Civil Rights

Individuas and the Establishment  -   Ale-Yarok supports equal rights for every citizen, regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

Israeli citizens from all walks of life, throughout the political spectrum, are becoming alienated from the official establishment. This poses a grave threat to democracy. Ale-Yarok believes that the state exists for the benefit of the individual, and not vice-versa. This principle should be the basis to any and all contact between any branch of the establishment and the citizenry. Ale-Yarok believes that the establishment should refrain from any interference with the private affairs of its citizens, even if considered by the majority to be morally or otherwise objectionable, except when the actions of an individual pose a direct threat to the safety, well being or property of another.

Ale-Yarok calls for the establishment of a constitution, which will guarantee the following civil rights: Freedom of speech, freedom of occupation, freedom of religion (including the freedom from any religion), freedom of association and assembly and the right to privacy. Ale-Yarok will insist that this constitution shall include an article prohibiting the search of a private home or business establishment without a warrant, save in cases of imminent danger to the safety or well being of a living creature.

  

 Environment

Ale-Yarok believes that the environmental issues confronting Israel are no less crucial to its future and survival than issues of military security and national affairs. Israel is using up its natural resources - clean air, fresh water, arable soil and living space - at a pace that will soon render life at current population rates untenable.

Therefore, Ale-Yarok will seek to do the following:

Legislation - Ale-Yarok will introduce new legislation to:

  • Conserve resources and prevent air, water and soil pollution;

  • Increase penalties for pollution and place personal liability and mandatory minimum fines on business executives for any illegal pollution committed under their authority;

  • Provide for railway-based system of mass transportation;

  • Encourage recycling of all waste products, on all levels;

  • Combat the practice of sea front construction;

  • Establish minimum amounts of open and green spaces in all inhabited areas;

  • Provide government subsidies for the adoption of alternative energies in all its forms and for all uses;

  • Make recycling of all used materials a national priority;   

Enforcement: Ale-Yarok will work to significantly increase the penalties for all environmental abuses - especially pollution, sand and water theft and construction encroaching on public spaces. Ale-Yarok shall insist that the budget of the Department for Environmental issues shall be doubled at least, in order to provide for enforcement personnel and mechanism; insist that the Minister of Environmental Issues shall be included in the inner cabinet, so that environmental implications shall be considered in the shaping of all major policies.

Education: Ale-Yarok will work so that environmental studies be included in the curriculum of all state-sponsored education system, in order to increase awareness of this crucial issue.

 

 Drug Policy

Israel’s current drug policy, based on the total prohibition model, has been a total and unmitigated failure. Drug use rates are rising continuously, as are incarceration rates and property crimes. The attempt to deter people from using drugs by criminal prosecution has failed unequivocally. Conversely, this policy has given rise to an enormous criminal market that is financing corruption and violence that leave their marks on every aspect of society and every level of government. The only alternative to this disaster is a policy based on the concept of Harm Reduction. This concept maintains that drug use is a health problem and a social one, not a criminal one. Further, it accepts that the use of conscious-altering drugs cannot be eradicated, and that effort and resources are better directed at minimizing the harm that drug use causes both society and the users. Criminal prosecution and incarceration do nothing to help the addicts, to say nothing of casual users, but rather drive them underground, away from any potential help, and only reinforce their self-image as criminals.

Our proposed policy has three main objectives: To stop the persecution of hundreds of thousands of cannabis users, the great majority of whom are otherwise normative, productive, law abiding citizens; to separate the market for cannabis - a substance which poses relatively little risk to society or the individual, even when abused - fro that of other, more harmful drugs; and finally, to break the vicious cycle in which hard drug addicts are socialized to be career criminals, at enormous cost, and at the expense of actual treatment. 

Therefore, we will work to achieve the following:

The cannabis plant will be removed from the dangerous drug act and all uses thereof will be completely legal. The growing of cannabis for personal recreational use will be completely legal. The retail and wholesale trade in cannabis for recreational use shall be strictly regulated, and limited to designated, licensed outlets so as to prevent the selling of cannabis to minors and in order to achieve maximum separation between the cannabis market and the market of other, more harmful drugs which will remain illegal.

Those who use such illegal drugs will no longer be subject to criminal prosecution but rather be directed to treatment, but those who sell them for profit will be punished to the full extent of the law.

In keeping with the view that drug use is a health problem, the state shall screen all hard drug addicts that come to its attention, and those that are found unready for rehabilitation will be given their daily dose of drug in a controlled environment, at cost. Since the actual cost of the drug is a tiny fraction of its street price, this would effectively put an end to the illegal drug trade as we know it, maximize the amount of addicts who are in touch with welfare and treatment agencies, and bring the drug problem under control, as opposed to the current policy which sweeps it under the rug.

  

Peace 

Conflicts cannot be resolved by force

 Green Leaf views the 1949 War of independence as a watershed event in the history of Zionism.  Green Leaf is further convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict can be resolved via a historic and territorial compromise only, painful for both sides, and based on the principle of two states for two peoples, including a minimal exchange of land. Green Leaf trusts that true and durable security for both peoples can be achieved only via lasting peace, gained from an end to terror and a recognition of the Palestinians’ right to a homeland. 

  • Both left and right wing governments failed to deliver the coveted peace and security for their citizens. The Green Leaf Party believes the time has come to turn to our citizens to seek their opinions. Green Leaf proposes a referendum as an implementation of the right to freedom of expression and of each citizen to assume its individual and collective responsibilities.
  •  A stable and sustained majority of the Israeli public (about 70%) believes in a territorial compromise with the Palestinians as the only way forward to solve the conflict.
  • A referendum would present the world and our region with a shining example of democracy and openness. 

 

 Women’s issues

 Ale-Yarok will strive to improve legislation and enforcement in the following: Equal pay for equal work; Construction and funding of affordable day care centers; long school day throughout the state Ed. System; Tax deduction for childcare expenses (nannies); Inclusion of gynecological medications in the state subsidized medical package; Research grants for female specific health problems; Social benefits for housewives.

Ale-Yarok views rape as a crime on par with murder and terrorism in its devastating effect on the victim and on society as a whole. Therefore, Ale-Yarok will work on all levels to implement stricter penalties for rape - of both men male and female victims - and to improve victim treatment in order to minimize the added trauma and reticence of filing a complaint as much as possible.

 Minorities

The Arab Sector (Urban & Rural Arabs, Druze, Circassians, Bedouins)

Israel can never be a truly democratic society until its Arab citizens are accorded true equality and fully integrated into all aspects of public life.

Therefore, Ale-Yarok will work to eliminate the discrimination suffered by the Arab sector. Ale-Yarok will work to allocate funds aimed at eliminating the disparity in education, infrastructure and employment opportunities between the Arab and Jewish sectors; to integrate the Arab sector into all governmental agencies, including the cabinet; to improve and reform the conditions and status of women in the Arab sector, with the objective of achieving full equality between women and men. To that end, Ale-Yarok will support affirmative action in senior official appointments for women in the Arab sector and will work to eliminate the disparity between the Jewish and Arab sectors as regards the quality, availability and affordability of all social service geared to women.

 

 Foreign Workers

Ale-Yarok abhors the widespread abuses of foreign labor, which damage Israel’s reputation abroad and weaken its moral fiber.

Therefore, Ale-Yarok will work to enforce the laws regulating mandatory minimal living conditions for foreign workers and those limiting the amount that may be deducted for said accommodations; to increase the penalties for withholding of wages; work to stop the persecution of foreign spouses of Israeli citizens, and to accord them full social benefits; to eliminate the practice of incarcerating illegal workers for weeks and months. Illegal aliens will be deported within a week, during which they shall be given the right to appeal deportation; to apply state health benefits to foreign workers;  

 

 Education

Ale-Yarok believes that providing a high quality education to all citizens is the foremost obligation of the state to its citizens, and it is also a strategic necessity of the very first degree.

Therefore, Ale-Yarok will work to significantly raise teachers’ salaries; to raise admissions and certification criteria to teaching and education courses; to introduce computer and internet literacy as compulsory subjects in all state-sponsored education systems, and to ensure that teachers involved in computer instruction are familiar with the most current developments in their fields; to allocate funding to alternative educational systems (such as open schools) in order to enable each citizen to chose the educational mode commensurate with his or her values.

Ale-Yarok will work to ensure that each state-sponsored education system, without exception, is funded in direct relation to the number of students participating in it.

Ale-Yarok will work to enforce compulsory training in social and pluralistic matters in all education and career training systems receiving state funds.

 

 Religion and the State

Ale-Yarok supports the separation of state and religion. Due to unique circumstances, this ideal is not possible in Israel to the full extent in which it is implemented in other democracies. Nonetheless, Ale-Yarok will endeavor to minimize the involvement of the state respecting the establishment of any organized religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Ale-Yarok supports civil marriages unequivocally.

Ale-Yarok rejects the notion that any one sector shall be exempt from duties and obligations that apply to others.

Ale-Yarok will work to dismantle the Ministry of religious affairs, save for that section of it which deals with the interests of foreign churches and faiths in the holy land (which will be reassigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). All others matters of religion, such as facilities, services and appointments will be transferred to local and municipal authorities.

 Welfare and Economics

Ale-Yarok believes in redistribution of the resources in order to benefit the weaker sectors. This notwithstanding, Ale-Yarok also believes in a strong and prosperous middle class, which is currently overtaxed and under compensated. Ale-Yarok will work to pass a capital gains tax, while restructuring the tax code to ease the burden on the lower and middle brackets and transfer it to the top five percent.  Ale-Yarok will work to promote the laying of railroad tracks to outlying regions in order to increase employment opportunities, and to subsidize teaching studies for top students, who will then be assigned to teach in needy locations.

Ale-Yarok believes that great economic opportunities can be reaped by legalizing the cultivation of industrial hemp, as evidenced by the constant growth of this market in Europe and elsewhere.

 Harm Reduction

Ale-Yarok believes that the concept of Harm Reduction should be applied to a number of other fields, in addition to the drug problem. Prostitution and gambling are two such areas. These are vices that will not disappear, no matter how much effort is expended on the attempt to eradicate them. The state should regulate casinos and bordellos in order to control the most harmful aspects of these phenomena, such as the AIDS epidemic, which poses a very real threat to prostitutes and their clientele. Prostitution must be institutionalized, if for no other reason than to enable health authorities to conduct regular check-ups and prevent the spread of disease. 

 

  Gays and Lesbians

Ale-Yarok will work to promote true and strict enforcement of laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Ale-Yarok will promote laws to ensure the equal right of gays and lesbians in all aspects of life, including the right of same sex-couples to legally formalize their union for the purpose of any benefit deriving from recognition in said union, such as property and ownership, adoption and guardianship of biological children by parent’s spouses and all other spousal rights and benefits accorded to heterosexual couples. Ale-Yarok will work to require the dissemination of gender and orientation information to all professionals in the public sector (teachers, social workers, doctors, law enforcement, etc). Ale-Yarok will work to allocate funding to distressed and endangered youth. Ale-Yarok will work to require all firms providing services to publicly funded institutions to ensure the equal right of gays and lesbians.  

 Animal Rights

Ale-Yarok believes that living creatures should be protected from cruelty, neglect, and needless suffering. Ale-Yarok favors strict limits on animal experiments, and will seek to increase the number of animal rights activists in the committee for authorizing such experiments. Ale-Yarok is opposed to animal experiments save in cases of valuable medical research. Ale-Yarok will work to prohibit animal husbandry techniques, which involve extreme cruelty such as force-feeding, sleep deprivation and inadequate living accommodations.

Ale-Yarok will work to place strict limitations on shows and public displays involving animals, and to ensure that animals participating in such shows that will be permitted shall be treated with dignity and care.

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