Winning an Election is not a License for Regime Change. Netanyahu's Pledge to 'Delay' Putsch Ain't Good Enough

In times like these, I get a pretty clear picture of peoples’ values. Sometimes they are cloaked in eloquent punditry championing “judicial reform,” and other times, they come out in spit and invective from frothing mouths.

Either way, I take perverse comfort in knowing these folks are not on my side.

Some say that the 'nationalist' and 'religious' voters who gave the Likud-Hardal-Haredi bloc a four-seat Knesset majority should be allowed to do whatever they want with this majority, or else I am showing 'contempt' for these sensitive souls.

But the only contempt I have is for those who are shoving regime change down my throat and calling it judicial reform.

So here's a straightforward set of questions to clarify whether you stand with decency or fanaticism:

1.    Do you support giving Itamar Ben Gvir his own personal taxpayer-funded militia answerable only to him? A sort of Phalange territorial army?

2.    Would you have preferred that "judicial reform" be part of a consensus-based Constitution for Israel? A Constitution that incorporates the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Basic Laws? Perhaps based on the work of the late Prof. Ruth Gavison?

3.    In your mind, are the tens of thousands of protesters against the Netanyahu-Levin-Hardal-Haredi government essentially "leftists" and "anarchists?" engaged in a "coup?"  Or are they primarily centrist patriots? The kind of middle-of-the-road people who do IDF reserve duty and pay taxes...

4. What do you feel when you hear louts and thugs scream “death to Arabs” as soon as they see a TV News camera?

5. Do you think a Defense Minister should be fired if he brings the Prime Minister information and urges policies he doesn’t want to hear? Advice that is for the good of the country? The same kind of guidance the heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF are also delivering…

6. Do you agree with bills introduced by members of the Netanyahu-Levin-Hardal-Haredi coalition that would allow police searches of private Arab homes without warrants?

7. Do you want to give the ruling party of the Knesset control over the Central Elections Committee?

8. Would you give the government political control over the National Bureau of Statistics?

9. Do you desire to send Christians to prison if they try to sell Jesus and their religion to Israeli adults?

10. Do you want a Knesset majority to be able to overturn the rulings of the Supreme Court? So, for example, if a Knesset legislates that men and women must sit separately on intercity buses to/from predominantly ultra-Orthodox cities and the court negates the law, the Knesset will have the power to disregard the court.

11. Do you support the "gifts law" allowing unrestricted and anonymous gift-giving to public servants and politicians?

12. Do you favor a bill that would immunize a crooked prime minister from legal prosecution?

13. Do you condone a law prohibiting investigative journalists from disseminating politicians' recordings without their consent?

14. Do you back the Deri law to allow convicted politicians to serve as ministers?

15. Do you support weakening the internal affairs branch of the police, which investigates police violence?

16. Do you support a Western Wall law specifying prison time for women dressed "immodestly" at the holy plaza?

17. Do you want a law that tells Muslims and Christians they can't bring their hospitalized relatives food that isn't kosher for Passover?

Here is the bottom line. The Netanyahu-Levin-Hardal-Haredi government is not striving for judicial reform but regime change. And winning an election does not give them a license to overhaul the political system without the consensus of the governed. Theirs is a package deal of reactionary legislation. And they keep adding to the package. When all will be said and done, they will not only have changed how judges are selected for the court but the ethos of the country.

Some of them want an Israel whose regime is rooted in Halacha (as interpreted by the fundamentalist Orthodox), while others want to follow lockstep in the footsteps of American conservative legal ideologues.  

As for me, I want a tolerant, Jewish, and democratic Israel.  Those are my values.

Last night, caving to pressure from Israel's majority, Netanyahu said he would delay his putsch by a few months. Delay is simply not good enough.