In Belgium, the home of the European Union, the unelected monarch of the country (currently King Philippe) appoints Supreme Court (Constitutional Court) judges from candidates submitted by the Belgian Parliament.
All of which brings us to Israel where Supreme Court justices are selected by a Judicial Selection Committee chaired by the Minister of Justice. It is being proposed that, just as in the United States, Brazil, and Sweden, the Israeli legislature–the Knesset– should play a greater role in the selection of justices.
According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, “The Europeans are concerned that any law curbing the power of Israel’s judiciary could undermine the Jewish state’s democratic character, thus imperiling certain initiatives with Brussels.”
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Can you even grasp the sheer, overweening arrogance at play here?
Would the European Union ever dare to comment if Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or any one of another hundred countries wanted to change the way that its high court is chosen?
But they don’t mind threatening Israel.
Initiatives will be imperiled . . . Israel will pay the price for making such a change.
What in the world gives the European Union the right to interfere in questions of Israeli law?
Nothing does.
Israel should inform the E.U. to focus its “democratic concerns” on itself. Numerous analysts have long commented that the E.U. suffers from a “democratic deficit” in which the people of Europe actually have little say in the decisions of the E.U. Parliament sitting in Brussels.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.