Israel General Discussion: Annus Horribilis

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-733895

So Ben-Gvir removed the police commander of Tel Aviv and is claiming that it was totally pre-planned.

This police commander got attacked by Ben Gvir for not oppressing the protestors hard enough, of course. He wanted to see blood.
Aaand the attorney general now froze this decision, saying it might be illegal or improper. Constitutional crisis getting closer and closer.

According to Haaretz, police chief Shabtai told the Attorney General that Ben Gvir forced his hand on the decision. If true, this should be a gigantic scandal.

It doesn’t really matter anymore. We all know we’re heading to crisis where the court strikes down the reform. This is just the sh**thousry before the storm.

I hope the future military administration will punish Ben Gvir

Future military administration?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Any IDF soldier can detain people in the occupied territories for up to 3 hours based on their own decision? That's absolutely bonkers levels of military law being applied to civilians. And the fact that many of the main thoroughfares of a historically Palestinian city like Hebron are literally restricted from Palestinian travel (forcing them to take much wilder routes, or be harassed at military checkpoints) is certainly unsettling in an 'characteristics of apartheid' type way.

That map is from a group of former IDF soldiers who now speak out against the occupation, btw.

Thanks for sharing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If Netanyahu pauses the judicial overhaul will not his authority be so shattered that he will have to resign?

You might be right in the sense that he becomes sort of a lame-duck, but even that is worse than half the country considering your authority entirely illegitimate and the man as an active threat that must be dealt with.
Better to be nominal captain of a boat than kicked off.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Mass sick-out of doctors tomorrow

https://twitter.com/jerusalem_post/status/1640096068284084224?s=46&t=cnaSCfv...

"Doctors give diagnosis to Bibi government: 'sick' they say, needs to drop proposed judicial reforms to become healthy"

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Looking at the reform I don’t get what the massive opposition is given that it would still result in less say by politicians on who gets to be on the judicial branch than here in the US where every judicial appointment is made by the president and then has to be approved by the senate .

Mmmm. like. you. know. maybe. the. US. legal. system. is. like. really. really. bad?

It's a slippery slope to that abysmal abomination you yanks call a justice system, we're not willing to accept even a minor politicization of the judicial branch.

How do you put checks on the judicial system though if judges and lawyers can effectively have the most say who fills vacancies?

You guys unlike us dont even have a written constitution so that gives the Supreme Court more power as at least here in the US , the Supreme Court has to make their rulings on the basis of a written constitution while in Israel that does not seem to be the case which effectively can make your Supreme Court a Super Legislature.
 
Checks and Balances is one of the best ways to defend liberty and yes we do that better than any nation on earth despite the hate we and our system seem to get.

Every country - except Poland - has some checks and balances on government appointing judges. The US system is terrible, but even there you have a separate congress and President. Other countries have a tradition of appointing according to recommendations of a professional committee. Israel's parliamentary system means the coalition controls the government. If you give the coalition full control of appointing even 1 Supreme Court judge per term, the supreme court ceases to have independence. Under the current reform there will be one (1) branch - the coalition.

Speaking of Poland, lmao:

https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1640281260718280705?s=20

Of course they did.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh cool. An Otzma militia.
What are they going to give the guy next? A entire star cluster in the Milky Way?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh cool. An Otzma militia.
What are they going to give the guy next? A entire star cluster in the Milky Way?

Excuse me, I think you mean the Itamar Ben-Gvalaxy, antisemite.

Ah, yes, of course. I apologize.
At least, if they want to do a February 26 incident, they'll have to wait until next year

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Westminster System is the ur-example of modern democracy and it was the system of government by which Great Britain came to dominate the world. The hyperbolic moaning about how an Israeli government under that system would be the end of democracy simply exposes the utter intellectual incoherence of the socialists who dominate this board. Most of you do not care a whit about the constitutional order, you simply dislike the Israeli state and desire to see it governed by fools of your ilk.

Only incoherent socialists who dislike Israel are allowed to think that the British political system isn't the best form of democratic government in the world? That's sure news to me. Not to mention the majority of Israelis who oppose the reform...

Again, there are reasonable objections to this reform. If I were Israeli, I would probably vote against it. This is because I do not believe in democracy as the ultimate goal of politics.

The fundamental problem in Israeli politics is the ethnic tensions between the Hilonim/Ashkenazim & the Haredim/Mizrahim. On the one hand, we have the ethnic/religious grouping which founded the state, a group which dominates the productive sectors of the economy and the military. On the other hand, we have a group of the periphery who are able to assemble electoral majorities but are unable to practically push through their policies as a result of a judiciary and civil society dominated by the first group.

A system where electoral and economic power are unaligned will naturally lead to power struggles of this sort. One way to address this would be to add a property or income qualification to the ballot, which would exclude the welfare queen Haredim from the electorate and encourage them to contribute to the state. I would support this, and so would many "liberal" Israelis.

The comparison that obviously springs to mind when we look at current Israel is South Africa, and I do not mean this as it relates to the Palestinians. Rather, Bibi represents a coalition whose electoral reach exceeds their economic grasp. The failures of post-Botha South Africa offer a cautionary tale about the dangers of this.

Reasonable objections such as this make up some of the sentiment opposing the reforms in Israeli domestic politics. The problem I have is within the rather dim audience of this board, who are clearly motivated first and foremost by antizionism, who suffer under the belief that mass Arab citizenship is a plausible outcome, and whose poor education in the conditions of mass democracy have led them to view the term simply as an applause light.

There is no consideration here of the international context of these reforms, and of the frequency of democracies where a parliamentary majority can govern. There is no reckoning with the vices of democracy, abroad or at home. There is only meaningless babble from people who wish ill on Israelis.

First of all, I want to start off by saying that what you are saying about this board, my recommending of this post does not mean I agree with said criticisms.
Now, onto the point I wanted to make: I would say democracy is means to an end, not an end in and of itself. And it is a process, not a result.
If we are defining 'democracy' this way, then in fact this bill destroys checks and balances at the alter of democracy, which is to say, a Knesset majority in a democratic election overriding the will of those who might stand in its way.
It therefore postulates that the country have to have tyranny of the majority.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

IMO Israel should restrict voting rights to those who served in the IDF, otherwise the Haredim will multiply and take control.

Maybe another idea is imposing a punitive tax on ultra-orthodox Jews, who aren't that much different than the Taliban.

If Israel has a democratic future it needs to be majority Secular/Reform/Conservative.

You're insane.

In situations like this it's important to not become who you claim your opponent is. Secularists should be pushing for a constitutional compromise, not a military coup or disenfranchisement of the Haredi as voters.  

The Haredi also seemed to be brazen about the fact that their relationship with the state of Israel is purely transactional until recently (interested to hear the views of the Israeli posters about this)? The more adequate comparison to the Taliban is the Kahanists that Ben Gvir will personally make into a militia if he gets his way.

It doesn't exactly seem democratic to mass-disenfranchise Haredim.
At the same time, the options don't look too good in the long run, that is true.
These two statements can be credibly postulated as simultaneously true: There is no future for a democratic Israel without Haredim voting. There is no future for a "liberal" Israel with Haredim voting.
In the circumstances, a compromise is the best way to defuse the situation, but neither side seems interested in a broad settlement.

Imo, the best way to look at this, in simple terms, is that the group of people who founded the state became a victim of their own success and slowly got outnumbered in their own country. The institutions they still control (bureaucracy, tech firms, etc.) are now effectively juxtaposed in opposition to the majority of the country's population, defined by relative "periphery"-ness in terms of their relationship to the non-elected power centers of the country (which informs Bibi being strongly Majoritarian Democratic in his views). And now, the rivalries between these two camps, unglued by the slow weakening of the Palestinian opposition (itself something their work together has achieved), now becomes paramount, at least in the moment.

Bibi told a crowd of his supporters recently that they are "second-class citizens". This has the feel of ethnic vs ethnic to me. And one group that has dominated the corridors of power within a state is being challenged by up-and-comers. To be sure, a lot of the periphery types probably disapprove of Bibi at this point (how else does he get to merely 25% approval), but I would somewhat surprised if huge numbers of them turned on him in a snap election, considering these very deep cleavages and the political identity that is mapped on top of them.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If Netanyahu was actually about to do something that would endanger military aid or Iron Dome supplies from the US, the IDF would coup him in 5.2 seconds, most likely.

Question here: has a military coup ever happened in a country that has been as wealthy and an established democracy (within its internationally-recognized borders) as Israel? Wouldn't that turn Israel into something akin to Kemalist Turkey?

That analogy has popped into my head, yes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The abysmal polling sent Ben Gvir and Otzma on a tantrum. They stopped voting with the coalition until the government adopts "a real right wing policy to Gaza". Likud threatened to fire Ben Gvir, Ben Gvir told them to fire him if they want.

Now I don't think either side really wants it atm, but this sort of things can spiral out of control rapidly

And now we have an operation in Gaza. Palestinian children will die, possibly some Israeli children too, and the Ben Gvir blood demand will be sated for now.

Bibi has had to get skilled at herding cats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Another triumph for Bibi if true.

Apparently, a draft ruling was leaked in which the Supreme Court overturns the "reasonableness law" with a 8-to-7 majority. Fun times indeed.

https://twitter.com/NewsWire_US/status/1741869251554599297?t=i820hvXVBJ3w9rf90kj...

Reminder that there is a throughline from this reform, the Public and private reaction,  and then government policy in the leadup to October of last year. Another glorious success for Bibi.

Smart timing from the court.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What are the odds of a Meretz-Labor union?

Decently high, since it's happened in the recent past. At the moment polls have Labor as very unlikely to get in, and they will probably need to reach an agreement with either Meretz or Gantz to remain relevant. It seems kind of dead, though -- in the future if it survives it will probably survive as an appendage to someone, and even popular figures associated with it (like Herzog) are likelier to just start their own parties than try to regain control of it. In hindsight Gantz choosing to form his own party and being so successful at getting the support of the most important Labor institutions (in particular, recruiting Nissenkorn, the chairman of the Histadrut) basically killed it.

It's not for nothing I've likened Israeli Labor to a zombie... for years.