Netanyahu’s reforms: an existential threat to Israel?

“What finally got me was the selfie,” said Michael Oren in The Times of Israel (Jerusalem).

Moments after pushing through a highly contentious bill depriving Israel’s supreme court of the right to override government decisions it deems “unreasonable”, members of PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition crowded around the justice minister, Yariv Levin, for a celebratory photograph in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “Their expressions were glowing, triumphant.” Meanwhile outside, “tens of thousands of protesters reeled over the loss of the Israel they loved”. This troubling moment starkly illustrated the divide that has been tearing Israel apart for seven months.

‘Wholesale demolition of checks and balances’

Passed in the Knesset by 64 votes to none, following an opposition boycott of the vote, the bill forms part of a concerted effort by Netanyahu’s government to “recast Israel in its own illiberal image”, said Esther Solomon in Haaretz (Tel Aviv). It’s a harbinger of a “wholesale demolition of checks and balances” – and could mark the beginning of the end of Israeli democracy.

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On the contrary, said Morton A. Klein in Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv), “those of us who believe in democracy and the rule of law” should cheer the passing of this bill. The “reasonableness” test was always an unsafe standard by which to hold politicians to account: it allowed the supreme court to strike down the actions of a democratically elected government purely on the basis that they didn’t conform to a judge’s “personal opinion and worldview”. It would have been a travesty if the “left-wing mobs” who have unleashed chaos on our streets had succeeded in blocking these vital reforms. Israel’s governing parties – elected on a 71% turnout – campaigned for judicial reforms and have a mandate to carry them out, agreed Joseph Frager on Arutz Sheva (West Bank). Moreover, thousands of people have joined pro-reform protests. Shouldn’t their voices be heard, too?

‘Not the end of Israeli democracy’

Arguments that Israel’s justice system needs a shake-up aren’t without merit, said Bret Stephens in The New York Times. The country’s judiciary is “unusually powerful”, and has arrogated powers to itself that were “never democratically given” and would be deemed political elsewhere. But scrapping the supreme court’s “reasonableness” test isn’t the answer: it’s an important check on executive power in a country with no written constitution. Alas, these reforms look like a naked attempt by Netanyahu’s governing partners to achieve “impunity from a court that has tried to hold them to account”.

This is not “the end of Israeli democracy”, said Yaakov Katz in The Jerusalem Post. But this saga has fuelled a sense among Israelis that their country is “starting to collapse”, with dire consequences. Business people are moving assets out of the country; applications for second passports are reported to be surging; doctors and military reservists are downing tools in protest; and Israel’s reputation in Europe and the US – where President Biden took the unusual step of criticising the bill – is taking a major battering.

‘The weakest PM Israel has ever had’

“This is a crisis of Netanyahu’s making,” said the FT. Desperate to return to power last year after 18 months in opposition, he joined forces with ultraorthodox Jews and “fringe elements” of Israel’s right-wing to form the most ultranationalist government in his country’s history. Now, he is beholden to extremists who want to force through even more contentious reforms, including giving ruling coalitions control over judicial appointments, and handing parliament the ability to “override”, with a simple vote, some supreme court decisions. If he presses on, he’ll exacerbate the gravest domestic crisis Israel has faced since its founding; if he blinks, “he risks his coalition crumbling”.

Netanyahu, whose trial on corruption charges is ongoing, is now “the weakest PM Israel has ever had”, said Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz. Having missed vital negotiations while he had a pacemaker fitted, he failed to cajole his coalition partners into delaying last week’s vote while he sought a compromise with opposition parties, and no longer even has a solid grip on his own party. Netanyahu, in short, has “become irrelevant”.