1 00:00:02,640 --> 00:00:04,080 Good afternoon and welcome, everybody. 2 00:00:04,770 --> 00:00:16,350 It's a pleasure to present to you where a historical acquaintance of mine, Professor Elvis, from, uh, the Department of Political Studies. 3 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,860 So it's changing the title. It's a school now. 4 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:28,430 It's a school of political study that the Tel Aviv University Professor Hobbes's book, the latest book, Last Book, 5 00:00:28,470 --> 00:00:38,040 This Political Philosophy of Zionism Trading Jewish Words for a Hebraic Land, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. 6 00:00:38,790 --> 00:00:47,730 He has also recently won the Israel Science Foundation's prestigious grant for research on the public wall of the University in Israel. 7 00:00:48,450 --> 00:00:54,480 And the title of his talk today is The Emerging Notion of Sovereignty in Contemporary Israel. 8 00:00:54,660 --> 00:00:58,350 Professor Institute, thank you for coming. Thank you for inviting me. 9 00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:02,460 Really a pleasure to come here and thank you for coming here. 10 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:11,820 My talk today is about two subjects are interrelated. 11 00:01:13,020 --> 00:01:25,530 The broader context is the decline of democracies around the world and an attempt to think about the other of democracy or what 12 00:01:25,530 --> 00:01:36,270 is the other type of regime that manifest the characteristic that most contradict democracy or especially liberal democracy? 13 00:01:36,780 --> 00:01:42,810 And in this context, I'm looking at a military government or military occupation, as in Israel. 14 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:55,020 And and the specific goal of my talk is to speak about the elective affinity or 15 00:01:55,140 --> 00:02:02,850 connection between the type of regime in the occupied territories and Israeli democracy. 16 00:02:03,420 --> 00:02:10,470 Or, in other words, how military government in the West Bank reshapes Israeli democracy. 17 00:02:11,220 --> 00:02:20,640 Now, I would like to be clear, but I'm not going to argue that Israeli democracy is verging on imminent collapse, 18 00:02:21,090 --> 00:02:32,550 and I'm not going to argue that democracy is not meaningful in Israel, and surely not that Israel is in danger of a military coup. 19 00:02:32,580 --> 00:02:46,290 That's not what I like to say, but I am looking at subtle processes that change the nature of Israeli democracy developing over the years. 20 00:02:46,650 --> 00:02:58,740 And I think that they deserve attention because they can teach us how democracy is in decline or how they become of their relinquish, 21 00:02:59,460 --> 00:03:02,550 their notion of sovereignty to something else. 22 00:03:03,270 --> 00:03:06,510 And that's what I'm trying to explore in my talk. Okay. 23 00:03:06,540 --> 00:03:11,670 So in order to prevent misunderstanding of what I should give this go to these comments. 24 00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:15,990 Politically, we are living at a confusing moment. 25 00:03:16,740 --> 00:03:27,060 Bestseller books of titles such as How Democracies Die Fascism, The Warning, The Road to Unfreedom, How Democracy Ends. 26 00:03:28,140 --> 00:03:36,660 There is a sense, backed by various democracy indexes, that around the world, governments of this type are backsliding. 27 00:03:37,610 --> 00:03:40,700 This backsliding is a very gradual process. 28 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:52,010 Scholars observe, and it is it has numerous dimensions extending from the weakening of the hand of the judiciary and head of the gatekeepers, 29 00:03:52,430 --> 00:03:55,310 to the attempts to control the media through soft ways, 30 00:03:55,820 --> 00:04:06,110 and from the growing intolerance to minorities and refugees to the rise of authoritarian leaders who cultivate this intolerance and much more. 31 00:04:06,950 --> 00:04:11,540 However, while most of the research underscores this decline, 32 00:04:12,050 --> 00:04:19,520 it is important to note that no alternative, alluring political vision has emerged to replace democracy. 33 00:04:20,510 --> 00:04:31,040 That is to say no one is promising a utopian, classless society of plenitude, nor an organic and pure unity of the people as a nation. 34 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:40,550 Those days of the thirties, of the 1930s are gone. Rather, we live in an age in which democracy, especially liberal democracy, 35 00:04:40,970 --> 00:04:48,500 is losing some of its grip over the collective imagination as an ideal horizon and as a workable practice. 36 00:04:49,130 --> 00:04:56,800 But we haven't seen the emergence of a new horizon to capture and enliven people's political eras. 37 00:04:58,010 --> 00:05:09,410 Today, it seems that there is no clearly articulated, persuasive, coherent and widely recognised alternative political vision to democracy. 38 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:16,580 The political imagination. Imagination seems at the moment depleted and smart in hand. 39 00:05:16,860 --> 00:05:24,620 One could argue that in the absence of a real ideological challenger to democracy, it is not doomed. 40 00:05:25,100 --> 00:05:31,010 Only if it will survive democracy. It needs to reach to significantly reinvent itself. 41 00:05:31,550 --> 00:05:37,550 And in order to do so, it must understand the nature of its contemporary challengers. 42 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:42,440 Indeed, in most cases where backsliding occurs. 43 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:48,379 Democracy is not explicitly repudiated in countries such as Turkey, Poland, 44 00:05:48,380 --> 00:05:56,210 Hungary and many more democratic, more formal sovereignty is officially still professed and upheld. 45 00:05:56,750 --> 00:06:02,840 Only it is being redefined such that democracy becomes increasingly facade like, 46 00:06:03,650 --> 00:06:09,500 and neither is attempt to consolidate their power and ensure that they stay in the house for a long haul. 47 00:06:11,090 --> 00:06:16,700 Thus, the country may still be democratic in the sense that it has competing parties, 48 00:06:16,700 --> 00:06:22,100 regular elections, rule of law and constitution, free branches of government and more. 49 00:06:22,730 --> 00:06:30,710 And yet, in many democracies nowadays, one could note the growing weight of anti-democratic principles. 50 00:06:31,130 --> 00:06:36,920 And here I would like to concentrate on three and three anti-democratic principles that 51 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:42,590 I think are particularly important in general and in the Israeli context in particular. 52 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:48,660 The first one is consolidation of power in the executive branch and in one leader. 53 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:55,909 This is more familiar mistrust in language and its meaningfulness and the political and the fact that the 54 00:06:55,910 --> 00:07:02,600 political and the moral spheres become increasingly distinguished or that they are become harder to reconcile. 55 00:07:03,950 --> 00:07:08,030 These three principles, rapid or largely unacknowledged by leaders, 56 00:07:08,420 --> 00:07:13,550 do not form a coherent ideology and vision, and surely do not captivate the imagination of people. 57 00:07:14,090 --> 00:07:20,780 But they do gradually introduce a notion of sovereignty that in some respects is a mirror image of the Democratic one, 58 00:07:21,110 --> 00:07:23,120 especially the liberal Democratic one. 59 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:32,390 In this context, it is illuminating to examine the state of Israel, where these three principles have been mushrooming, mushrooming for years. 60 00:07:33,260 --> 00:07:37,820 Israel, indeed, has a Janus face, if you say yellow space. 61 00:07:39,650 --> 00:07:48,229 Okay. Model of sovereignty, genuine democratic sovereignty and institutions on the one hand, and constitutional dictatorship, 62 00:07:48,230 --> 00:07:54,850 as Carl Friedrich, the Harvard scholar called it, or military rule in the occupied territories. 63 00:07:54,890 --> 00:07:59,660 On the other, as a democracy continuously since its independence, 64 00:08:00,020 --> 00:08:08,840 Israel has combined liberal and ethnic principles according to significant equal political and civil rights to all citizens, 65 00:08:09,410 --> 00:08:14,990 while ensuring the dominance of a Jewish ethnic group and its ownership over the over the state. 66 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:26,150 I should note that even until 67, until 68, 66, which was a military administration, rule over the Arabs, Arab citizens of Israel. 67 00:08:27,290 --> 00:08:31,490 This is relevant in the context of our talk today. 68 00:08:32,060 --> 00:08:33,410 On the other hand, however, 69 00:08:33,410 --> 00:08:43,910 Israel exercises military rule or government of absolute sovereignty over the Palestinians to varying degrees according to areas A, B and C. 70 00:08:44,090 --> 00:08:49,700 In this area, the level of sovereignty and control is different. 71 00:08:51,290 --> 00:08:55,520 And in military government that Israel exercises, 72 00:08:56,330 --> 00:09:03,860 it recognises few rights of the individual being occupied and practically none of the collectives of the Palestinians, 73 00:09:03,860 --> 00:09:06,540 especially not the right for self-determination. 74 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:18,950 Since the 1967 war, the question then has become Can Israel occupy all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? 75 00:09:19,370 --> 00:09:27,110 Subject the Palestinians in the West Bank to military rule or varying degrees of oppression and still remain meaningfully democratic. 76 00:09:27,620 --> 00:09:31,429 What follows is an attempt to answer this question and to argue, 77 00:09:31,430 --> 00:09:36,319 but at least in the three dimensions mentioned above, regarding concentration of power, 78 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:40,010 diminishment of language and a gulf between the political, the moral, 79 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:46,490 military rule and its model of sovereignty are increasingly shaping Israeli democracy. 80 00:09:47,450 --> 00:09:53,310 My aim to repeat is not to examine Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestinians per se. 81 00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:58,100 Other scholars have done this important work much better than I could. 82 00:09:59,090 --> 00:10:05,930 Rather, my aim is to reflect, based on the Israeli case, on the ways democracies could gradually, 83 00:10:05,930 --> 00:10:12,440 wever in aspects that cannot be easily measured while still remaining in every respect democratic. 84 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:15,350 I would argue that over time, 85 00:10:15,560 --> 00:10:23,480 in all symmetrical an elusive elective affinity emerged in Israel Palestine between the political thinking and rationale, 86 00:10:23,780 --> 00:10:31,700 embodying the military rule and the one embodied in democracy that exercises this result. 87 00:10:32,150 --> 00:10:37,340 Unlikely elected affinity developed for a number of factors among them. 88 00:10:38,330 --> 00:10:46,280 I would like to mention them the exceptional duration of the Israeli occupation and its very beneficial results in the eyes of many Israelis. 89 00:10:47,090 --> 00:10:51,950 The close geographical proximity of the occupied area to the occupying state. 90 00:10:52,730 --> 00:10:59,990 The fact that the IDF and the Israeli security forces in a country where military service is compulsory, 91 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:07,520 are widely active in operating and maintaining the occupation, and therefore Israeli youth become familiar with it intimately. 92 00:11:07,850 --> 00:11:18,259 For generation, the reality on the ground whereby about 400,000 Israeli settlers living in the densely populated West 93 00:11:18,260 --> 00:11:24,440 Bank are also subject to registering to the jurisdiction of the military government in the area. 94 00:11:26,190 --> 00:11:28,770 The rise of the new Israeli leadership from the right. 95 00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:36,090 Many of them over live in the settlements or closely identify with and represent the settlers and the unusual 96 00:11:36,090 --> 00:11:42,600 number of prominent retired military generals in the Israeli political elite that bring their experience, 97 00:11:43,890 --> 00:11:47,820 including in the occupied territories, to governing Israel itself. 98 00:11:48,420 --> 00:11:57,120 For all these reasons, military occupation has become natural for most Israelis and seen as a legitimate way of governing people. 99 00:11:58,500 --> 00:12:04,260 The political thinking behind occupation allowed so is allowed to penetrate 100 00:12:04,260 --> 00:12:08,760 Israel democracy and to become an integral part of its own civilian institution, 101 00:12:09,450 --> 00:12:19,349 reshaping them from within. While the international indexes of democracy, such as those of Freedom House, the Economist V them and so on, 102 00:12:19,350 --> 00:12:24,600 do not testify to a significant decline in the democratic indicators in Israel. 103 00:12:25,230 --> 00:12:33,150 These indexes are also partly misleading since they are some of the most important questions but are difficult to measure, 104 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:40,170 such as I mentioned first, however, a few general words about military government are in order. 105 00:12:42,190 --> 00:12:47,499 One of the founding principles of modern democracy has been the separation of the branches of 106 00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:54,010 government and the notion that the people as a sovereign delegate the rights and powers to a divided, 107 00:12:54,700 --> 00:12:57,160 yet mediated set of political institutions. 108 00:12:57,790 --> 00:13:04,600 This idea, first famously articulated by Went to Square, was also espoused by the writers of the Federalist Papers. 109 00:13:05,110 --> 00:13:17,170 We indeed stated that I'm quoting The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands may justly be pronounced. 110 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:22,780 The very definition of a tyranny federalist number 47. 111 00:13:23,530 --> 00:13:29,350 Military government is the ultimate antithesis to the federalist notion of democratic sovereignty, 112 00:13:29,830 --> 00:13:36,760 advancing unified and monolithic picture of the political will and the muscular view of the executive. 113 00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:47,230 Military government is established in cases of military occupation or belligerent occupation when a sovereign state occupied the territory of another, 114 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:53,380 usually in the aftermath of a war in contradistinction to annexation, 115 00:13:53,860 --> 00:13:57,879 military occupation is supposed to be a temporary predicament in which the 116 00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:03,280 occupying power does not claim permanent sovereignty over the occupied territory. 117 00:14:04,180 --> 00:14:09,879 Sovereignty remains with the ousted monarch collective government or the people only. 118 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:14,090 It is suspended now in military occupation. 119 00:14:14,110 --> 00:14:15,010 It should be stressed. 120 00:14:15,430 --> 00:14:24,670 The powers and authority of the military commander are nourished by the rules of public international law concerning belligerent occupation, 121 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:35,440 particularly the Hague Regulation of 1907. It's pretty early and the Geneva Convention of 1949, the fourth Geneva Convention, 122 00:14:37,990 --> 00:14:44,500 that means of military rule in the occupied territories is regulated by law and is performed through the law. 123 00:14:45,100 --> 00:14:53,620 And it includes demand such as to respect the human rights of the occupied individual as a protected person and to care for the safety, 124 00:14:54,190 --> 00:14:59,290 civic order, property and welfare of the occupied population as a whole. 125 00:15:00,310 --> 00:15:04,480 The military commander, while referred to by some, as I said, 126 00:15:05,410 --> 00:15:12,100 by kind of Frederick as a constitutional dictator, is therefore seen as acting within the law. 127 00:15:13,450 --> 00:15:18,020 As Frederick wrote, he is in fact, appointed by a constitutional government. 128 00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:25,560 He does not control the exercise of his powers is expressly defined in this. 129 00:15:25,570 --> 00:15:30,400 He is subject to recall. His term may be said to be subject to a clear time limit. 130 00:15:30,550 --> 00:15:38,620 Moreover, is subject to criticism of the representative bodies and by the public of his home country. 131 00:15:40,030 --> 00:15:46,720 Beyond its understanding in legal terms, military occupation is of course also a unique political phenomenon, 132 00:15:47,470 --> 00:15:49,480 and it is worth reflecting on its meaning. 133 00:15:50,590 --> 00:15:58,210 One of the most striking aspects of military form of government is that it operates nearly without any separation of powers, 134 00:15:58,540 --> 00:16:05,260 and that ultimately acts of legislation and the judgement of the courts are subordinated 135 00:16:05,650 --> 00:16:09,730 to the interests and the needs of the executive that is the military commander. 136 00:16:10,750 --> 00:16:16,900 This is the case not only in emergency situations, but on a regular basis and as a matter of governing philosophy. 137 00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:28,630 First, regarding the law in occupied territory, the Geneva Convention dictates that I'm quoting the penal laws of the occupied territory. 138 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:38,050 Territory shall remain in force with the exception that they may be repealed or suspended by the occupying power. 139 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:46,200 In cases where they constitute a threat to security or an obstacle to the application of the present convention, 140 00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:58,030 the occupying power may suspend existing laws and promulgate new ones for three main reasons the security needs of the occupying power, 141 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:03,370 the implementation of the norms and regulation demanded by the convention itself, 142 00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:11,680 and the needs to ensure the orderly and secure life of the occupied population and adjust the law to new circumstances. 143 00:17:12,700 --> 00:17:18,969 But these three criteria do not possess the same weight and the security of the occupying powers. 144 00:17:18,970 --> 00:17:23,890 Personal property and lines of communication are permanent. 145 00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:31,090 Legal restrictions on movement, on expression, on association, etc. are made mainly for this reason. 146 00:17:32,410 --> 00:17:41,570 Moreover, the judgement as to which laws needs to be changed and what constitute absolute necessity that allows us to change his. 147 00:17:41,700 --> 00:17:53,250 Largely left to the commander discretion. In short, the reason for legislating and the reason behind governing are therefore one and the same. 148 00:17:54,540 --> 00:18:02,279 There is no distinction. The commander uses the law first and foremost as a flexible instrument to ensure his own 149 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:09,240 power and its perpetuation and retains and restraints on the law issued by the commander. 150 00:18:09,750 --> 00:18:13,350 Besides, international law are at the bare minimum. 151 00:18:15,850 --> 00:18:23,410 The law issued by the military commander is also the foundation upon which judges in military courts pass their judgement. 152 00:18:24,460 --> 00:18:35,350 In contrast to local courts in the occupied territory, most of the cases in military courts concern security offences as defined by the occupier. 153 00:18:36,550 --> 00:18:43,840 Thus, while the judges are not subjected in passing judgement to the area commander who appoints them, 154 00:18:44,530 --> 00:18:54,010 the Court is nevertheless not an impartial and independent body adjudicating a dispute between the accused and the occupying state. 155 00:18:54,790 --> 00:18:59,229 It does not give equal weight to the right of the defendant and the welfare of the 156 00:18:59,230 --> 00:19:04,360 local community on the one hand and the interest of the occupying force on the other. 157 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:11,860 Rather, the overarching motivation behind military courts is guarding the safety authority and 158 00:19:11,860 --> 00:19:17,110 property of the occupying force and promoting the interest of the state behind the force, 159 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:26,079 as noted. This motivation is also reflected in the make up in the personnel of the judges while 160 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:29,890 they are independent and subject to judicial review in Israel to the High Court. 161 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:32,320 They are also part of the military staff, 162 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:43,840 the judges and subject to its hierarchy and line of communication lines of command similar to out of legislation than military courts. 163 00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:49,180 Even when conducted fairly, and I should say from personal experience of witness, 164 00:19:49,180 --> 00:19:58,090 many such crimes are done fairly for the most part on the macro level, which reflect the instrument realisation of the judicial process. 165 00:19:58,390 --> 00:20:02,490 For the executive's interest to some, 166 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:09,340 then as a legal political phenomenon and practice military government advances a remarkable notion of sovereignty, 167 00:20:10,750 --> 00:20:15,130 one that is action oriented, built on two main principles. 168 00:20:16,060 --> 00:20:22,990 First, separation or balance of the three branches of government is ineffective way of exercising sovereignty. 169 00:20:23,530 --> 00:20:29,410 The military commander has your attention and professorial data from Tel Aviv wrote Is the. 170 00:20:29,830 --> 00:20:34,390 Is this the pinnacle or summit of authority in the occupied territory? 171 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:39,940 And all functionaries in the administration, whether military or civilian, 172 00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:46,570 including official enlisted locally, must answer to the commander in this vision. 173 00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:52,870 The political will is one and is embodied in one person or institution, the military commander. 174 00:20:53,680 --> 00:21:00,550 The law is enacted solely by this commander without the legislative body and according to shifter circumstances, 175 00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,690 and is primarily a tool for guarding and augmenting power. 176 00:21:05,860 --> 00:21:13,240 Second, military government is instituted in belligerent circumstances, forced upon an enemy. 177 00:21:13,810 --> 00:21:24,790 Therefore, the very nature of this government does not allow to transcend the occupier enemy dichotomy, but rather continuously reproduces it. 178 00:21:25,540 --> 00:21:32,410 This reproducing of the enemy is the justification for the constitutional dictatorship of military government, 179 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:40,690 and the danger from others is a spectre legitimising and monolithic in our article View of sovereignty. 180 00:21:41,340 --> 00:21:48,730 VS Another characteristic of military government are increasingly evident in Israeli democracy and its concept of sovereignty. 181 00:21:49,570 --> 00:21:54,940 Now moving to discuss Israel in recent decades, 182 00:21:54,940 --> 00:22:03,190 some well known Israeli political scientists and legal scholars chided Israeli democracy for poor government ability. 183 00:22:03,850 --> 00:22:11,470 Having argued that the ability of the government to contemplate and seriously examine policy options, 184 00:22:11,740 --> 00:22:19,150 accept clear decisions, implement those decision and monitor the impact of its own policies is very low. 185 00:22:20,050 --> 00:22:29,080 They further suggest that this limited ability of government, given all ability, affects the thrust of Israelis in their democratic system. 186 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:33,670 This academic conversation, which surely had some basis in reality, 187 00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:41,500 was echoed by leading Israeli politicians first from the centre and then embraced by the right. 188 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:44,889 It began with the Olmert government. They were, I think, 189 00:22:44,890 --> 00:22:58,060 the first to really take this on as a mission to to increase the vulnerability as it moved across the political spectrum from the centre to the right. 190 00:22:58,540 --> 00:23:07,089 However, government of government ability became less a matter of improving the quality of and coordination among government 191 00:23:07,090 --> 00:23:14,229 ministries and became more a matter of reshaping Israeli democracy and the balance among the three branches of government. 192 00:23:14,230 --> 00:23:22,410 So the. The executive will come here demanding Israel as a parliament parliamentary system inspired by England, 193 00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:27,810 by England's model of election in Israel or nationwide proportional. 194 00:23:28,170 --> 00:23:36,870 And for parties and not for individual candidates representing a constituency now in England, wrote Walter Bagehot. 195 00:23:36,870 --> 00:23:39,930 I hope I'm expressing his name correctly. Somebody knows. 196 00:23:40,740 --> 00:23:50,340 Well, he's a 19th century English scholar, newspaper writer, very famous at the time. 197 00:23:50,850 --> 00:23:56,760 He wrote the ultimate the 14th. The English Constitution is a newly elected House of Commons. 198 00:23:57,570 --> 00:24:04,110 No matter whether the question upon which he decides be administrative or legislative, 199 00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:12,390 no matter whether it considered high matters of essential constitution or small matters of daily detail, it is absolute. 200 00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:18,600 It can rule as it likes and decides at least as it likes the English constitution. 201 00:24:18,630 --> 00:24:28,950 He writes in a word, is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign afforded the House of Commons the most important function of the House. 202 00:24:29,790 --> 00:24:34,590 How Bagehot is choosing the leader that would form a cabinet. 203 00:24:35,490 --> 00:24:41,580 A Cabinet that is the delicate and extension of the House and answerable and accountable to it. 204 00:24:43,110 --> 00:24:50,729 But at one point we might ask, is the order reversed and the government in the parliament system become the dominant 205 00:24:50,730 --> 00:24:57,090 force in comparison to the body that supposedly delegated authority in the first place? 206 00:24:58,110 --> 00:25:04,739 Indeed, the most significant development in Israeli democracy is the growing weakness of the Knesset, 207 00:25:04,740 --> 00:25:07,740 the Israeli parliament, in comparison to the government. 208 00:25:08,370 --> 00:25:12,510 In fact, it is in danger of becoming a rubber stamp of sort, 209 00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:20,850 following the lead of the government in legislation and in failing to exercise significant oversight to begin with. 210 00:25:21,030 --> 00:25:31,770 There has been a 40% rise in the government pieces of legislation in the period extending between the 18th Knesset and the 20th, 211 00:25:32,220 --> 00:25:35,400 the one that just finished its work now. 212 00:25:35,970 --> 00:25:42,810 So the last freak Knesset has seen a rise of 40% in government proposed pieces of legislation. 213 00:25:43,650 --> 00:25:46,860 77% of them became law. 214 00:25:48,750 --> 00:26:00,270 At the same time, only 3% of legislative bills initiated by individuals and groups make their way through the final stages of becoming a law. 215 00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:05,790 And the government rejects the vast majority of the proposed bill by the government. 216 00:26:05,820 --> 00:26:10,440 In other words, the government controls the legislation and individuals. 217 00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:22,259 MP has lost any practical ability to shape as the executive branch is able to take the lead in legislation and to defect to dominate the process. 218 00:26:22,260 --> 00:26:32,510 Partly because many of its members of the Knesset are also ministers and deputy ministers and thus part of their eggs, 219 00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:35,490 and they are therefore part of the executive themselves. 220 00:26:36,120 --> 00:26:44,790 But also there is another reason, and that is the change in the Israeli party system as of 2018. 221 00:26:46,050 --> 00:26:55,560 Last year, five parties had no internal elections, comprising five parties, about one third of the total MPAs. 222 00:26:55,950 --> 00:27:00,389 That is 40 out of. One third. 223 00:27:00,390 --> 00:27:14,370 Yeah, that is 40 members out of the 120 members of the Knesset in the election of the for the 21st Knesset due in April 2019, in less than two months. 224 00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:27,140 This number is expected to reach most higher. Only three parties out of 14 but run for the Knesset have open primaries in most part in Israel today. 225 00:27:27,150 --> 00:27:37,680 Practically one, practically one person nominates the candidates and that person, him or herself, or does not face internal elections themselves. 226 00:27:38,370 --> 00:27:43,800 In the Likud Party, the biggest and dominant party. There are internal elections of candidates for the MP. 227 00:27:44,310 --> 00:27:52,470 But the party develop a political culture in which the position of the party leader is not contested and he is. 228 00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:59,520 Hopefully, someday she fully dominates the party without the need of coping with significant internal opposition. 229 00:27:59,940 --> 00:28:05,550 They call it the Likud DNA, but they don't have internal opposition. 230 00:28:06,090 --> 00:28:13,860 In other words, instead of 120 independent employees who are who are accountable to the voters, 231 00:28:13,860 --> 00:28:20,170 what elected them increasingly then pay is in the Israeli Knesset conveys civility, 232 00:28:20,730 --> 00:28:29,610 law, glorification of the party leader, and in fact, mistrust in the very idea of democracy whose keeper they are supposed to be. 233 00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:36,180 The concentration of power in the hands of few party leaders, most of them part of the coalition, 234 00:28:36,660 --> 00:28:44,640 allow the government to dominate the House of Representatives and to pass almost exclusively government sponsored legislation. 235 00:28:46,470 --> 00:28:54,000 The other side of undermining the balance of power in Israel and elevating the executive branch has been the various legislative 236 00:28:54,000 --> 00:29:02,760 initiatives aimed in particular to weaken the Supreme Court and the position of the attorney general and the gatekeepers in general, 237 00:29:03,420 --> 00:29:08,850 as some scorers note, loosening the bonds of constitutional constraints. 238 00:29:09,150 --> 00:29:16,800 Constraints on executive power through legal reform itself is the first sign of autocratic legalism. 239 00:29:17,610 --> 00:29:24,450 Often this loosening is supposedly done in the name of democracy and the interest of the people. 240 00:29:25,650 --> 00:29:31,290 Two recent legislative initiatives in Israel are particularly important in this context. 241 00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:41,880 First, the attempt to introduce a basic law concerning legislation which would limit the ability of the courts to strike down laws in judicial review. 242 00:29:42,330 --> 00:29:51,030 And that would enable the Knesset to enact laws that overcome the annulment of laws by the court in cases where he does occur. 243 00:29:51,660 --> 00:29:58,440 And second, a law changing the procedure for appointing the chief legal advisers and various 244 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:04,140 government ministries so that instead of being an appointee of the attorney general, 245 00:30:04,710 --> 00:30:11,760 relatively free from political pressures, the advisers would be thought of as essentially a political appointees. 246 00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:18,000 While these two bills and a number of others in the similar vein did not pass, 247 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,920 eventually they demonstrate the type of conversation of the coalition in Israel today, 248 00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:29,070 and in fact they may pass in the Knesset next Knesset contemporaneously. 249 00:30:29,070 --> 00:30:36,240 And perhaps more importantly, there have been unprecedented politicisation of the nomination process of judges and 250 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:41,250 an effort to appoint conservative judges who would not legislate from the bench, 251 00:30:41,700 --> 00:30:44,309 as it's called. And that would, however, 252 00:30:44,310 --> 00:30:54,180 because of the more passive judicial philosophy or assumed political positions sympathetic to the right would rule in favour of the government. 253 00:30:55,260 --> 00:31:04,050 It is believed that numerous judges that fit this description have been appointed in recent years, including to the Supreme Court. 254 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,190 In addition to these structural and personal changes. 255 00:31:08,550 --> 00:31:14,250 There have been various attempts to shield visiting Prime Minister from police 256 00:31:14,250 --> 00:31:19,440 probes and prosecution while in office by introducing the so-called French law. 257 00:31:19,890 --> 00:31:29,100 It didn't succeed so far, but we don't know as as well as an effort to minimise the role of the police in determining the case for prosecution. 258 00:31:31,260 --> 00:31:39,120 Finally, the Supreme Court has been constantly attacked by and its prestige became a target for politicians, 259 00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,380 first and foremost among them, the minister of Justice herself, 260 00:31:43,710 --> 00:31:52,830 Richard Kidd, who reserve who reversed the tradition of the Minister of Justice as the prime defender of the judicial system in public life, 261 00:31:52,830 --> 00:31:56,610 as was the case until she took office. 262 00:31:57,220 --> 00:32:05,290 I uneducated. It has criticised the Supreme Court repeatedly and harshly for intervening where it has no authority, according to her, 263 00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:16,780 whether it is on economic issues in the air, regarding the gas or security matters or land disputes and rights of refugees and many other issues. 264 00:32:17,860 --> 00:32:26,800 Most of the coalition, I should note, agree with her position, even if not all of them are vocal as her to some this point. 265 00:32:27,550 --> 00:32:30,430 Since its early days under Prime Minister Ben Gurion, 266 00:32:30,430 --> 00:32:38,380 Israel had a political tradition of a strong executive and concentration of power in the hands of the Prime Minister. 267 00:32:39,730 --> 00:32:41,440 Since the early sixties. 268 00:32:41,770 --> 00:32:50,980 In the Lavonne affair, however, there was a gradual attempt to disperse power both within the executive branch and among the branches, 269 00:32:51,820 --> 00:32:57,100 but in recent years correlated more or less with the collapse of the two state solution 270 00:32:57,460 --> 00:33:03,940 and the sense of real or imagined sense of being under siege and in constant threat. 271 00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:12,370 Power has gravitated again to the executive branch and within the executive it gravitated to that of 272 00:33:12,370 --> 00:33:23,170 cratic party leaders or also ministers who quietly and have great power in forming the government. 273 00:33:24,580 --> 00:33:34,020 And within the government, power gravitated to the power to the Prime Minister, who currently we thought we changed last Sunday is also the Minister. 274 00:33:34,030 --> 00:33:39,280 He's the Prime Minister is the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Foreign Relation and the Minister of Health. 275 00:33:39,850 --> 00:33:46,000 And only after the Supreme Court ordered him to relinquish one position, 276 00:33:46,300 --> 00:33:51,340 he gave the Foreign Ministry to somebody else for a few months until the election. 277 00:33:52,720 --> 00:34:01,170 So it. We can see that power has moved all the time upwards and became concentrated really in one person. 278 00:34:02,370 --> 00:34:13,400 And if Ben Gurion, after independence, was at least evaluated according to his publicly professed views and stated socialist ideology, 279 00:34:13,410 --> 00:34:20,040 Netanyahu makes sure that his power is not limited by any clearly articulated vision. 280 00:34:20,460 --> 00:34:26,820 Lisa, for one, expressed in his own words. And I want to move to discussion of language. 281 00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:39,510 I will read the section on language and then I will say a few words about the the last part in order to leave time for discussion, 282 00:34:41,190 --> 00:34:46,500 the decline of liberal democracy in the world and the rise of centralised government and authoritarian leaders 283 00:34:46,890 --> 00:34:53,760 are often also especially associated with the diminished status accorded to language in political life. 284 00:34:55,350 --> 00:34:58,320 It is not the land which has disappeared from public life, of course. 285 00:34:59,070 --> 00:35:08,490 Only that it functions less and less as an essential sphere from which citizens exercise their sovereignty by learning about their world, 286 00:35:10,350 --> 00:35:18,720 or by forming opinions, or by deliberating collectively in constituting themselves as a community and language. 287 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:27,030 Thus, in this function as a medium form for which from which we can hold leaders accountable. 288 00:35:28,290 --> 00:35:31,920 Much has been said in this context about President Trump. We did. 289 00:35:32,220 --> 00:35:42,950 And that is the politics in which transparency about facts, intentions, actions is is submitted, systematically evaded and no transfer at once saw. 290 00:35:43,020 --> 00:35:46,770 A trust worthy account of reality is provided. 291 00:35:48,490 --> 00:35:53,880 Trump cherishes the role of language in politics, but with him as some observe, 292 00:35:53,890 --> 00:36:00,880 the problem is no longer vocational lying in politics, but rather lying as politics. 293 00:36:01,990 --> 00:36:03,920 In other words, sorry. 294 00:36:03,970 --> 00:36:16,360 In other countries where democracy is much weaker than the US, citizens lose trust in the parliament in their public conversation for other reasons. 295 00:36:17,470 --> 00:36:26,560 They see this conversation, the public conversation, as being heavily manipulated, either by direct censorship over the press, media, 296 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:27,790 universities and the like, 297 00:36:28,300 --> 00:36:38,080 or by self control over these organisations and institutions where private and public powers owners favourable to the government. 298 00:36:39,260 --> 00:36:48,470 Muteness indeed has many faces uttering an avalanche of self contradicting speech that renders it meaningless, 299 00:36:48,980 --> 00:36:53,270 controlling the narrative to the point where it becomes unbelievable. 300 00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:58,310 In failing to give an account of all in all these cases and others, 301 00:36:58,550 --> 00:37:09,350 the persons at the House of Power releases him or herself from the burden of the democratic notion of language and thus fervour arguments. 302 00:37:09,590 --> 00:37:19,940 Power. Military government is exceptional in these contexts, since it essentially exists outside language or has only minimal use for it. 303 00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:22,640 The governments that in contrast, 304 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:32,959 saw this government stands in contrast not only to the notion of a vibrant public sphere in liberal democracy, but also in contrast to fascism. 305 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:43,650 Of the 1930s, when public speeches in the plaza or over the radio were essential to gaining popularity and to mobilise people in military government. 306 00:37:43,670 --> 00:37:52,040 Indeed, the sovereign does not seek the legitimation and support of those it rules over and surely does not do so through language. 307 00:37:52,610 --> 00:37:57,170 It expects obedience because it can use violence to impose the law. 308 00:37:58,620 --> 00:38:09,120 And military government does not need to explain the reasons behind its laws and policies, whether oppressive for the occupied or beneficial for them. 309 00:38:09,810 --> 00:38:11,760 As in Kafka's novel, The Trial. 310 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:22,110 For those of you who read the law in the eyes of the occupied is often distant, arbitrary, non-transparent, overbearing. 311 00:38:22,590 --> 00:38:29,280 The law is not explained nor justified in speech and in writing contemporaneously. 312 00:38:29,970 --> 00:38:37,110 Military government greatly hinders this prospect for a language based public sphere in the occupied territory. 313 00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:43,350 Firstly, this government limits the freedom of speech in all its forms and settings books, 314 00:38:43,350 --> 00:38:46,800 newspapers, media, social media meetings, conferences, universities, 315 00:38:47,130 --> 00:38:57,450 etc. and through monitoring language attempts to prevent the creation of a shared world among the occupied and to keep them separated from each other. 316 00:38:58,170 --> 00:39:06,630 Secondly, even if the public sphere is found among the occupied, it has little effect on the government and thus tend to crumble over time. 317 00:39:07,530 --> 00:39:13,499 The fact that the occupied and the occupier often have different national language is only deepened. 318 00:39:13,500 --> 00:39:16,080 The difference the divide between them. 319 00:39:17,010 --> 00:39:23,850 Israeli occupation of the West Bank is a proof that millions of people could be governed and ruled for decades. 320 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,300 With language playing only a marginal role. 321 00:39:29,750 --> 00:39:37,130 This non-verbal nature of military government is echoed in the diminished weight accorded to language in Israeli politics. 322 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:45,560 I'm not saying that this is the only reason. I think there is something in Zionism that is anti linguistic for from the first place. 323 00:39:46,130 --> 00:39:48,950 We could talk about it later. But this is another dimension. 324 00:39:50,450 --> 00:39:56,180 There are numerous examples for the diminished status of language in Israel and here are just a few. 325 00:39:57,180 --> 00:40:06,990 First, the Likud, the dominant political party in Israel, has not presented an electoral and election platform for the last three elections. 326 00:40:08,070 --> 00:40:10,950 Maintaining ambiguity regarding its intentions. 327 00:40:11,340 --> 00:40:19,710 On every subject security negotiations with the Palestinians, economy, reducing poverty, environment, education and so forth, 328 00:40:20,340 --> 00:40:28,680 the party deliberately promotes this ambiguity, expecting the voters trust without feeling that it has to be clear about its plans. 329 00:40:29,370 --> 00:40:35,519 Therefore, it cannot be measures measured in light of concrete goals for this ruling party. 330 00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:43,910 Indeed. Word. Words conveying intentions have become an obstacle on the one hand and an empty talk. 331 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:52,150 But no one expects to be taken seriously. On the other hand. Vote him at example for this disregard for our own commitment. 332 00:40:53,890 --> 00:40:56,890 And on the most vital issue is Netanyahu very last speech, 333 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:03,460 which was a declaration about acceptance of the two state solution, but in fact nothing was done to promote it or little. 334 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:09,430 Moreover, during the last election campaign, the Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered. 335 00:41:09,490 --> 00:41:12,790 I'm talking about the last campaign, not this one. 336 00:41:13,210 --> 00:41:20,980 The prime minister delivered only one speech. It was in English to the American Congress about Iran's nuclear program. 337 00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:31,160 He made sure not to speak to Israeli citizens in their own language or to hold a public debate with his opponents in general. 338 00:41:31,180 --> 00:41:36,730 Netanyahu also refuses to be interviewed by the Israeli press, which he sees as hostile. 339 00:41:37,210 --> 00:41:43,930 Sometimes it's true and to expand his analysis, beliefs and plans as well as his questionable personal conduct. 340 00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:49,390 But Netanyahu is not alone. And other leaders such as Sharon Barak in today, 341 00:41:49,930 --> 00:42:00,190 a guy who is running against the denial of use or are using similar strategies of minimising or wholly avoiding interviews and speeches. 342 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:07,870 For many, not all Israeli leaders. Language has become a medium to be avoided as much as possible. 343 00:42:08,530 --> 00:42:17,140 It is even hindering action and flexibility as demanding undesirable accountability and responsibility which threaten these leaders. 344 00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,590 The status of the voters of citizens have been so degraded. 345 00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:27,370 The sovereignty of the people who are deemed so reduced that they do not even see themselves as entitled to the 346 00:42:27,370 --> 00:42:35,769 basic explanations in matter concerning their own lives and are unable to perform their basic right and obligations, 347 00:42:35,770 --> 00:42:40,930 which is forming informed opinions about public affairs at a national level. 348 00:42:41,590 --> 00:42:50,980 The contract, instead of language in this context, also mean that the Israeli political community is increasingly divided into tribes or groups, 349 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:57,150 each with its own thick identity and with little ability and interests to transcend the social, 350 00:42:57,190 --> 00:43:04,060 political, safe zones and to interact with other such transcendence of group identity could 351 00:43:04,270 --> 00:43:10,090 only take place for working with language and forming the community as a community. 352 00:43:10,450 --> 00:43:16,870 The way by way of what might be called neglected, linguistically created overlap and consensus. 353 00:43:17,170 --> 00:43:22,990 In other words, to create an overlapping consensus rules concept, we need to work through language. 354 00:43:23,350 --> 00:43:30,070 And I think that in a society that has such a profound scepticism towards language, it is very difficult to do so. 355 00:43:33,460 --> 00:43:40,660 The third deferred section, which I will just summarise briefly of the paper, 356 00:43:40,660 --> 00:43:46,720 discusses the growing divide between the political and the ethical in Israel. 357 00:43:51,420 --> 00:43:53,280 If we look at the liberal democracy, 358 00:43:53,730 --> 00:44:03,270 maybe the most important work that discusses liberal democracy after World War Two was John Rolls Theory of Justice, which was just mentioned. 359 00:44:03,870 --> 00:44:16,770 And as you may recall, one of the most famous sentences from this book is that justice is the first virtue of social institutions that we cannot. 360 00:44:17,130 --> 00:44:26,190 In other words, Rawls is saying that we cannot think of political institutions without thinking about them in moral terms, 361 00:44:26,190 --> 00:44:29,399 and they must embody our moral beliefs. 362 00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:36,150 Otherwise, we will not be able to cooperate among ourselves over time. 363 00:44:36,870 --> 00:44:48,360 And we need to be sure that the basic structure of society is just in order to be able to create life together as a political community. 364 00:44:50,010 --> 00:44:59,820 And in this vision world, in politics, really come together as we come together in Aristotle and in many of our political thinkers. 365 00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:10,590 There is, however, another political tradition or another line of thought regarding the relation between politics and ethics in modernity. 366 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:16,740 And maybe the most important voice in this matter is much of labour. 367 00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:26,370 And for those of you who are familiar with his sociology of religion, he suggests that in modernity there is growing. 368 00:45:28,690 --> 00:45:33,100 Dispersion between different spheres of value in action. 369 00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:43,840 And he counts three different spheres the economic, the radical, the political, the ethical, religious, the scientific, cultural, and maybe a miss. 370 00:45:44,770 --> 00:45:50,260 The most important for Weber is the distance between the ethical sphere and the political sphere. 371 00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:59,530 And he sees the ethical sphere as as it evolves from religion, from Judaism and from Christianity as becoming more and more universal, 372 00:46:01,570 --> 00:46:09,549 where justice and rights and respect for others is seen not in national terms and 373 00:46:09,550 --> 00:46:17,290 not defined by any specific characteristic of the person for whom we act morally. 374 00:46:17,500 --> 00:46:24,459 Okay. Whereas the political sphere we see that politics is more and more understood in national terms, 375 00:46:24,460 --> 00:46:32,110 which are exclusive violence gains, more weight in politics, competition and more nation state become more fierce. 376 00:46:32,590 --> 00:46:43,000 And therefore there is a growing tension between the two spheres, the political and the ethical and moral, and it's become harder to reconcile them. 377 00:46:44,410 --> 00:46:49,930 I should note maybe you can develop in the discussion, but in developing this theory, 378 00:46:49,930 --> 00:46:59,770 I think that the basis for Weber insight in this regard is it his his interpretation of early Judaism? 379 00:47:00,220 --> 00:47:06,700 For those of you who are familiar with his work on Judaism and Judaism, he has a book I mentioned to James and brilliant book. 380 00:47:07,060 --> 00:47:12,690 He in the book, he shows the growing distance between the priests on the one hand and sorry, 381 00:47:12,700 --> 00:47:19,659 not the priest, the prophets on the one hand, beginning with the priests, then the prophets and the kings. 382 00:47:19,660 --> 00:47:29,530 On the other hand, he shows that they act in different universes and are able to create in harmonious vision of of of love, 383 00:47:29,870 --> 00:47:34,060 of the good life and what is the right life for Jews. 384 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:35,500 So in a way, 385 00:47:35,500 --> 00:47:46,240 modernity echoes early Judaism by creating again a distance between the ethical understood in universal terms and exclusively national on the other. 386 00:47:47,740 --> 00:47:58,660 Now, I think that if we think of military rule, obviously it's it's not a it's not a kind of rule that takes ethical question into into consideration. 387 00:47:58,660 --> 00:48:02,800 It's on the basis of it. It's it's based on unjust foundation. 388 00:48:03,460 --> 00:48:13,720 And because it is built on the idea that there is constant danger and risk, also because of need to protect oneself from that from this danger, 389 00:48:14,050 --> 00:48:25,420 it allows us to think of politics as something that has to do with safety, security and constant protection against the dangers that ever posed to us. 390 00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:31,810 And I think that this notion that politics is not about morality, but politics is about protection, 391 00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:38,110 it's about danger and about fear from others is gradually moving. 392 00:48:38,530 --> 00:48:45,189 We're being introduced more and more into political thinking in Israel proper about how Israelis think 393 00:48:45,190 --> 00:48:53,860 about politics in the same way that is the foundation for military military occupation in the territories. 394 00:48:54,340 --> 00:49:03,190 And therefore, the growing divide between ethics and politics, which Weber fought, is a general characteristic of modernity, 395 00:49:03,490 --> 00:49:13,030 not necessarily ready to, in a specific society, become more pronounced in Israel because of these conditions that exist in the occupied territory. 396 00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:17,169 And I would say the final word, 397 00:49:17,170 --> 00:49:24,970 the ultimate or the most important manifestation of thinking about politics in this terms and 398 00:49:25,630 --> 00:49:32,740 giving less and less place or role to justice is manifested in the recent nationality law. 399 00:49:33,070 --> 00:49:38,050 Because in this law over is the basic requirement for equality does not exist. 400 00:49:38,410 --> 00:49:45,370 And I think that basically what stands behind that and that's my understanding of this law is 401 00:49:45,790 --> 00:49:53,170 introducing the notion that there are two types of human beings living in the same territory. 402 00:49:54,040 --> 00:50:01,870 This logic that exists in the occupied territories were Jewish settlers and are and Palestinians living side by side. 403 00:50:02,290 --> 00:50:05,290 But they have completely different political status. 404 00:50:05,290 --> 00:50:10,000 One citizens of a country never occupied and they live side by side, right? 405 00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:16,629 Introducing the notion that there are two types of human beings in general and politically speaking, 406 00:50:16,630 --> 00:50:27,400 surely introducing this logic inside Israel and creating the same hierarchy in Israel between Arabs and Jews and therefore diminish. 407 00:50:28,750 --> 00:50:39,400 The gap or the cognitive confusion for Israelis between what they see in the territories and what they see in Israel proper. 408 00:50:39,670 --> 00:50:51,250 Right. They learn to accept. They learn to accept the occupation because it seems to them now natural that there are two types of human beings, 409 00:50:51,550 --> 00:50:56,650 because the same principle operate in in Israel. In Israel and in the occupied territories. 410 00:50:56,950 --> 00:51:05,650 Okay. So I think this is a really important example of how this logic separating the political, the ethical is introduced into Israeli democracy. 411 00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:07,240 Okay. Thank you very much.