The Media Line Israel’s Emergency Regulations Get New Lease on Life

At a time when the Arab regimes are suspending state-of-emergency laws in the face of popular protests, Israeli lawmakers have quietly voted to extend them another year into their seventh decade.

A joint meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense committee and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee this week accepted a government request to extend the state of emergency for 12 months. This wasn’t because there was a looming threat on the Jewish state, but because after more than 60 years parliament hasn’t found the time to regularize the rule in ordinary legislation

Nevertheless, Israelis are getting some relief. While government supervision remains in force over the sale of car air conditioners, diamonds and even ice cream, restrictions on trade in camel meat and Turkish delight, a gooey confection usually made from almonds, was lifted. For human rights groups, however, the fact that the emergency laws exist at all is an outrage.

“This state of emergency gives the government great power, almost limitless power to be able to circumvent the laws of the Knesset,” said Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which has sought to end the state of emergency.

“The Middle East is changing. Syria has lifted its state of emergency. Egypt has announced that it was doing so. Only Israel, which claims to be the sole democratic state in the Middle East is still in a state of emergency,” Yakir told The Media Line.

Israel declared a state of emergency upon its birth in 1948, allowing it to bypass legislation ensuring human rights and basic freedoms in order to fight terror and infiltration and maintain state security. Even though some of its terms have been gradually eased and the country hasn’t fought a life-and-death war since 1973, the regulations still give the government broad powers.

They give security forces the authority for seizure and confiscation, and search and entry, as well as the right to impound vehicles, censor the media, demolish homes and declare curfews, supervise shipping and regulate foreign travel. Handed down from the time of the British Mandatory government, it also bestows powers of supervision over commodities and services and even breaks from work.

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