Background: Referendum law would apply to "border adjustments" - but
referendum avoidable via elections

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 9 December 2009

While most discussions of the proposed referendum law relate to its being
applied to the case of a deal involving the Golan or Jerusalem, the law also
would apply to border adjustments - no matter how small - as long as they
entail transferring sovereign Israeli territory.

While the proposed law requires a national referendum in the instance that
less than 80 MKs support transferring sovereign Israeli territory, the
referendum would not be required if elections are held.

"Despite what is written in Paragraph 3(A), the Knesset approved the
Government decision as per Paragraph 2, and within 180 days from the day
that the Knesset approved [AL: with less than 80 MKs] there are Knesset
elections, a national referendum will not be held; The said Government
decision will be considered as if it was approved by a national referendum
on the thirtieth day after the formation of the Government that was formed
after the election, or at an earlier date that the Government decided on it,
unless it decided to cancel said Government decision as per Paragraph 2."

The explanatory commentary accompanying the proposed law takes the position
that the Knesset elections would in effect be a national referendum since it
would no doubt be a major issue of the election campaign.

But - and this could be a very big but - nothing would stop a ruling
coalition that came to power by promising voters that "a vote for party X is
a vote against deal Y" from defying its mandate and declining to cancel the
previous Government's decision within the 30 days.

In fact, since the prime minister has absolute control over the agenda of
cabinet meetings, he can simply refuse to bring up cancellation of the
previous Government's decision to a vote for 30 days.

And this when, no doubt, the prime minister would be facing tremendous world
pressure not to cancel the decision.

Far fetched?

Hardly. And the media would no doubt praise the prime minister for |acting
responsibly".

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il