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“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday put off a decision on bitterly contested plans for a judicial overhaul amid fears that Israel's worst national crisis in years could fracture his coalition or escalate into violence…
“The government's plan to enable parliament to override Supreme Court decisions and hold control over judicial appointments triggered some of the biggest protests in Israeli history, with opponents calling the move a threat to democracy.” Reuters
The right generally supports the proposed reforms, but urges Netanyahu to negotiate with the opposition.
“The pause is a setback for those who want maximalist reforms, especially giving power to the legislature to overrule any decision by the Supreme Court. That seems to be the plank most unacceptable to the opposition. But that still leaves plenty of room for negotiations over other reforms, such as imposing some political balance to the Supreme Court’s power to choose its own members. Imagine what America’s left would do if U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas could choose their successors…
“Opposition leaders said Monday they’re open to negotiations, and Histadrut, the labor federation, said it would call off the strike. Let’s hope they mean it, despite the temptation for opponents to think they have Mr. Netanyahu’s government on the run… Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition ran and won election on the issue of judicial reform, even if not on every detail of what was eventually proposed.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“As in the U.K., Netanyahu wants a majority vote in parliament to be able to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. This might or might not be a good constitutional framework, but it cannot be considered extremist per se… [But] Firing his defense minister over the weekend for calling for the reforms to be suspended, Netanyahu has enabled the protest movement to present him as a malevolent dictator in waiting rather than as a bungling political strategist…
“That brings us to Netanyahu's second problem: the price he had to pay in order to get this compromise. The price is that Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, will get the formation of a new national guard unit… As tensions rise with Iran, Israel needs a strong prime minister who can command national unity. Netanyahu instead appears a hostage both to public fury and to the most extreme elements of his own government.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“No constitution. No limiting principles of governance. Entrenched leftist judges who get to appoint their own successors in perpetuity. Courts that offer arbitrary, expedient, constantly evolving, sometimes contradictory rulings to block laws passed by duly-elected, center-right governments. An attorney general empowered to bar elected leaders from participating in national debates. Sounds like a progressive paradise…
“This is the reality of the Israeli high court, which is likely imbued with more power than any other in the Western world. It is not always wrong. It is not always nakedly partisan. But it has power to act as a judicial dictatorship, and often does.”
David Harsanyi, The Federalist
The left criticizes the proposed reforms, arguing that they are a threat to democracy.
The left criticizes the proposed reforms, arguing that they are a threat to democracy.
“Israel’s Supreme Court is arguably the most powerful such body in the world, and experts and politicians have long called for a recalibration of its powers. But the radical wish list produced by Netanyahu’s coalition seeks not to reform the court but to neuter it, and would essentially allow the ruling government to appoint all judges and override their decisions. This plan was composed in the halls of conservative think tanks, with no input from opposition parties and no attempt to broker a national consensus…
“The mass movement [against the plan] brought together previously unimaginable bedfellows—including the conservative family of Israel’s first Likud prime minister, Menachem Begin, and the elected leaders of both Israel’s Arab parties. Business and technology leaders openly came out against the judicial plan and began shifting capital out of Israel… Most remarkable, many Israelis in elite army units declared that they would refuse to serve if the legislation passed. Israel has a citizen’s army populated by a universal draft, and this sort of mass disobedience was both unprecedented and a genuine threat to the country’s national security.”
Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic
“Only a minority of Israelis support the controversial reforms, and the vast majority want a compromise. Many agree with the assessment of the renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari. ‘History,’ he wrote in a column for the Guardian, ‘is full of dictatorships established by people who first came to power through legal means. It’s the oldest trick in the book: first you use the law to gain power, then you use your power to distort the law.’…
“Israelis have demonstrated their passion for democracy and their unbreakable willingness to defend it. In the process, they may just be writing the new playbook for people in other democratic nations seeking to defend the system against power grabs by calculating politicians.”
Frida Ghitis, CNN
“Netanyahu convinced his extremist minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to stay on his side and agree to the delay — and it is just a delay, about a month — on a dangerous condition: that the government pass a bill that would create a National Guard under his command. Putting a new paramilitary unit under the control of a convicted terrorist supporter who used to hang a picture of a mass murderer in his home is not exactly a sign that Israel is out of the authoritarian woods…
“Meanwhile, Netanyahu remains in office while facing corruption charges and has shown a willingness to bend the state’s institutions to his will to stay in power… [He] is backing down from his power grab for now. But Israel’s crisis isn’t over.”
Zack Beauchamp, Vox
