The year 2023 in Israel heralded its 37th Government since Independence in 1947. Netanyahu cobbled together an extreme right wing and religious coalition; giving away as many promises to his partners as had Kevin McCarthy, to gain the Speakership of the House of Representatives. Netanyahu, like his former soul mate Donald Trump, had a far more pressing problem than the welfare of his country, namely the threat of prison that his ongoing trial of corruption foretold.
The top priority of his bare majority administration was the axing of the Judicial system and the introduction of legislation that only allowed the Prime Minister to be removed if he himself so agreed or by a two thirds vote of the legislature, with no Judicial review. These issues have taken up the entire three months of the new Government's agenda in spite of the fact that the subject was not part of the election campaign of the Likud party.
Current Israeli law allows for a Prime Minister to be removed If a criminal investigation into him is imperiled by his conduct. The proposed legislation also annuls the separation of powers in the Israeli system and the issue precipitated the most widespread continuous opposition in the nation’s history. Besides the protests opinion polls show that two thirds of the population are against the legislation that has already passed the first of the three votes needed.
NETANYAHU AND HIS FAMILY - ISRAELI ARISTOCRACY
The current Prime Minister Netanyahu is the longest serving Premier in the nation’s short history - fifteen years. This is his sixth term. The latter facts alone are indicative of the ambivalence that the electorate has of him as he goes in and out of power. He is highly secular and is currently standing trial for corruption charges which he vigorously denies.
Benjamin Netanyahu by every analysis is Israeli aristocracy. Bibi, as he is known. was the first Israeli Prime Minister born in Israel after its Independence in 1949. All the other other previous incumbents were immigrants to the eventual Israel State. What is more his father and alter ego rolled into one, emigrated to the territory in 1920 and was considered one of the intellects of modern Israel. Bibi inherited his father’s drive and his giant chip on his shoulder. Benzion, the father, the foremost scholar on the Spanish Inquisition, had to move to the United States to further his academic career in the fifties. Not that daddy Netanyahu was a stranger to the United States having spent nearly a decade there as an activist to the founder of Israeli revisionism, Jabotinsky.
Benzion Netanyahu had the unique distinction of opposing the UN decision to create the state of Israel in 1948 because he opposed the partition into Israeli and Palestinian States. Ironically his allies were the surrounding Arab countries and the Palestinians themselves who immediately declared war in what is now referred to as The First Israeli War of Independence. Benjamin in his own way has developed the same destructive attitude to the Sate of Israel but nobody could have ever accused Benzion of being corrupt and acting in any way other than to further what he believed the Zionist State should be
Bibi was the second son the eldest being Yonatan, one of Israel’s greatest war heroes. He was the head of the elite commander unit that conducted the successful audacious Entebbe rescue of the hostages held by the Arafat’s Popular Liberation Front. Of the 106 hostages four remained behind as did Yonatan who was the only Israeli soldier killed in the rescue. Bibi’s eldest brother was a national hero, the raid being named after him .. then there were the movies….
Bibi, although he served with distinction in the military never reached the top leadership positions, unlike several of the latter day premiers such as Rabin, :Peres, Sharon and especially Barak and Gantz. Both the latter are very much alive and kicking and championing the opposition to BibI’s attempt at selling Israeli democracy down the river, many believe to avoid a prison sentence, at the expense of turning Israel into a theocracy.
ISRAEL’S JUDICIAL SYSTEM, THE “REFORMS” AND WHY
Israel like most democratic countries has an independent Judiciary. There are lower and higher courts, the highest being the Supreme Court. There are also separate military, religious, labor and administrative tribunals. The Supreme Court which has jurisdiction of all the other bodies as well as hearing appeals from the lower courts is the ultimate arbiter of the law and its interpretation, much like it is in the USA. However unlike the latter the politicians don’t control the membership. They have four representatives on the selection committee. Five of the nine members are made up of members of the Supreme Court, itself, (three), and members of the legal profession, (two). The Chairman of the Committee is the Minister of Justice who with the three current Supreme Court Justices may nominate a candidate who if elected is subject to a term and an age limit.
The reforms suggested are fairly drastic. First and foremost any decision by the Court can be overturned by the Israeli Knesset, (Parliament), by a simple majority. The government in power will have the decisive say as to who will be on the body. Israeli cabinet ministers can ignore the legal advice of their legal team, which under the current system they cannot.
One "reform" in which the court would not be able to review - namely that the attorney - general is no longer entitled to call for the Prime Minister to resign has already been passed However that law is still vulnerable unless the legislation to emasculate the Supreme Court is passed. Hence the urgency to do so by the current regime
It is fair to say that the Court is regarded as secular and left leaning politically. For the extreme right the major criticism has been their protection of Palestinian rights particularly in East Jerusalem and for the ultra orthodox their recognition of LGBT rights and their inability to enforce jewish law in institutions. In addition the extreme orthodox still want their children exempted from army service. The Court at the moment can overrule any administrative decision. An issue currently is that the extremely religious have ruled that over the Passover holiday ordinary bread cannot be brought to patients in hospitals. Under the "reforms" the Court would no longer be entitled to review this decision.
The net result of the introduction of all these "reforms" was that all hell broke loose in Israel..
THE PROTESTS AND REACTION
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For over three months now hundreds of thousands of Israelis have flocked to the streets waving flags and protesting. Bibi had to believe he could ride this one out but the numbers at protests have been growing. There is no central organization but there definitely has to be underground messaging to bring the masses out in short term notice. The crowds have literally on occasion brought the country to a standstill. When the USA Secretary of Defense visited Israel recently the roads surrounding the airport were blocked and the meetings with his counterpart had to be held at the Ben Gurion airport itself.
As the inactivity and intransigence of the Bibi coalition grew the consequences escalated. Nation wide strikes were organized threatening to grind Israel’s buoyant economy to a halt. Banks, ports, restaurants, airports, and business particularly restaurants shut. There was an outflow of capital. The normally resilient Israeli currency dropped five percent in one month. Citi Bank has predicted even greater losses if the situation does not settle Then there was the threat that those in the professions especially those in the digital world would leave. So the constitutional crisis has become an economic one as well.
Previous Prime Ministers, cabinet officials, intelligence and military officers all adding their five cents worth told the current Premier to cut it out. Bibi hung in claiming that the mobs had been instigated by a minority. He had already been warned by his own Attorney General that he should not be involved in the judicial legislation as he was subject to a criminal indictment. Bibi all but told him to jump in the lake and soldiered on.
The major crisis that ensued was what the Premier considered treasonous. The Defense Minister told him to drop the issue as reservists were stating that they would refuse to sign up under the current circumstances. Bibi then fired the Minister of Defense and threatened criminal prosecution of the reservists. As an indicator of Netanyahu’s loss of authority in the situation the Defense Minister refused to step down.
The bottom line is that Bibi was beginning to realize that this was out of control. The cherry on the top was when Biden felt forced to publicly condemn the Israeli moves and American Jewry distanced themselves from the Netanyahu regime.
THE AMERICAN SCENE AND BIBI
Netanyahu had long laughed off the bulk of American Jewry who are members of the Conservative or Reform movements. This is not the shrewdest of tactics when world Jewry amounts to fifteen million, eight of whom live iIsrael and about six million plus in America. There has been a longstanding tussle as to how the Right Wing Israeli extreme orthodoxy view this group.
Jewish organizations acted viscerally to the recent crisis. A 134 societies, religious groups and organizations, condemned the judicial legislation and petitioned Biden not to allow Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance, a visa for a business trip to the USA. Smotrich is distressingly provocative claiming for example that the Palestinians are not a people. Biden never took away Smotrich’s visa but there was no contact on a Government level. The only Jewish organization in America not to condemn the ongoing travesty is AIPAC, a pro Israel lobbying group. They have remained quiet.
Bibi has stated that his allies In America are the Christian Evangelicals who are a pro Israel block. Their religion maintains that the Messiah cannot return unless the State of Israel exists. It does not bother the Israeli Premier that on the arrival of the Messiah if the Jews fail to convert they will be killed, as he is profoundly secular!
So Netanyahu with disdain for the overwhelming majority of American Jews has another cross to bear as it were. History will confirm that it was by his efforts he initiated the breakdown of bipartisan political support for Israel. In March 2015, in an unprecedented move he bypassed the Democratic President of the United States and accepted an invitation to address Congress from the Republican Speaker. In that speech he lambasted President Obama and his prospective nuclear deal with Iran. Ironically it was Obama’s Vice President, the current President, Joe Biden who attempted to heal the wound that had been created by Netanyahu’s intervention in American politics on American soil.
BIDEN - NETANYAHU 2023
There was much back and forth in private between the American and Israeli government officials as the Biden administration tried to get Netanyahu to back down. Secretary of State Blinken reportedly warned him that he would come out of this like like Viktor Orban the authoritarian leader of Hungary, who Biden had pointedly not invited to his virtual indaba of a 120 democratic countries. But to no avail. Biden who rarely publicly negotiates, responding to immense pressure opined: “Like many strong supporters of Israel I’m very concerned,,,they cannot continue down this road. I’ve sort of made that clear. Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can work out some genuine compromise, That remains to be seen”.
To which Netanyahu responded, “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends”. Pretty rich from Bibi bearing in mind his mindless intervention in 2015 and that his coalition has not a plurality and two thirds of the Israelis are against his proposed legislation.
Biden’s rare public rebuke and non invitation of Netanyahu to the WhiteHouse sent additional shudders through the Israeli military and security establishments and exacerbated the financial implications of the move. Biden's warning plus the crescendering protests with their adverse economic and security impacts, resulted in the Premier calling it quits, at least for the moment. He agreed that he would not proceed with the legislation for a few weeks till the end of the Passover Festival.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
The largest irony of this whole sorry saga is that the protestors are the citizens responsible for the image of Israel that Bibi boasts about to the world - its economic success its leadership in technology particularly in start ups which rivals that of Silicon Valley with innovations such as desalination of sea water and WAZE, the original GPS. Also the security which he proudly states is his greatest achievement, is dependent on the military which is all but in open rebellion.
Likewise the source of the generous welfare provided to the ultra religious right has as its origin the entrepreneurship of the secular endeavors which has built the thriving economy, all of which is sinking as a result of the instability brought about the rush to axe the current democratic separation of powers.
There is an argument that this judicial fight is a proxy clash between the growing demographic of the ultra orthodox right who have large families, immigrants from Russia, Arica and former Arab countries versus the left wing secular Zionists who originally were the majority population of Israel. The logic continues that even if the liberal secular group win out in this battle they will lose in the long run. Fareed Zakaria challenged Ehud Barak a former Israeli Prime Minister, who was also a former Chief of Staff and Israel’s most decorated soldier, with the latter contention. Barak countered that the younger generation of the ultra orthodox demographic are more and more inclined to be educated in modern day curriculae and desire to do their share in military service. He stated that the issue for the moment was the ensuring of Israeli democracy.
There is little doubt that Netanyahu will not budge unless he is assured that he is not risking jail time. His flagrant disregard of his own attorney - general not to be involved in this judicial conflict is evidence, if any is needed, of that fact.
Jay H. Ell believes that if a deal is to emerge in this cooling off period between Gantz, Lapid and Barak on the one hand and Bibi’s Likud on the other it will be that members of the Likud party, two who are already at odds with the Premier, who will force it, Five are needed. Incidentally the protestors have made it quite clear that they are not about to fade.
The whole episode may catapult Israel into yet another General Election. It would be the fifth in just over two years.
The future of Israeli democracy for the meantime hangs in the balance.
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