To My Friends in the Diaspora - Your Lifeboat is at Risk - Support the Campaign to Stop Netanyahu's Constitutional Putsch

 s://www.timesofisrael.com/largest-protests-yet.../

A word to my friends in the Diaspora.

The mass campaign to stop Netanyahu and his Hardal+Haredi bloc from undermining the constitutional rules of the political game in Israel needs your support.

This is not a left/right issue. This should not be an orthodox versus non-orthodox matter.

Netanyahu and his Hardal+Haredi block of extremists are not trying to “reform” the judicial system. I do not oppose judicial reform.

On trial for corruption, Netanyahu and his bloc aim to monopolize how judges are appointed, to politicize public broadcasting, the national bureau of statistics, and the national library. To transform Israel into a theocracy.

To allow felons to serve as cabinet ministers. They want to gut judicial review.

The protest campaign aims to save Israel from becoming a “democracy” based on pure majority rules, like Iran, Turkey, or Hungary. The campaign aims to preserve democratic values, which MUST rise above pure majority rules. Values like minority rights, checks & balances, separation of powers, and civil liberties. These should not depend on popular whim or votes in a Knesset where Netanyahu and his radical Hardal+Haredi allies have a 3-4 seat majority.

Pure majority rule happens in the UN General Assembly, where an automatic majority can condemn Israel at will.

This is a campaign that brings together a broad-based ad hoc coalition of political frenemies - refugees from the Jabotinsky camp of liberal nationalism and security hawks (like myself) alongside New Israel Fund/Meretz types and even wacko "anarchists."

The Third Commonwealth is at risk, so a united front is in order. If you can keep your head when everybody around you is losing theirs, then it is very probable that you don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.

If you appreciate what "democracy" really is, then you can appreciate that Israel is facing an unprecedented struggle.

Your lifeboat is at risk. Do not be lulled.