With a major war not too far to the north of Israel-Palestine (Kyiv — Tel Aviv is a 3-hour flight), and a devastating earthquake even closer to home (note: Israel-Palestine too, sits on a major fault that connects with the East Anatolian fault; I-P’s building stock is likely just as unprepared as Turkey’s and Syria’s) - recent domestic drama in Israel-Palestine, a country so used to the global limelight, may have gone under the radar.
But for a couple months now, a large segment of Israel’s population has been out in the streets. My extended family’s WhatApps have been full with selfies taken at demonstrations, pictures of the huge crowds, links to impassionate speeches and background material, and calls for yet more demonstrations.
On Monday there was a widespread national strike, and a massive rally near the parliament in Jerusalem. Among the participants were my older brother, 2 sisters-in-law, several nieces and nephews and numerous cousins. Some of my extended family members have become almost full-time activists, the way I was in 2001-2002 before moving to the States.
What’s going on?
Below the fold you’ll find an attempt to understand and explain, from a strictly pro-democracy, anti-racist and historically aware perspective (in American terms: “Woke”). You won’t find much of that perspective in mainstream Israeli or Western press; the largest outlet conveying such a perspective is probably the independent +972 Magazine. (ok, also sometimes the Guardian, but not consistently so)
So consider yourself lucky. Or not.
And if commenting, please do behave yourself :)
Remember we are all on the same page here, trying to make the world better, more democratic and more equitable.
Keep in mind that I happen to be from Israel, and am very well informed about its political/policy system and history. If what you read in this diary seems jarring to you, then instead of acting out your discomfort, please respect the possibility that what you have heard elsewhere might be wrong or misleading.
Still with me? Let’s go then.
why the protests?
If the new bill becomes law, even an 11-4 High Court majority won’t suffice to keep the government in check...
The protests are a reaction to Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” ‘s quest to grab more and more power for himself and for the far-right wing. In a broader context, the protests are part of a decades-long cultural-political cold war between hostile ethno-socio-religio-cultural segments of Jewish-Israeli society.
But the immediate cause is what The Guardian called “Judicial Overhaul”, and the Israeli media calls “Judicial Revolution” or even the somewhat odd term “Regime Coup” (in Hebrew) used by the liberal Haaretz.
In case you’ve been under a rock w.r.t. Israeli politics: after an involuntary 1.5-year hiatus, Bibi, by far Israel’s longest-serving PM, has returned to the post for his 7th term overall (in 3 different installments: 1996-1999, 2009-2021, and now). He managed to do it thanks to a decisive hard-right win in November’s election, which resulted in what’s universally considered the most far-right parliament in Israeli history. Bibi now leads a narrow yet ideologically cohesive 64-56 parliamentary majority.
Many observers suggest that the combination of Bibi’s age, his not-yet-over legal troubles, and the strength and extremism of the far-right coalition partners upon whom he totally depends, mean that Bibi may be officially back in the driver’s seat, but he’s a far weaker PM than he’s ever been, with the hyper-extremists being the ones calling the shots.
Israel’s hard-right has long been hostile to the judiciary and in particular the High Court, seen by liberals as a key check and balance in a system dangerously lacking in those. The hard-right, on its part, sees the Court very similarly to how progressive-liberal Americans might see present-day SCOTUS: a clique divorced from reality and from public opinion, wishing to impose its hateful liberal values and minority rule from the bench. It is a key part of that very same broader culture war.
So the new coalition is wasting no time in taking a sledgehammer to the Judiciary and in particular the High Court. A very partial list:
- The Court will be able to declare a new law “Unconstitutional”* only with a 80% majority of the full 15-member court (illustration above) — instead of a regular majority of the judges sitting on the case.
- Even then, the parliament can overrule this decision and force the law through, with a majority of just 61 out of 120 parliament members (illustration below).
- The High Court’s check-and-balance role also includes the ability to overrule actions and decisions of any arm of government, if they are deemed “extremely unreasonable”. The coalition wants to remove this ability.
- In Israel judicial appointments are done by a standing committee, which is currently majority judges and bar-association members. The overhaul would change the committee to be effectively a coalition rubber-stamp.
...and then, even if >80% of High Court judges say a law is “unconstitutional”, a simple parliamentary majority will be able to force it through.
I’m sure that Israeli right-wingers are pointing to, e.g., the US as a place where judicial appointments are also controlled by the political majority. But first, that’s a bad example, given how Republicans have recently abused that system to appoint unqualified, unprincipled hacks to the highest court of the land. Also, once appointed, an American judge enters a strong and solidly protected co-equal branch of government (perhaps even too protected, as many of us now say about SCOTUS).
In Israel the Judiciary is already much weaker to begin with, despite complaints to the contrary. And after the new reform it would become completely subservient to the coalition government, which means Israel would essentially have only one branch of government.
* And let us not forget that Israel does not have a constitution at all! The term “unconstitutional” used above refers to so-called Basic Laws that define the regime. These laws require 61 members, i.e., a majority of the entire parliament. Stronger than a regular-law’s minimum (majority of those present and voting) — but a far lower bar than that required for, e.g., a U.S. Constitutional Amendment. Those Basic Laws have been notoriously malleable, some of them are in fact anti-democratic, and — naturally — the new overhaul would include enabling the passage of new Basic Laws that might flagrantly contradict existing Basic Laws, because the High Court will not have the right to even discuss Basic Laws anymore.
So… we’re all in and supporting the protests, right?
The protests are definitely justified. And putting some sort of brakes on this out-of-control coalition is definitely a good idea.
However, for all practical purposes the protests and the parties whom the protesters had voted for, are not fighting for genuine democracy, but rather for ”democracy for Jews only”. To wit:
- On Monday when the judicial overhaul passed through committee, the opposition issued a joint statement. However, they did not invite the parliament’s most progressive party to participate in the statement, because it happens to be majority Arab and backed almost solely by Arab voters. The pretext for this exclusion? Opposition leader, and faux “fighter for Democracy” , Yair Lapid continues to falsely blame the Arab parties for his short-lived government’s quick demise.
Lapid’s attitude is nothing new: he rode from media celebrity into politics in 2013, scoring big in that year’s election. For a couple of days post the 2013 elections it seemed as if surprisingly, together with Arab parties, the center-left might get 60 seats and block Bibi’s re-election. But Lapid immediately ruled this out, saying “We will not sit with the Zoabi’z”. So in his very first public words as an elected politician, he both invented a new racist anti-Arab slur, and jumped on a “misogynoir” incitement bandwagon against a specific female Arab member of parliament. He later half-pologized (not to Ms. Zoabi herself, only to Arabs in general), but he’s never really changed his ways. In 2014 Lapid put his full weight into passing a revision of Basic Law: Election, pressuring his party members to support it as a block. The law’s centerpiece? Raising the electoral threshold percent from 2% to 3.25%. An entirely contrived threshold, transparently intended to screw the Arab parties while leaving most Jewish parties unscathed.
With bitter irony, in November 2022 that law came back to bite Lapid himself in the ass as one Arab party fell just short with 3.1% (and the progressive-Zionist party fell even shorter with 3.2%, completing a perfect “electoral avalanche”). But yeah, of course it’s the Arab politicians to blame for the entire Jewish-Israeli political system adopting the right-wing narrative towards Palestinians so thoroughly for 20+ years and counting, rendering the notion of “opposition” in Israel entirely devoid of meaning.
- If that’s not enough, then on Wednesday, even as the centrist-liberal (and even some relatively sane right-wing) masses are in the streets fighting for “democracy”, the full parliament passed a law that allows stripping citizenship and residency from Israelis convicted of terrorism. Now, besides Palestinians convicted of this, there are also many right-wing Jewish terrorists in prison. So… oddly enough, the law includes a clause that only prisoners “receiving [financial] support from the Palestinian Authority (PA)” can be stripped of citizenship. No one nowadays claims the defanged and accommodating PA has masterminded all these attacks. And this support to prisoners’ families does not affect the severity of whatever said prisoner had done. So why that clause? It is a particularly a slimy way of making sure the law applies only to Arabs, never to Jews, without being so explicitly racist that no Israeli court, no matter how harangued, could approve.
This law is so clearly racist, corrupt (a government official rather than a court of law is the one determining “PA support”, and then the prisoner must prove the opposite if they want to appeal their expulsion from their own country) and ridiculous, that Haaretz’ Editorial Board slammed it right away.
So, in these days of supposedly heightened awareness to the danger that this Jewish-supremacist, out-of-control new government and its onslaught of terrible laws and actions represents — by what majority do you think this racist Arab-only-citizenship-stripping law passed? Remember, the coalition has 64.
The vote was. 94. to. 10.
Only the Arab parties voted against. The current leftmost Jewish party in parliament, Labor (all 4 of them — this is a party that used to score 30+ seats even when half asleep!) did not vote, being too chicken to come out either way. All the rest of the “democratic opposition” voted in support of a racist, and flagrantly unconstitutional law. Including of course, Yair Lapid’s party.
Besides being bigoted cowardly hypocrites, the politicians forming the bulk of Israel’s opposition are also first-grade stupid. As in, First Grade of school stupid. In the foreseeable future there is no viable numerical path to electoral victory for the opposition, without the Arab vote (whose full potential is ~18 seats) and Arab parliament members (who currently number around 10). None. The Arab vote has become as crucial for Israel’s center-left, as the Black vote for US Democrats. So the last thing an opposition really wishing for change would do, is continue inciting against Arab politicians and alienating Arab voters.
And yet, this is precisely what they’re hell-bent upon doing, even as they “fight for democracy”.
They wouldn’t know what true democracy was, even if it spat them in the face. Which it should.
The face, it palms. The palm, it faces.
Note: this last rant is mostly about opposition politicians rather than the protesting public, many of whom are far more enlightened than these bunch of good-for-nothing politicians. But still. On the whole, Not Looking Good.
Want an American analogy?
Envision the US having only a House chamber, with the Freedumb Caucus having an even stronger role in the GQP majority than it is now. Envision the President elected not by the people directly, but by the House who chose McConnell for the role as a “responsible adult”.
Envision the opposition being mostly Joe Manchins and Republican never-Trumpers, rather than mainstream Democrats! In the diminished genuine Democratic House faction, most are Black and/or voted in by Black voters. Last but not least, envision that everyone else including the Never-Trumper opposition treats the Black members with contempt, keeps them isolated, and blames them and their voters whenever things get even worse.
Yes, it is that bad. And we haven’t even mentioned the fully-dictatorial Occupation regime here! A regime supported in the Israeli parliament by majorities similar to that 94-10 vote above. A regime in which even our esteemed High Court has been fully complicit.
Please. Cry for my country.
Not sure what else to ask — as the diary’s lede admitted, the world is full of pressing, heartbreaking troubles.
But maybe at some point it’s a good idea to let Palestinian rights emerge from their endless relegation to the back of the American political bus.
