'Protesters are wrong when they claim that this judicial reform will end Israeli democracy,' says Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz

 Last Night's Weekly Demonstration in Jerusalem Opposite the President's House

Q & A

The government's judicial overhaul putsch has elicited militant opposition.

For good reason. The Netanyahu government's goal is to enervate the judiciary and make the attorney general and state prosecutor stooges of the cabinet. It wants to drain the Supreme Court of its judicial review powers. Since Israel has no constitution or bill of rights, removing the only institution that checks the government's power would transform Israel into an illiberal democracy. Read up on judicial reform here:

The Israel Democracy Institute

Axios

Israel Hayom

Netanyahu refuses to be interviewed in the Hebrew press, but he has told foreign media outlets that "judicial reform" will improve Israel's democracy. The winner of the Pinocchio Prize told Fox News that he doesn't understand why there is so much interest in Israel's internal affairs. After all, he's "never commented about the internal debates in other democracies." And Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz writes in the JC, "Protesters are wrong when they claim that this judicial reform will end Israeli democracy." 

That very much depends on how you define "democracy." If you mean "pure majority rule" with no structural or constitutional protections for the minority, Israel will be more democratic like the UN General Assembly, where the raw majority rules. It's also a matter of aesthetics -- if you are comfortable shilling for Trump, Julian Assange, and Jeffrey Epstein, you might also feel Netanyahu's regime change putsch doesn't stink.

I don't get why things are so visceral?

Start by looking at who we are battling. The main component of the Netanyahu government is the post-Jabotinsky Likud; many of its MKs have floated into the party from the Haredi-Leumi planet or are garden-variety demagogues and ethno-pyromaniacs. 

Next come the Haredi-Leumi parties led by Ben-Gvir (Jewish National Front), Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party), and Maoz (Noam). All are messianic, apocalyptic, and blinkered. 

Rounding out the government are the ultra-Orthodox UTJ and Shas parties. They are benighted, reflect draft dodgers' interests, and are infamously intolerant. 

Together these radical political parties are trying to create an Israel in their own image.

So this is left versus right?

You're really not getting me. Most Israelis no longer see the political map that way. This is a struggle between liberalism and intolerance, middle-class values against authoritarianism, and cosmopolitanism versus parochialism. If you lived here, which vision would you prefer?

Granted, the "reasonableness" amendment to Israel's Basic Judiciary Law was passed by the Knesset 64-0, but you make it seem like the sky is falling...

"Judicial reform" is an amorphous bundle of proposed bills that elements in the government aim to pass into law. The ultimate outcome would be an Israel in which ultra-Orthodox rabbis (haredi and haredi- Leumi) have more power beyond their current control over "who is a Jew," kashrut, divorce, marriage, and burial.

Political power would be ever more concentrated in the extremist government, which anyway controls the Knesset.

When all is said and done, Israel's media (Kol Yisroel/Kan and Army Radio as well as Channel 11, 12, & 13) ) will be hamstrung, patronage appointees will upstage the professional civil service, budgetary resources will be redistributed to the kollel world, the Bank of Israel and the Bureau of Statistics will cater to the political whims of the government. So, too, the National Library. 

Already, West Bank settlement expansion no longer requires the approval of the political echelon, only a green light from "the Minister in the Ministry of Defense," Bezalel Smotrich, also Finance Minister.

And put aside the brain drain that will ensue if Netanyahu gets his way. Elite IDF units will be short on service personnel and training instructors. Doctors studying abroad or on foreign fellowships may not return. The high-tech sector will be depleted. Longterm, Washington and Western Europe will dissociate from us economically and diplomatically. 

Without a strong Supreme Court, our enemies will exploit their lawfare tools at The Hague and elsewhere. Until now, Israel's High Court of Justice has factored international law into its rulings. If the court is sidelined,  Israeli assertions that we honor international law are fatally undermined.

I just feel it will all work out in the end. The good news, at least, is that Likud ministers are saying they will not pursue any further legislation without a consensus.

Pleeeezzz! Insinuating that they will henceforth curb their rapacious appetites might just be a way to lull the opposition into sluggishness. I will take your sanguinity as naivete, not disingenuousness. 

My response is: "You're either part of the solution or part of the problem."  I mean you.

Or, put another way – "If You Can Keep Your Head When Everybody Round You Is Losing Theirs, Then Maybe You Don't Understand the Severity of the Situation."  

Wake up, for God's sake.

OK. OK. Maybe now is a good time for all sides to compromise?

Do you mean maybe we can settle for a semi-undemocratic Israel? Like Poland or Hungary.  Yair Lapid outlined the singular possible road to compromise in this Knesset speech. There needs to be an 18-month moratorium on regime change while talks to rebuild Israel's polity are conducted.

You have to acknowledge that the courts do have too much power…?

There is no question that Israel's political system needs reengineering – from how we elect the Knesset and the lack of genuine representation for everyone living between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan to restructuring numerous state institutions. 

Doing so calls for a constitutional assembly (like the one envisaged by our Declaration of Independence). You might say we need a Strategic Plan.

Fixing what's wrong should be done systematically, prudently, and by broad consensus, not by a bunch of extremists with a four-seat majority-riding shotgun over the rest of us.

Any further reading suggestions for this weekend?

Yes. These two...

BRET STEPHENS

Israel's Self-Inflicted Wound

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI

The wounded Jewish psyche and the divided Israeli soul