ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a set of questions or criteria that might assist a refugee determination process in determining whether a particular country has an “ability to protect” its citizens, the basic criterion established by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Ward case for the determination of refugee status. In a word, Israel’s two distinct minorities—Jews from the former Soviet Union and Israeli Arabs—exercise a distinct, if not arguably disproportionate, political influence in Israel’s increasingly “tribalized,” and overheated, democracy. The historical antecedents of the Israeli parliament—and its historical role in the establishment of the State of Israel and Israeli democracy—have secured for it a significant protective and remedial role as the elected “house of representatives of the people,” as the people’s “constituent assembly.” An explanatory section was added to the Basic Law in 1994 to guide the courts in determining what are “the values of the State of Israel.”.
