Advertising
Supported by
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is pushing to topple the judicial system, tighten Israeli control over the West Bank and ultraconservative Jews, fueling protests and deepening Israel’s divisions.
Send a story to any friend.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift pieces to offer per month. Everyone can read what you share.
By Patrick Kingsley
Reporting from Jerusalem
Less than two weeks into his tenure, Israel’s new government temporarily advanced a wave of far-right timelines that would weaken the judiciary, entrench West Bank Israelis and bifurcate the army’s chain of command to give senior right-wing ministers on occupation-related issues.
On Wednesday night, the government moved forward with the centerpiece of its timeline: releasing for the first time a detailed plan for sweeping judicial reform that includes reducing the Supreme Court’s influence over parliament and strengthening the government’s role in appointing judges.
Coalition leaders have also adopted a more combative stance toward the Palestinians than their immediate predecessors. Funding for the Palestinian Authority was cut off and the new Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, angered Palestinians and many Arab countries by visiting a sensitive devout site and ordering police to remove Palestinian flags.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s program, a mix of policy announcements, agreements and bills within the coalition, temporarily exacerbated divisions in Israeli society. Critics of the prime minister and his allies worry that the timeline threatens the democratic institutions of Israel, which is already tense with Diaspora Jews. , and its efforts to forge new ties with Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia, and that will sound like the grunting of death for a long time, wavering hopes for a Palestinian state.
Currently on trial for corruption, Netanyahu has framed his plans as the valid timetable for an elected government. He also described the push for judicial substitution as valid for restricting interference by an unelected judiciary in an elected parliament.
“We have won a transparent and strong mandate from the public to deliver on what we promised in the elections and that is what we will do,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech this week. “It’s the implementation of the will of the electorate and that’s the essence of democracy. “
But critics portray it as a constitutional coup. “This is reform, this is excessive regime change,” Yair Lapid, the former prime minister, said in a speech on Monday. “It doesn’t fix democracy, it destroys democracy,” he added.
Back in effect for the third time, Mr. Netanyahu now heads a government that is Israel’s far-right, religiously conservative administration, combining settler-backed far-right parties and ultra-Orthodox parties that have vowed to reshape Israeli society.
The new government’s big initial focus – and opposition alarm – looms over the judiciary.
The new justice minister, Levin, showed Wednesday that he will pursue his long-standing purpose of restricting the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn legislation passed in parliament and give the government more about appointing and promoting judges.
Currently, the Supreme Court can strike down legislation it deems unconstitutional, a role its supporters see as a restriction on parliament’s overreach, but critics see it as an unreasonable restriction on elected politicians.
A member of the latter camp, Levin proposed a law that would allow most lawmakers to overturn court decisions.
He also wants to give politicians greater influence over the committee that appoints new judges. That would bring Israel’s judicial ticket closer to its American counterpart, where senators verify judicial appointments made through the president.
But it’s an unfamiliar concept in Israel, where judges and lead lawyers dominate the decision-making process about who becomes a judge. Supporters say this mechanism limits political interference in the court, but critics say it has turned the judicial formula into a club.
Netanyahu says he has no plans to use his new one to derail his corruption trial. But the political opposition says the court’s proposals are a harbinger of an additional law that could reduce his potential sentence, legalize the crimes he is accused of or undermine justice. Attorney General who oversees his prosecution.
“He is preparing what he seeks: a waiver from trial,” Benny Gantz, an opposition leader, said in a speech last week.
Thousands of demonstrators protested the plans across Israel last weekend, and opposition leaders called for even larger demonstrations on Saturday, prompting one lawmaker, Zvika Fogel, to call for his arrest for “treason. “
For Palestinians, Netanyahu’s government represents Israel’s unequivocal unequivocal opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state since negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation accelerated in the 1990s.
Successive Israeli leaders, adding Netanyahu, have since left open the option of ceding parts of the West Bank to a long-term Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s new government, however, put an end to this ambiguity in December expired. A list of the coalition’s guiding principles began with an undeniable confirmation of the “exclusive and undeniable right of other Jews over all parts of the Land of Israel,” a biblical term encompassing both Israel and the occupied West Bank, and pledged to “develop settlements in all parts of the Land of Israel. “
A separate-looking agreement between Mr. Netanyahu, the Likud and his coalition party, devout Zionism, also promises that Mr. Netanyahu will lead efforts to officially annex the West Bank, albeit at a time he chooses.
It has also taken several combative measures against the Palestinians.
The ministers cut about $40 million from the cash the government sends to the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, and removed the privileges of several Palestinian leaders, most commonly in retaliation for diplomatic steps taken through Palestinians opposed to Israel at the United Nations.
Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, who has convictions for inciting racism against Arabs and supporting a Jewish terror group, ordered police to confiscate Palestinian flags displayed in public in Israel.
And last week, he provocatively visited the Aqsa Mosque compound, a deeply sensitive holy site for Muslims and Jews, who call it the Temple Mount, in what observers feared would trigger a new round of fighting with Palestinian armed teams in Gaza.
All of these measures were unprecedented: politicians have risked turmoil by visiting the compound, Israeli governments have occasionally withheld PA cash, and Israeli police have confiscated Palestinian flags in the past.
But the speed at which the government has acted has raised fears of more drastic, and more consequential, measures in the future, amid what is already the deadliest era in the territory in more than a decade.
Within the IDF, senior officials are already preparing for an over who controls the security forces that oversee the West Bank profession.
A law passed in late December is expected to give Ben-Gvir an unprecedented advantage over special police forces in the West Bank that were previously under the army’s tutelage. of the far-right settlers, on the bureaucratic facets of the occupation.
Both measures are afraid in the army because they will create 3 Israeli force centers in the West Bank.
Among secular and liberal Israelis, there is growing fear about the government’s plans to empower ultraconservative Jews, who make up about thirteen percent of Israel’s nine million inhabitants.
Netanyahu agreed to protect investment for the ultra-Orthodox school formula despite his inability to teach core subjects such as math and English, and to formalize a long-standing agreement allowing seminary scholars to do military service.
For secular Israelis, such measures will further restrict the ability of ultra-Orthodox Israelis, known as haredim, to participate in the country’s economy and defense, increasing the social and monetary burden on secular Israelis.
The government has some secular members, such as Amir Ohana, the first speaker of the blatantly gay parliament, and has officially promised the balance between the secular and devout worlds. Secular and liberal society, some fear an imminent attack on the devout and social pluralism.
Avi Maoz, an ultraconservative who believes women deserve to stay home and wants to ban Jerusalem’s gay pride parade, has been tasked with a portion of the school budget. , called for delays last year in the football government to avoid holding matches on Jewish Saturday.
Although this request is unlikely to become the rule, Mr. Netanyahu has already made other commitments to strengthen Orthodox Judaism, paving the way for greater tension with Diaspora Jews, who adhere more to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism than in Israel.
The coalition agreements are dedicated to maintaining the ban on non-Orthodox prayer at the main part of the Western Wall, a holy site in Jerusalem, and preventing converts to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism from being identified by the state as Jews.
“This is how democracies collapse,” Lapid said in a video Tuesday night, as the debate over judicial adjustments has resented, adding, “We will not allow our beloved country to be trampled underfoot. “
Myra Noveck and Gabby Sobelman contributed to this report.
Advertising