Academic literature on the topic 'Shas (Political party: Elat, Israel)'

This article explores the often neglected relationships between constitution-making (including amendment) mechanisms and constitutional-infringement mechanisms by focusing on the override as one of the possible tools to depart from a Constitution. The article suggests that there are two types of override: a ‘common law override’, which is not uniquely Canadian, and a ‘sunset override’. The common law override evolves in the judicial decisions of a given country when the courts require the legislature to explicitly take responsibility for an action. Under the common law override, we may couple together phenomena that are not typically connected, including a means of protecting common law rights, a judicial presumption against delegation of power to administrative agencies, and mechanisms of dealing with procedural or substantive legislative entrenchment. In contrast, the sunset override is a Canadian invention. For the tool to be part of the infringement mechanisms of a country's Constitution, it must be provided for explicitly in that Constitution, and its exercise must be temporary.This article follows the various possible uses of the common law override. It shows that Israel has vast experience with the common law override which may shed light on Israel's future possible exploitation of the sunset override. The article then shows that Israel has adopted the sunset override following the Canadian example. When the Rabin government adopted the tool as part of an exchange deal with the ultra-orthodox religious political party Shas, the terms of the deal included Shas' acquiescence to the peace process in exchange for the Rabin government's use of the override to protect the religious status quo from judicial intervention. In addition, the Israeli justices played an active and unique role in the birth and formulation of the Israeli override. As has happened with the Canadian override, supposedly these circumstances should have made the override illegitimate in Israel. However, this article argues that it is not the political uses of the override that result in its lack of use. Rather, the determining factor is the override's compatibility with the constitution-making process in a given country. From a normative perspective, it is easier for the Israeli legislature to override its own earlier enactments, even those titled Basic Laws, than it is for the Canadian legislature to override the People's enactment of the Charter. Thus, it is expected that Israel might more freely deploy the sunset override were it to become a general mechanism embodied in the Basic Laws, while, in contrast, the sunset override has fallen into disuse in Canada.

AbstractIn 2011, a leading investigative television program in Israel launched a series of short documentaries entitled “Four Minutes,” each dedicated to an Israeli political leader. This paper focuses on three of these documentaries, dedicated to then-president Shimon Peres; then-Knesset member Tzipi Livni, who 2 years earlier had won the elections but failed to form a government, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder of the Ultra-Orthodox Sephardi “Shas” party. Our goal is to outline the means by which these films construct and deliver their condensed messages, and to explore how, despite the rigid constraints of the format, they create a cohesive and complex portrait of these political figures and their strategic agendas. We analyze how the films’ multimodal language is used to reflect the messages promoted by each of the figures as well as by the filmmakers themselves.

Since the 1990s, populism has become increasingly prevalent in Israeli politics. While scholars and commentators have often focused on the populist rhetoric used by Benjamin Netanyahu, his is hardly the only manifestation of populism within Israel. For example, Shas, a right-wing populist party which seeks to represent Sephardic and Haredi interests within Israel, emerged in the 1980s and swiftly became the third largest party in the country, a position it has maintained since the mid 1990s. Shas is unique insofar as it merges religion, populism, and Sephardic and Haredi Jewish identity and culture. Indeed, Shas is not merely a political party, but a religious movement with its own schools and religious network, and it possesses both secular and religious leaders. In this article, we examine the religious populism of Shas and investigate both the manner in which the party constructs Israeli national identity and the rhetoric used by its secular and religious leadership to generate demand for the party’s religious and populist solutions to Israel’s social and economic problems. We show how the party instrumentalizes Sephardic ethnicity and culture and Haredi religious identity, belief, and practice, by first highlighting the relative disadvantages experienced by these communities and positing that Israeli “elites” are the cause of this disadvantaged position. We also show how Shas elevates Sephardic and Haredi identity above all others and claims that the party will restore Sephardic culture to its rightful and privileged place in Israel.