News Brief

The Knesset held a special session to discuss a court ruling allowing stores to sell chametz on Passover.

Last week, a judge of the Jerusalem Municipal Court dropped indictments against four restaurants and grocery shops for violating the country’s so-called “chametz law.” Five days before Passover, that is the ruling that stands.

The law, the Passover Bread Ban Act, forbids the public display of chametz, though many have interpreted it to mean that chametz may not be sold as well.

“The judge’s decision shows that she considers herself authorized to make decisions on a national issue,” said Knesset member Shmuel Halpert of the United Torah Judaism Party, who called Monday’s session. “The judge’s decision harms the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”

Meretz lawmaker Zahava Gal-On said, “The Passover Bread Ban Act shouldn’t be amended, it should be annulled. Since when does the entire Jewish identity depend on eating bread on Passover?

“I respect people’s right to believe and keep kosher on Passover, but I also respect people’s right to go into a private establishment and eat whatever they want. Coercion is not what Israel is about.”

Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik said she believes the fate of the law should be decided in the Knesset and not by the attorney general.

Jewish Democrats slammed former President Jimmy Carter for a planned meeting with Hamas leaders.

The National Jewish Democratic Council, calling Carter’s venture “cowboy diplomacy,” said in a mailing to members that it was not in U.S. or Israeli interests for the president who brokered the Israeli-Egyptian peace to meet with the exiled leader of the Hamas terrorist group, Khaled Meshaal.

It also described Carter’s past “one-sided reading of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Carter’s Middle East tour this week, to promote an end to the fighting and the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip-Israel border, has been criticized by the Bush administration and all three presidential candidates. He has been snubbed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other top Israeli leaders, and Israeli President Shimon Peres told him the meeting harmed the peace process.