Politics is there to offer solutions to problems as they arise. But more than that, it has to be a platform from where challenges can be identfied as they emerge, and ideas and policies are laid out to improve today’s realities.
That at least is the ideal of politics “as it should be” and is rarely attained. Still, the best moments of politics in Malta and beyond, occurred when everything was being done to achieve such an ideal.
The problem is that with the passage of time, that ideal is no longer an imperative of modern politics. Unless there is some breakout towards populist exremism, few contrasting choices are available. The acceptance of a liberal, market-centred economy and EU membership to which is attached the obligation to follow common rules that apply to almost 30 countries mean that no matter who is in government, the margins for change are slim, independently of the political rhetoric deployed.
As a result, many believe that modern politics can no longer serve to open up new horizons.
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REASONABLE
One of the bigger controversies swirling around in Israel at the moment (there are several) is with regard to a change that the Netanyahu government wishes to introduce in the legal and judicial system. It has different implications, one of which relates to the kind of considerations that court judgements should go into.
A longstanding approach adopted by Israeli courts in cases involving the government, considers whether a government had acted “reasonably” when taking a certain decision, given the circumstances it faced. Now it is being claimed that it should not be within the court’s remit to give judgement about what is reasonable or not, but only to consider whether a government has acted in full accordance with the law. So the proposal is to disallow the criterion of “reasonableness” when the court is arriving at its decision.
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CO-BELLIGERENTS
When two or more countries are together involved in a war against a third party, without being signatory to some treaty of alliance, they are considered as co-belligerents. Member countries of the EU, members and non-members of NATO, are giving their full support to the Ukraine in its war with Russia, but they are not directly involved in the fighting. Meanwhile, they are even sending sophisticated armaments to the Ukraine.
Still they cannot be considered as co-belligerents and the big majority of governments involved clearly do not want to go that far. Yet in speeches and proposals made by various politicians, sight of this distinction often gets lost.
Precedents for this kind of situation actually exist. For a year and more, before it entered directly in the war then proceeding between Nazi Germany and the UK (with the latter in a precarious position), the US administration of President Roosevelt provided arms and all kinds of military equipment to the British government led by Churchill. This it did openly but without becoming a co-belligerent.