As I wrote
a month ago, Israel’s religious and rightwing parties won a major victory in
Israel’s November 1 elections, winning 64 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (53
percent versus 47 percent), and this after three years of stagnation and
stalemate. When one considers that 10 of the losing seats went to Arab parties,
who will never be a part of the rightwing, and that four politically
prominent rightwing Knesset members (Avigdor Liberman, Gideon Saar, Matan
Kahane, and Dov Elkin) were part of the losing side, the rightwing victory
within the Jewish population was much more pronounced than 53 percent (58 to 42
percent or, arguably, 61 percent to 39).
Yet anyone who reads the recent news about Israel has
probably noticed that, over the past month, Israel has seen large weekly
demonstrations, organized by the leftwing parties that lost the election. The
demonstrators at these mass demonstrations, mostly centered in Tel Aviv, are
claiming that “Israeli democracy is dead,” or that “Israel’s economy is on the
brink of collapse,” or “Israel is on the brink of civil war,” or that “Israel’s
best and brightest are getting ready to leave the country.”
* * *
What is this all about? You walk down the street, and the sun
is still shining. The stores are still open. People are going to work. The
healthcare system is still the best there is. What are these demonstrators
talking about? Have they all gone crazy?
Along the same lines, thousands of prominent people in Judea
and Samaria, where I live, have received the following Whatsapp:
Hi [first name], how are you? I’d be grateful for your
confirming receipt of my Whatsapp and signing the following petition. The
petition will appear in newspapers as part of a large campaign to advance
dialogue one moment before we come to civil war:
We, the silent
majority, men and women from all shades of the social spectrum, call upon the
political system, the coalition, and the opposition – and the public that supports
the reforms and the one that is opposed, to stop the downward spiral. We have
known many controversies during the 75 years of our existence, and we have also
known how to solve them. At the same time, we have seen where coercion and
violence lead us. We have seen where the rift between parts of the nation can
lead. The deliberation over the judicial reform is liable to deteriorate beyond
the bounds of civil discourse, and we fear that it will drive the State of
Israel to civil war, G-d forbid. The time for dialogue is now.
* * *
What do these words mean? Who is writing them? Who has
threatened civil war? What coercion are they referring to?
What is happening is obvious. The leftwing is so used to
running things, even when they lose elections, that they are presently in a
panic over the election results. For them, “democracy” means their remaining in
charge, because they know best. It is no coincidence that during the past 75
years, there has been only one
non-Ashkenazic Supreme Court justice, even though Sefardim constitute
the majority of Jews in Israel. One way that the Left remains in charge
is through the enormous power held by a perennially far-leftwing Supreme Court.
The true meaning of “democracy,” majority rule, is far beyond their ability to
fathom.
Yet
as I said, in these elections, the rightwing and religious won. A major issue
of the elections was “judicial reform.” The reforms in
question, as presented by Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) and as pursued
by Knesset Legal-Committee head, Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), will place
limits on the Supreme Court’s capacity to strike down laws and government
decisions. At the same time, there will be an “override clause,” enabling the
Knesset, with a majority of 61, to re-legislate struck-down laws. The
government will have more say in the selection of Supreme Court judges. The
Court’s ability to use the yardstick of “reasonableness” to annul government
decisions will be refined. Finally, ministers will be allowed to appoint their
own legal advisers, instead of having to accept as law the counsel received
from the attorney general. The justice minister has stated that he hopes to
enact these reforms by April.
Since the days of
Aharon Barak, who headed the Israeli Supreme Court from 1995 until 2006, the Supreme
Court has been noted for its judicial “activism.” In other words, they stuck
their noses where they had not previously, nullifying life-and-death decisions
by the government when those decisions favored the Right. Considering that almost
all of the Supreme Court judges vote far-left, it was as though the Left could
win elections even when they lost them, through the tampering of the Supreme Court.
Thousands of Jews have been evacuated from their homes in the Land of Israel,
and decisions by the army to demolish Arab homes to prevent or deter future
Arab terror have been overridden by the Supreme Court – once again, as
though a leftwing government had won the elections. It is natural and normal
for a rightwing Knesset to take issue with this state of affairs and to effect
changes, turning back the clock to the days before Aharon Barak.
*
* *
The problem with
the Supreme Court is not going to go away. It is getting worse. Just a month
ago, the Supreme Court ruled that, because the leader of the Shas Party, Aryeh
Deri, was previously convicted in 2018 of minor offenses, he cannot be the interior
minister, the position Binyamin Netanyahu awarded him in exchange for his
joining the coalition. Now you might ask: To be disqualified as a minister, his
conviction must have constituted “moral turpitude,” yet that charge was never
made during his trial. How then can he be disqualified? The answer of the
Supreme Court is simple: They said: “True, his act was not deemed moral
turpitude at the time, but that was an unreasonable decision. We
consider his actions morally turpitude, and we will invalidate him.”
Worse, the Supreme
Court, led by its attorney general, is presently beginning to mull over the
idea that Binyamin Netanyahu should be suspended from serving as prime minister
because he is on trial. Never mind that the prosecution, after three years, is
not getting anywhere. The same Supreme Court, which indicted Netanyahu on
trumped-up charges to try to remove him from politics, is now going to try to
suspend him, even though 60 percent of Jewish voters voted for Netanyahu and
his camp not only despite his being on trial but because he was
placed on trial.
So far, these ideas about suspension are just
background noise, but I think we are soon going to hearing more about this, and
the conversation is going to become more strident.
*
* *
So, does the newly
elected government have the moral right to undo some of this “judicial
activism,” or does this constitute “the end of democracy,” as the Left is now
claiming in its demonstrations? Well, creating an override clause such as Yariv
Levin’s was certainly part of the platform of Naftali Bennett when he
was prime minister, even if Bennett’s right-hand man, Matan Kahane, can now be
seen on the internet browbeating Yariv Levin for trying to do the same thing.
We might ask what
Bennett’s partner in that “unity government,” recent Prime Minister Ya’ir
Lapid, thought of such reforms. Lapid is the head of Yesh Atid, the largest
party that lost the November elections but won 24 seats. As such, he was
automatically named the official head of the political opposition to the
present government. Lapid, a talented actor, journalist, and novelist, is not
much of an idealogue when it comes to politics. One week he believes and
espouses one set of beliefs; the next week he espouses different beliefs
entirely. What he enjoys doing is playing with words. Where does he stand on judicial
reform?
Here is Yair Lapid in 2014, expressing his views on the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court justices of Aharon Barak’s
activist school look at Israel’s politicians and say to themselves, “They’re
good guys, but when it comes to ruling, that’s beyond them. They are too
political, too superficial, too corrupt, and too busy with the approaching
primaries instead of the public good.”
There are hundreds of examples of
the process whereby they are taking control. First they take control of the
political dialogue, and then they take control of decision making.
And here is Lapid in 2016, expressing his view
on judicial reform:
I was opposed – and I am still opposed – to the juridical
activism coming out of the “beis midrash” of the honorable Judge Aharon Barak.
It doesn’t seem right to me to say, “Everything is judicable.” It doesn’t seem
right to me that the Supreme Court should turn the world upside down based on
the principle of the “reasonable person,” which is a totally unclear,
subjective gauge of measurement which the Knesset has never introduced into its
law books. It doesn’t seem right to me that separation of powers should be
nullified, when it is the hallowed foundation of the democratic system, and
that one branch of government should place itself above another.
So it sounds like Lapid is in favor of Levin’s reforms, does it not? But
now he is being blamed for the Left’s loss in the November elections. He is
very unpopular, and the entire Left is dead set on halting Yariv Levin’s reform
measures. With his back to the wall, Lapid must present himself as more
anti-Netanyahu and more opposed to the judicial reforms than anyone else. So
here is Ya’ir Lapid in February 2023:
What
Yariv Levin presented today is not a legal reform, it is a threat. They
threaten to destroy the entire constitutional structure of the State of Israel…We
will continue to fight, we will return, we will cancel everything.…If this legislation passes, the
democratic chapter in the life of the state will end….We have no
intention of staying silent while the incoming government attempts to run
roughshod over the law-abiding, taxpaying, and army-serving public….We are not
their pushovers. We won’t let them normalize criminality.
When asked how the judicial reforms will lead to economic collapse, Lapid
responds:
Imagine
this: There is a large meeting room. There is a BIG FISH investor who invests
hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the world, and he is considering
investing in Israel. He summons his financial analyst…. The investor asks his
analyst, “Tell me. Nowadays, is Israel a good place to invest?” and the analyst
answers no. So he asks him, “Why not?” And the analyst replies, “The government
is unstable. There is chaos. There are extremists in the government. There is
an enormous mess with the judicial system, and if someone messes with us, there
will be no one to protect us.” So the investor asks, “What should I do?” and
the analyst replies, “Go invest in Singapore.”
*
* *
I leave it to the
reader to analyze the quality and honesty of these arguments. The remaining
question is this: Are all of these demonstrations going to fizzle out, or are
they going to grow in fervency and might as the Leftist organizers hope,
inching towards civil war?
I think they are
going to fizzle out. When all is said and done, we are only talking about
instituting legal changes to make Israel more like Canada. I think more and
more people will understand the truth, seeing through the propaganda of the
Left, as they have generally been doing here in Israel for the past 75 years.
At least that is
my hope and prayer.
