'Judicial Reform' is being used as a Trojan Horse to establish a reactionary regime in Israel

Thoughts on the matzav or situation:

1. The political crisis here in Israel is extraordinary. We are witnessing a drive toward regime change led from within, ala Donald Trump but with none of America's constitutional guardrails.

2. It is disheartening to realize that there is a solid demographic base here that wants an illiberal Israel. Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 TV is seeing its ratings climb partly because its charter allows the channel to concentrate on “current events” with minimal general or entertainment programming. The government's long-term strategy is to defund Kol Yisroel/Kan television and radio as well as Army Radio. Both outlets are independent of the government and sometimes critical of its policies.

3. Thankfully, Israel Today, a tabloid that appeals to right-leaning readers, offers balanced news/views – thank you, Dr. Adelson.

4. If only the issue was simply judicial reform, compromise would be possible. Instead, what is at stake is regime change led by a slim parochial and reactionary majority in the Knesset.

5. If you want a sense of the nadir to which Netanyahu has brought us...listen and watch. You've probably never seen this man interviewed. He's Eliezer Shkedi, the former head of the IAF, who keeps a low profile. Never entered politics. This is in Hebrew.  Pick up at 1300 –

https://www.mako.co.il/news-channel12?subChannelId=cc60351d23006810VgnVCM100000700a10acRCRD&vcmid=7f80f6220a8b6810VgnVCM100000700a10acRCRD&fbclid=IwAR1-jZt0KeVZdsXu7e-NqeNcN6sOuE-4AsEoHg2as1YnqXce1FsVCFC4-KE

5. What can you do if you live in the US or UK, or Australia –?

Foremost stop sending money to Hardal & Haredi institutions of all kinds. Your money is fungible.

Secondly, do not finance groups that are stoking war with Islam. Or groups that provide for the legal defense of Jewish terrorists.

Do not donate to organizations promoting Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount or those that want to build within the Arab enclaves of Jerusalem. These are not innocuous, apolitical, consensus goals. Even though they'd like you to think otherwise.

6. Think twice about associating with any of the think tanks, philanthropic agencies, or advocacy groups that have backed judicial overhaul in Israel. Not because some judicial reform isn’t necessary but because “judicial reform” is being used as a Trojan Horse to establish a reactionary regime in this country.

7. We are belatedly hearing some of the original (English-speaking) ideologues of judicial reform acknowledge that things have gone too far, too fast. And that maybe they were being used.

8. Be mindful of where you get your news/views –  all pro-Netanyahu outlets and virtually all Orthodox-leaning outlets are backing regime change, some with velvety understatement, others by taking an in-your-face approach. 

9. Unfortunately,  left-wing platforms are taking advantage of the right’s moral fall to push a broader agenda beyond stopping regime change. Yet this crisis makes for strange bedfellows. Given the current emergency, better Haaretz than Arutz-7!

Your safest bet is The Times of Israel --  https://www.timesofisrael.com/

10. Take what is happening here to heart. Do not be sanguine. Israel is your lifeboat.

There is little time – maybe until Passover – to stop the Netanyahu-Hardal-Haredi onslaught.  Alas, some of the damage to Israel's standing may be irreparable.

11. Do not be lulled by talk of compromise. It is not on the cards so long as the coalition refuses to declare an unconditional moratorium on their legislative crusade.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/crunch-time-for-israeli-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR02JwfGXdbcPVVFYSGhtZv0GXqrde3mJAOEmBrprh__03GRHlH5bTgINms  

12. Civil disobedience is rife.  The overwhelming majority of protesters are not "anarchists" or "leftists" but anxious patriots who pay taxes, serve in the IDF and fear the ethos of the country is being hijacked.

Meanwhile, farcically, Itamar Ben Gvir is the highest law enforcement official in the country, having been appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is presently on trial for a series of criminal offenses.

13. Venture capital is drying up. High-tech folks are exploring relocating. The National Library is under threat of a political takeover. So is the Bureau of Statistics.  

That is the context for understanding why IDF reservists are talking about not reporting for duty. To top it off,  Haredi ministers in the government represent parties that oppose IDF service for their constituents. Hardal ministers argue their rabbis should have veto power over IDF orders. And a Hardal minister in the Defense Ministry (who happens also to be Finance Minister) advocates the state engage in war crimes. 

14. Civil liberties are on the line. The Shekel drops. Iran threatens. The West Bank seethes. Gaza threatens. Hizbollah plots. 

Yet Netanyahu and his enablers are willing to rip this country apart. 

He to stay out of prison, and they to refashion Israel in their own benighted image in which --  Purim plays for children are nixed because they feature female actresses, hospital patients (who may not even be Jewish) are forbidden to eat bread on Pesach, and earthquakes are blamed on homosexuality.

This is not a drill. And Netanyahu is to blame.

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.

NETANYAHU IS TO BLAME

What Netanyahu's Likud, along with its Hardal and Haredi collaborators, are doing is equivalent to committing Oslo to the domestic body politic.

By a three-vote majority, Netanyahu has just won the first Knesset round that would give him the power to select judges (recall he’s on trial and may need to appeal before the judges he picks) and effectively end judicial review by the High Court.

We are heading to pure majority rule predicated on a margin of 3-4 Bibi-loyalist Likudnikim and politico-Haredi extremists, thereby embarking on the road to illiberal democracy - the last stop- perhaps being a theocracy.

They want to end the Supreme Court's power of judicial review as it relates to fundamental values.

They want to defund public broadcasting and will be bolstering their own pro-government channel 14.

They want to pass coercive religious promulgations.

They want to allow convicted criminals to serve in the cabinet.

They have normalized thuggery and racism in the Knesset.

They want to push the Palestinian Arabs to the wall to ignite a religious war.

And they want to fundamentally alter the rules of the game and the ethos of the state on the basis of a slim Knesset majority.

NB For a reasoned critique of Netanyahu's regime change efforts, read David Horovitz here:

Several friends have asked for a source in English for news in Israel. My recommendation is The Times of Israel.

Democratic Values & Civil Liberties are at Risk in Israel as Netanyahu and allies pursue Regime Change

Israel only finds itself at this junction because of the (criminal) Trials of Netanyahu.

Each day reveals new aspects of his vindictive plans for regime change.

Times like these make for strange political bedfellows. The stakes are so high. The ethos of Herzlian Zionism is at risk. What matters is blocking constitutional transformations that would rob Israelis of civil liberties and the values that give the word "democracy" meaning.

<>Netanyahu’s demagogic minister of information has declared that Kol Yisroel / Kan public broadcasting is “racist.” She and Netanyahu want to close publicly supported media outlets.

<>His multiple ministers of religion want gender segregation in our national parks.

<>Without fanfare in Jerusalem, public libraries are already segregated.

<> One of his supporters wants to authorize physicians not to treat Arabs.

<> He has robbed the Minister of Defense of key powers to operate in the West Bank, handing them instead to the leader of the Hardal Religious Zionist Party.

<>He has promised the King of Jordan that there will be no changes in the status quo on the Temple Mount. Yet everyone can see the changes - thousands more visitors, prayers, genuflecting. And his Minister of Internal security is hinting at animal sacrifices for the Passover holiday.

<>Museums open for free to the public on Shabbat are to be closed or forced to charge admission (robbing observant people of the chance to visit)

<>Talmud study will be considered a core educational value and financially rewarded, while English and math will not be required in Haredi schools.

<> A Who’s Who of Israeli economists, Nobel Prize winners among them, and central bankers, many recruited and appointed by Netanyahu, are warning that his plans for regime change will undermine foreign investment in our economy. He dismisses them as leftists and fear-mongers.

<> Law school deans, venture capitalists, medical school deans, and the leaders of our hi-tech community have all come up against regime change.

<> One of his MKs, a former editor who quit 'Israel Today' when it stopped blindly backing Netanyahu, plans to introduce legislation to make it illegal for a secret recording to be used in press exposes. This (according to a secret recording of him!) is just the start of efforts to curb press freedom.

<>Another minister wants to end the generation of electricity on Shabbat.

<> Yet another wants to end all infrastructure work on Shabbat (keeping in mind that Sunday is a regular work day and many children have school on Friday). Much of this work is anyway done by non-Jews.

Lots of folks are piggybacking on the anti-regime change protests. Channel 14 (which is loyal to Netanyahu) reported that the New Israel Fund is financing protests against Netanyahu. I have no reason to doubt this.

But like Donald Trump and Netanyahu himself, not everything the NIF does is wrongheaded. In this instance -- whatever its ulterior motives -- the ends justify the means. After all, Israel is facing its greatest constitutional crisis since 1948.

Most rallies have been organized as cross-party Big Tent protests against regime change based on a single Knesset election (resulting in a 64-56 Knesset). The judicial system needs reform, but it has to come as part of a coherent constitutional plan for Israel, not as a “get-out-of-jail” card for demagogues.

I oppose radical alterations in the judiciary that set the stage for democracy based on pure majority rule. Do we want Israel to be like the UN General Assembly and suffer from the tyranny of the majority?

Those trying to hijack our protest movement to fly enemy flags or carry unrelated banners are playing into the hands of the Netanyahu-Haredi-Hardal camp’s claim that the opposition is comprised of radical, the Godless, and leftists. The negative elements exploiting our protest have their own agenda, and there is no reasoning with them any more than with the Bibists/Hardalnikim and Haredim in control of the government.

Now is the time for liberal Jabotinsky nationalists, centrists, Zionist left-wingers, and indeed Israeli citizens of all stripes and hues to focus on one goal: blocking regime change that will turn this country into a Hardal/Haredi theocracy with limited civil liberties.

For more information, go to 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1512241989262016

To book me to speak to your group or for a briefing on your next visit to Israel email me ej5@nyu.edu

THIS IS US A demographic Look at Israel 2023

Join us this Monday, January 9, at 10:30 AM

Rehovot 

Community Center

Haim Sireni 52 

For a Talk by

ELLIOT JAGER

THIS IS US

A demographic Look at Israel

Who are we? Where do you fit in?

 

The headlines tell us Israel is divided and at a crossroads.

“Ben Gvir faces a dilemma as activists ask to hold Passover sacrifice on Temple Mount”

“Jewish extremists appear to vandalize Christian graves in Old City”

“Israel’s Justice Minister Levin presents dramatic court reforms”

“New government fails to invite AG to the first cabinet meeting, amid threats to fire her”

“‘Override Clause’ Would allow Knesset to pass laws that contradict the country’s 12 Basic Laws and Eliminate the Supreme Court’s ability to Nullify them”

 

Elliot Jager will paint a timely demographic portrait

of Israeli society in 2023

 

Elliot is an NYU-trained political scientist, author, and book editor. He was the editorial page editor at the Jerusalem Post, Jewish world editor at The Jerusalem Report, founding managing editor of Jewish Ideas Daily (Mosaic) and a writer for Newsmax. He is currently working on a primer aimed at Millennials and Zoomers about Jewish Civilization.