THE CARL SCHMITT REFORM
Israeli government advances controversial judicial reformsPlan would give Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition more power over who becomes a judge
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a vote on the plan to overhaul Israel's legal system. Reuters
The National
Feb 20, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government voted to move on a plan to overhaul the country’s legal system on Tuesday.
The vote sparked protests in Israel and calls for calm from the US and other nations.
It gave initial approval to a plan that would give Mr Netanyahu’s coalition more power over who becomes a judge.
It is part of a broader package of changes that seeks to weaken the country’s Supreme Court and transfer more power to the ruling coalition.
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Israel's Netanyahu calls for calm amid opposition to judicial reforms
"A great night and a great day," Mr Netanyahu tweeted after the preliminary vote.
He won 64 of the Knesset's 120 seats, making it likely his two revisions on the agenda, the other limiting the Supreme Court's ability to strike down legislation, will be ratified.
Polls have shown most Israelis want the reforms slowed to allow dialogue, or put off completely, Reuters reported.
The vote on part of the legislation is the first of three readings required for parliamentary approval, a process that is expected to take months.
The opposition, including tens of thousands of protesters in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, saw Monday’s vote as the coalition’s determination to barrel ahead.
“We are fighting for our children’s future, for our country’s future. We don’t intend to give up,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid.
After the shekel fell 1 per cent weaker versus the dollar, many economists and leaders of high-tech and banking have warned of investor and capital flight from Israel.
But Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said: "There is no link between the justice system reforms and any blow to Israel's economy. Any attempt at linkage is politicised."
Opposition politicians protested against Mr Gafni's statement, calling the committee "a circus".
Updated: February 21, 2023
Tens of thousands in Israel rally against 'dictator's bill' as lawmakers vote on judicial overhaul
Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams
February 20, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu GALI TIBBON POOL:AFP:File
Tens of thousands of people opposed to the far-right Israeli government's proposed judicial overhaul once again hit the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Monday, where they implored lawmakers to vote against the measures during the afternoon's first reading.
"On the morning of the vote, small groups of protesters sat down outside the front doors of some coalition lawmakers' homes in a bid to block them from leaving for parliament. They were removed by the police," The New York Timesreported. After blocking highways to Jerusalem, protesters gathered outside parliament, where doctors "set up a mock triage station for 'casualties of the judicial reform.'"
Despite weeks of massive demonstrations, members of the Israeli Knesset are expected to pass the legislation, which is supported by right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close ally, Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
If that happens, the Supreme Court's ability to overrule parliament would be weakened, as a simple 61-vote majority could override the court's decisions; the Supreme Court's ability to review and strike down attempts to change Israel's 13 quasi-constitutional "Basic Laws" would be abolished; and the ruling coalition would gain control of the Judicial Appointments Commission, a panel tasked with picking new judges.
The legislation must be approved three times to become law, with Monday afternoon's vote marking the first step in the process. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a largely ceremonial figure, and opposition leader Yair Lapid have pleaded for Netanyahu's government to delay the legislation, to no avail.
On the eve of the initial vote, Levin said, "We won't stop the legislation now, but there is more than enough time until the second and third readings to hold an earnest and real dialogue and to reach understandings."
But as the Times noted, "critics have dismissed the government's position as disingenuous, arguing that once the bills have passed a first vote, only cosmetic changes will be possible."
Organizers, for their part, said Monday that "with the passage of the dictator's bill, the protests will intensify," according toi24 News.
Opponents "say the proposed overhaul would place unchecked power in the hands of the government, remove protections afforded to individuals and minorities, and deepen divisions in an already fractured society," the Times reported. They also worry that "Netanyahu, who is standing trial on corruption charges, could use the changes to extricate himself from his legal troubles."
In addition, Al Jazeerareported, opponents fear that "Netanyahu's nationalist allies want to weaken the Supreme Court to establish more settlements on land the Palestinians seek for a state. But settlements, which are considered illegal under international laws, have continued under successive Israeli governments. Nearly 600,000-750,000 Israelis now live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."
Last week, Netanyahu's administration granted retroactive "legalization" to nine such settlements, and the prime minister has also intensified deadly raids, killing at least 50 Palestinians in occupied territories so far this year.
A right-wing neutering of the Supreme Court could exacerbate Israel's regime of violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing.
But the weekslong demonstrations against the proposed judicial overhaul "include very few Palestinians," Jewish Currents editorPeter Beinart observed Sunday in a Times op-ed titled "You Can't Save Democracy in a Jewish State."
"In fact, Palestinian politicians have criticized them for having, in the words of former Knesset member Sami Abu Shehadeh, 'nothing to do with the main problem in the region—justice and equality for all the people living here,'" Beinart wrote.
"The reason is that the movement against Mr. Netanyahu is not like the pro-democracy opposition movements in Turkey, India, or Brazil—or the movement against Trumpism in the United States," he added. "It's not a movement for equal rights. It's a movement to preserve the political system that existed before Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition took power, which was not, for Palestinians, a genuine liberal democracy in the first place. It's a movement to save liberal democracy for Jews."
For Palestinians, Israel is not a democracy but rather an apartheid state, an assessment shared by numerous human rights groups around the world. The Israeli government has enacted discriminatory laws against Palestinians and colonized their land for decades, including under Lapid.
According to Beinart: "The principle that Mr. Netanyahu's liberal Zionist critics say he threatens—a Jewish and democratic state—is in reality a contradiction. Democracy means government by the people. Jewish statehood means government by Jews. In a country where Jews comprise only half of the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the second imperative devours the first."
"Ultimately, a movement premised on ethnocracy cannot successfully defend the rule of law," he added. "Only a movement for equality can."
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