Fifteen years ago, the Knesset passed the Knesset Museum Law. The law provided for the establishment of a museum to commemorate the first permanent residence of the Israeli parliament at 24 King George St. in Jerusalem, in which the Knesset held its sittings and carried out its parliamentary work in the years 1950 to 1966.
It wasn’t until 1955 that the decision was taken to construct the permanent Knesset building at its current location in the southeastern section of the government compound in Givat Ram. The building was completed in 1966. (An article I wrote about the construction of the Knesset building in Givat Ram may be found on the Knesset website, in Hebrew and English.)
In the meantime, the Knesset had moved among several temporary locations: first in Tel Aviv and then in Jerusalem. Finally, a structure that had been planned as a commercial building in the center of downtown Jerusalem was found to be most suitable as the home of the Knesset – the Frumin House. The space that was turned into the Knesset plenum, which has now been restored as closely as possible to its original shape and content, was to have been the main, high-ceilinged hall of a commercial bank.
It was only after the turn of the millennium, when a plan emerged to tear down the old, three-story building (which, contrary to affirmations in some of the articles about the new museum, is not considered Bauhaus in style) and build a commercial tower and a hotel in its place, that it was finally decided to declare the building a target for conservation.
In 2010, it was officially decided to turn the site into a museum for the (early) history of the Knesset, and its many achievements in laying the foundations for Israeli democracy. However, the words “Israeli democracy” are not mentioned in the law, though the Knesset speaker was given the power to hold other activities in the museum after consulting the advisory council established for the museum.
Back on June 16, 2010, when the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee finished preparing the Knesset Museum Bill for second and third readings, the committee’s chairperson, Zvulun Orlev (Bayit Yehudi), declared that “I think it is an important day for the Knesset, on which we received a location where it will be possible to disseminate the values of the Israeli democracy.” Why the word “democracy” was left out of the law itself is not clear.
Museum opening ceremony
At the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum last Monday, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana chose to highlight the anti-government protests of these days, which could deteriorate – so he warned – to an event such as took place in the old Knesset building on October 29, 1957, when a hand grenade was thrown from the plenum gallery down to the 12-seat government table (that was the number of ministers at the time), wounding several members of the government, including prime minister David Ben-Gurion.
What Ohana did not mention was that the background to the 1957 event was not political but connected to a mental health problem of the person who had thrown the grenade – Moshe Duek – while today’s events are the result of concerns about the alleged danger to the Israeli democracy as observed by large sections of the opposition. In his speech, Ohana called on the security forces to react harshly – not on the Knesset to alleviate the concerns of the opposition.
In his speech at the ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned democracy, but rather than speak of the Knesset’s contribution to democracy and the role the new museum can play in strengthening public awareness to the Knesset’s role in the Israeli democracy, he chose to focus on what he believes to be the broken balance among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and the excessive influence of the judiciary and judicial system.
What he appears to forget is that when former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak carried out his revolution that allegedly tipped the balance in favor of a liberal judiciary in the early 1990s, Dan Meridor of the Likud was justice minister, and the main driving force in the Knesset in this direction was the chairperson of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Uriel Lynn, also a member of the Likud.
In fact, of the three key speakers at the ceremony last Monday, only President Isaac Herzog alluded to the current danger to Israel’s fragile democracy, reminding the current government that it was prime minister Menachem Begin who stated on March 20, 1979, that “there are judges in Jerusalem” – the very same Supreme Court judges whom Begin’s current heirs are calling to ignore, and/or disobey.
Providing an informative experience
Hopefully the new museum, which combines the old-fashioned simplicity, modesty, and absence of sophisticated technologies in the running of the Knesset in the early days, with today’s sophisticated means – including AI – which have been used with great care and imagination in the museum’s layout, will provide the Israeli public at large with an informative and enjoyable learning experience.
The tender for tour guides for the new museum included the following job description: “The museum will offer an audio-visual experiential display that will enable visitors to participate in the central events that shaped the Israeli democracy.”
The museum's director, Moshe Fuksman-Sha’al, explained the purpose in an article he wrote for the museum’s guidebook, titled “A Small House in the Hub of the City” in which he quoted the words of the speaker of the 11th Knesset (1984-1988) Shlomo Hillel (Labor) who said that “Democracy like justice, must not only be practiced, but also seen.”
The question is how the tour guides will manage to get by the dissonance between what is happening in today’s Knesset, including the recent ousting of MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) from the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee – because of his opposition to the sweeping release of all haredi (ultra-Orthodox) youth from military service – and what is displayed in the Knesset Museum.
It is not just the tour guides who are liable to find themselves in a state of dissonance. The same applies to the political leaders of the current Knesset.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994-2010, she worked in the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.