Israel General Discussion: Annus Horribilis

[America Needs R'hllor]

Why is it that the Israeli legislature is legally sovereign? I know very little about the creation of the governmental structures of Israel, but it seems that it was an odd decision to allow a simple legislative majority to make all laws.

It's a heavily modified Westminster system. Including the uncodified constitution!

Israel should just have a system where it has the President appoint justices to the Supreme Court and given the President is not part of parliament, it still preserves checks and balances.

The judicial branch also needs checks and one way to put a check on it is by having one of the other branches appoint justices and the other confirm appointments.

Well, the president just appointing judges would entrust a single individual with more power than a legislative body as a whole. Today I'd certainly have a lot more faith in Herzog than Bibi's far-right cabinet and their enablers in parliament, though that may change with new elections.

Well you could have the Knesset be required to approve all appointments

Are you aware that almost literally no other country on the planet envies the American judicial appointments system?

Sure but that doenst refute the fact that our system of appointing justices is way better than Israel where there are no checks whatsoever on the judicial system . They don’t even have a written constitution so their judicial system is literally just legislating from the bench

No "fact" in this likud propaganda. Our judiciary is a world class example of integrity and objectivity. Your judiciary is just a bunch of partisan hacks.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Why is it that the Israeli legislature is legally sovereign? I know very little about the creation of the governmental structures of Israel, but it seems that it was an odd decision to allow a simple legislative majority to make all laws.

It's a heavily modified Westminster system. Including the uncodified constitution!

Israel should just have a system where it has the President appoint justices to the Supreme Court and given the President is not part of parliament, it still preserves checks and balances.

The judicial branch also needs checks and one way to put a check on it is by having one of the other branches appoint justices and the other confirm appointments.

Well, the president just appointing judges would entrust a single individual with more power than a legislative body as a whole. Today I'd certainly have a lot more faith in Herzog than Bibi's far-right cabinet and their enablers in parliament, though that may change with new elections.

Well you could have the Knesset be required to approve all appointments

Are you aware that almost literally no other country on the planet envies the American judicial appointments system?

Sure but that doenst refute the fact that our system of appointing justices is way better than Israel where there are no checks whatsoever on the judicial system . They don’t even have a written constitution so their judicial system is literally just legislating from the bench

No "fact" in this likud propaganda. Our judiciary is a world class example of integrity and objectivity. Your judiciary is just a bunch of partisan hacks.

Your judiciary is literally a bunch of judges legislating from the bench given you have no written constitution and since the other branches dont have much say on who gets on the bench, you literally have an unelected super legislature and that is completely unacceptable.

Also lol at our Supreme Court being partisan when they have ruled against partisan Republican ideas a good amount of times this year. The cases most liberals are mad about , are actually cases that made perfect as :

- The President does not have the power to authorize new expenses without the authorization of congress(Which student loan forgivness was)

- EPA doesnt have the power to regulate emissions from existing plants based on generation shifting mechanisms because Congress never gave them the authority to do so. Regulatory agencies do not have the power to do stuff congress did not authorize them to do , even if liberals may support that policy because they are not lawmaking agencies.

- The constitution mentions nothing about abortion which means abortion law is yes fully up to the elected legislators and since Congress has not passed any law, they go to the states.


This is how a proper Supreme Court is supposed to work , and just cause liberals dont like the decisions made by SCOTUS does not make it partisan. The Supreme Court yes should not be allowed to make up law as they seem fit even if you think those types of policies are "necessary" in a liberal democracy.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Regarding the debate between OSR and Parrotguy, I would also challenge the view that the US judiciary is full of partisan hacks. In fact, the plurality of SCOTUS decisions are unanimous.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/06/28/those-5-4-decisions-on-the-supreme-court-9-0-is-far-more-common/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-defies-critics-wave-unanimous-decisions/story?id=78463255

[America Needs R'hllor]

Why is it that the Israeli legislature is legally sovereign? I know very little about the creation of the governmental structures of Israel, but it seems that it was an odd decision to allow a simple legislative majority to make all laws.

It's a heavily modified Westminster system. Including the uncodified constitution!

Israel should just have a system where it has the President appoint justices to the Supreme Court and given the President is not part of parliament, it still preserves checks and balances.

The judicial branch also needs checks and one way to put a check on it is by having one of the other branches appoint justices and the other confirm appointments.

Well, the president just appointing judges would entrust a single individual with more power than a legislative body as a whole. Today I'd certainly have a lot more faith in Herzog than Bibi's far-right cabinet and their enablers in parliament, though that may change with new elections.

Well you could have the Knesset be required to approve all appointments

Are you aware that almost literally no other country on the planet envies the American judicial appointments system?

Sure but that doenst refute the fact that our system of appointing justices is way better than Israel where there are no checks whatsoever on the judicial system . They don’t even have a written constitution so their judicial system is literally just legislating from the bench

No "fact" in this likud propaganda. Our judiciary is a world class example of integrity and objectivity. Your judiciary is just a bunch of partisan hacks.

Your judiciary is literally a bunch of judges legislating from the bench given you have no written constitution and since the other branches dont have much say on who gets on the bench, you literally have an unelected super legislature and that is completely unacceptable.

Also lol at our Supreme Court being partisan when they have ruled against partisan Republican ideas a good amount of times this year. The cases most liberals are mad about , are actually cases that made perfect as :

- The President does not have the power to authorize new expenses without the authorization of congress(Which student loan forgivness was)

- EPA doesnt have the power to regulate emissions from existing plants based on generation shifting mechanisms because Congress never gave them the authority to do so. Regulatory agencies do not have the power to do stuff congress did not authorize them to do , even if liberals may support that policy because they are not lawmaking agencies.

- The constitution mentions nothing about abortion which means abortion law is yes fully up to the elected legislators and since Congress has not passed any law, they go to the states.


This is how a proper Supreme Court is supposed to work , and just cause liberals dont like the decisions made by SCOTUS does not make it partisan. The Supreme Court yes should not be allowed to make up law as they seem fit even if you think those types of policies are "necessary" in a liberal democracy.

I'm not going to debate this. It's not the time or place and I don't care about the conservative view of the American Supreme Court right now. Before you throw the word "fact" in this thread, listen to virtually every Israeli judicial expert, understand the context, understand the wounds this is opening. Hell, just Wikipedia the judiciary appointment committee and who has veto power there (hint: the other branches have a lot of say, even if the likud propaganda you've been listening to in discord tries to claim otherwise).

Ending this inane discussion here

[KaiserDave]

Good news, this makes Israel a more robust democracy. Democracy isn't a mob of panicking elites in the streets in Tel Aviv, and it is also not an unelected court striking down laws based on a vague criterion - no, democracy means the highest elected body gets to call the shots in the country. Really don't understand all the fuss about a proposal that makes Israel more democratic, not less.

This is one of the most propagandistic and thoughtless posts I have ever seen on this cite, and that says a lot. There is no original thought here whatsoever I might as well have opened up some Likud MK Twitter account instead of opening Atlas.

I suppose anyone who isn't a fanatic Chardal settler is an "elite" at this point.

[Torie]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have a dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

[DavidB.]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have  dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

Basically the pro-position is that it places power where it should be, namely in the hands of a government with a democratic mandate, not in the hands of unelected judges who may be wildly out of sync with the will of the (majority of the) people. The Israeli right, rightly or wrongly, also has the impression that the judiciary is a left-wing bulwark.

The anti-position is that this bill could lead to an undesirable situation of "tyranny of the majority" against an ever-shrinking secular, liberal population, that Israel already lacks checks and balances since the President isn't so powerful and there is no Upper House, and that this bill will help the right in forcing more religious obligations onto the secular population, which is the segment of society that racks up the most ₪ ₪ ₪.

If you read up on the discussion in the last couple of pages, you'll see what a debate along these lines looks like.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have  dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

I can attempt to explain the arguments for and against the bill but maybe not in as complete a manner as someone fully steeped in this topic would be able to.

The reasonableness clause is a legal doctrine used by the Israeli High Court of Justice to provide judicial review for executive decisions by the Israeli cabinet. The bill prohibits the court from using this doctrine.

Supporters of the legislation say the reasonableness doctrine is inherently subjective and allows the court to subvert the government's authority, therefore it is not consistent with the rule of law. They say it is up to elected officials, who are chosen by voters, to make government decisions. Earlier this year, a government minister (Aryeh Deri) was removed by the Israeli High Court using this doctrine due to past criminal offences such as bribery and fraud. This was seen as a step too far and it was widely argued that only the PM should decide who is in cabinet and who isn't.

Opponents of the legislation say that the judiciary is the only branch of government that keeps Israel's centralized executive branch in check, due to the lack of a codified constitution. Opponents argue that this could result in some government agencies like law enforcement to have appointments due to political and personal associations and could cause a general increase in corruption. Deri, as an example, had previously promised not to return to public life as a result of a plea bargain. The court ruled that has past criminal offences made it unreasonable for him to serve as a minister in government.

This is my attempt at explaining the arguments for and against the bill. If anyone has anything to add, go right ahead.  

[America Needs R'hllor]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have a dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

I will add some context to the dry arguments that have already been presented, which I think is more important. You have the White House, and you have congress, and you have midterms. You don't need the courts to say that some action or other is highly unreasonable, there's enough oversight.

We don't have that. Local government is extremely weak, there is no constitution. When it comes to "dry" government actions that don't deal with overarching themes of human rights, there is literally nothing a 60+1 majority in the Knesset can't do. And as it turns out, Israeli liberals aren't really interested in living in a country where corruption and nepotism slowly destroys our public services. We also don't want to live in a country where the government can fire the attorney general and appoint a sycophant who will cancel bibi's trial. We want someone to have oversight over the coalition, and outside of the courts there is no one who can do it.

[Hnv1]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have a dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

I'm seeing a lot of Dunning-Kruger here, so as the only (afaik) Israeli lawyer here let me clear some issues.

A/ The narrow 'reasonableness' standard - 'NRS' (equivalent to the Wednesbury (UK) standard in Britain), applies to administrative acts, not legislation. I think the Chevron case in the US created a similar standard, and regardless American courts apply very intensive review of administrative acts using fairly ambiguous constitutional norms.

B/ NRS is applied to a small section of decisions where other administrative review standards such as ultra vires, procedural faults, and proportionality are met. In Israeli law, it is quite important as a lot of norms we have were either drafted by the British colonial rule or in the early days of Israel, so they include fairly wide wording creating very wide powers. e.g., British emergency laws from WW2 are still in force, and the local IDF officer ranking LTC has a prima facie power to seize my house for security reasons. It became apparent that with powers in such wide scope, it was paramount to create a flexible standard to meet issues that are not codified in other legal standards.

C/ The two main issues courts have used the NRS in regard to our appointments and indictments. Israeli politicians prefer to appoint politicos and extended family members. It was terrible during the days of Labour, and the right took it to completely new levels as their politicos are more often than not incompetent. The SC started using the NRS in the '80s to block some ridiculous appointments, and the NRS was expanded to review ministerial appointments in the 90s. As Shas and Likud have on average at least one politician under criminal investigation at all times, you can see why this brought several confrontations between the government and the judiciary. Lately, again with thrice convicted Aryeh Deri'i
The NRS amendment passed yesterday was worded to prevent judicial review of all appointments by ministers. Likud already has several felons and such in line to appoint to high-ranking offices.

D/ NRS was used to vacate some administrative decisions about distribution, such as unequal tax breaks and such. This is a very narrow field but potentially disastrous as the Likud developed a client state for the settlers and Haredi. NRS is pretty much the only barrier we have to stop the looting of the treasury by them.

E/ the NRS in itself is not that big of a deal. Other administrative standards can be expanded to tackle these issues. The problem is two-fold: the precedent where the legislator creates black boxes with no judicial review; and the very acute concern that this is only the first step of a much wider plan that was temporarily halted in March\April after the Gallant riots.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Your judiciary is literally a bunch of judges legislating from the bench given you have no written constitution and since the other branches dont have much say on who gets on the bench, you literally have an unelected super legislature and that is completely unacceptable.

If you don't understand how jurisprudence works in systems without a written constitution, you probably shouldn't comment on them.

[Hnv1]

Why is it that the Israeli legislature is legally sovereign? I know very little about the creation of the governmental structures of Israel, but it seems that it was an odd decision to allow a simple legislative majority to make all laws.

It's a heavily modified Westminster system. Including the uncodified constitution!

Israel should just have a system where it has the President appoint justices to the Supreme Court and given the President is not part of parliament, it still preserves checks and balances.

The judicial branch also needs checks and one way to put a check on it is by having one of the other branches appoint justices and the other confirm appointments.

Well, the president just appointing judges would entrust a single individual with more power than a legislative body as a whole. Today I'd certainly have a lot more faith in Herzog than Bibi's far-right cabinet and their enablers in parliament, though that may change with new elections.

Well you could have the Knesset be required to approve all appointments

Are you aware that almost literally no other country on the planet envies the American judicial appointments system?

Sure but that doenst refute the fact that our system of appointing justices is way better than Israel where there are no checks whatsoever on the judicial system . They don’t even have a written constitution so their judicial system is literally just legislating from the bench

No "fact" in this likud propaganda. Our judiciary is a world class example of integrity and objectivity. Your judiciary is just a bunch of partisan hacks.

Your judiciary is literally a bunch of judges legislating from the bench given you have no written constitution and since the other branches dont have much say on who gets on the bench, you literally have an unelected super legislature and that is completely unacceptable.

Also lol at our Supreme Court being partisan when they have ruled against partisan Republican ideas a good amount of times this year. The cases most liberals are mad about , are actually cases that made perfect as :

- The President does not have the power to authorize new expenses without the authorization of congress(Which student loan forgivness was)

- EPA doesnt have the power to regulate emissions from existing plants based on generation shifting mechanisms because Congress never gave them the authority to do so. Regulatory agencies do not have the power to do stuff congress did not authorize them to do , even if liberals may support that policy because they are not lawmaking agencies.

- The constitution mentions nothing about abortion which means abortion law is yes fully up to the elected legislators and since Congress has not passed any law, they go to the states.


This is how a proper Supreme Court is supposed to work , and just cause liberals dont like the decisions made by SCOTUS does not make it partisan. The Supreme Court yes should not be allowed to make up law as they seem fit even if you think those types of policies are "necessary" in a liberal democracy.

Your judiciary employs a hermeneutic method of sticking to the literal sense of words uttered by a bunch of people over two hundred years ago to reach astonishing conclusions such as Shinn v. Ramirez last year when they decreed that innocence is not enough to overturn a death sentence.

The American justice system is a backward dumpster fire, and there is no reason to export yet another terrible American way of thinking to the rest of the world. We're happy without legal giants such as Scalia and Thomas.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have a dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

I will add some context to the dry arguments that have already been presented, which I think is more important. You have the White House, and you have congress, and you have midterms. You don't need the courts to say that some action or other is highly unreasonable, there's enough oversight.

We don't have that. Local government is extremely weak, there is no constitution. When it comes to "dry" government actions that don't deal with overarching themes of human rights, there is literally nothing a 60+1 majority in the Knesset can't do. And as it turns out, Israeli liberals aren't really interested in living in a country where corruption and nepotism slowly destroys our public services. We also don't want to live in a country where the government can fire the attorney general and appoint a sycophant who will cancel bibi's trial. We want someone to have oversight over the coalition, and outside of the courts there is no one who can do it.

This is probably the main issue that is causing the current constitutional crisis in Israel in the first place. The lack of a codified constitution and/or an upper house to be a check on the legislature, or even the centralized government with few checks and balances overall. This is possibly the core issue that needs to be solved, IMO.

[MaxQue]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have  dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

Basically the pro-position is that it places power where it should be, namely in the hands of a government with a democratic mandate, not in the hands of unelected judges who may be wildly out of sync with the will of the (majority of the) people. The Israeli right, rightly or wrongly, also has the impression that the judiciary is a left-wing bulwark.

The anti-position is that this bill could lead to an undesirable situation of "tyranny of the majority" against an ever-shrinking secular, liberal population, that Israel already lacks checks and balances since the President isn't so powerful and there is no Upper House, and that this bill will help the right in forcing more religious obligations onto the secular population, which is the segment of society that racks up the most ₪ ₪ ₪.

If you read up on the discussion in the last couple of pages, you'll see what a debate along these lines looks like.

And you are totally refusing to address one of the main concerns about Israeli democracy. The Haredi. They contribute absolutely nothing (they don't work, pay taxes or serve in the draft, yet, they get massive amounts of money and have more and more votes).

[PSOL]

Who here is willing to state the pros and cons of this bill? I understand it eliminates the "reasonableness" standard for policy decisions as a vehicle of the Israel high court to invalidare laws and regulations, which I might add would never be accepted in the US as a jurisprudential benchmark for judgement. But terms, and terms of art, might be different in Isreal.

This site should be about providing information, and empowering based on that, and not invective.

I have  dream. I am an idealist. Sue me.

Basically the pro-position is that it places power where it should be, namely in the hands of a government with a democratic mandate, not in the hands of unelected judges who may be wildly out of sync with the will of the (majority of the) people. The Israeli right, rightly or wrongly, also has the impression that the judiciary is a left-wing bulwark.

The anti-position is that this bill could lead to an undesirable situation of "tyranny of the majority" against an ever-shrinking secular, liberal population, that Israel already lacks checks and balances since the President isn't so powerful and there is no Upper House, and that this bill will help the right in forcing more religious obligations onto the secular population, which is the segment of society that racks up the most ₪ ₪ ₪.

If you read up on the discussion in the last couple of pages, you'll see what a debate along these lines looks like.

And you are totally refusing to address one of the main concerns about Israeli democracy. The Haredi. They contribute absolutely nothing (they don't work, pay taxes or serve in the draft, yet, they get massive amounts of money and have more and more votes).

As someone especially critical to organized religious bodies of this type, blaming or chastising Haredim/Ultra-orthodox for not following irrational ideals with no benefit in a society like Israel is not one of them. Inability or unwillingness to find “established” work is an indictment on the low rate of returns for seeking such work in the first place, and it makes far more sense given the structure of Israeli law and Haredi society to be exclusively for under the table and non-taxable work. Israeli welfare schemes and social housing are also not good given the context of efficient housing the state can provide, much less should, and the indictment on such inefficient modes is present with the structural situation of other immigrant or insular minorities like (religious) Arabs, Ethiopians/Africans, or Russians not doing the same as it isn’t worth it under their structure’s to live like that. Nonsense on having one be bounded by the state for two years over nonsense like obligation to defense of the unrepresentative and low-return giving state is not worth going to detail or thought on the right decision.

The issues with Israel with its relations to everyone, not just the most “problematic” who are marked by the state, are baked into the fact that Israel is a state that telling the truth on some obscure forum gets people in such a twist to ban and censure them. It is structural and blame should be distributed to what is a diverse set of wealthy individuals who broke apart the society over the course of the beginning of the settling of Palestine. Piecemeal, self-serving blame is worthless to such a discussion.

[Torie]

What happens if the Israel Supreme Court invalidates a law that curtails its own power? That seems like the ultimate Constitutional crisis.

Israel’s High Court to Hear Case Against Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/world/middleeast/israel-supreme-court-judicial-overhaul-netanyahu.html

Addendum: The post below makes no sense, but assuming it is about American policy, it would be most unfortunate if US policy towards Israel careened wildly depending on which party was in power. In the meantime, while religious conservative Jews might like the drift in Israel, liberal secular Jews I would think are running to the exits, and thus the potential party divide would be replicated, and perhaps more emphatically, within the American Jewish community itself. What is Jerry Nadler and Mr. Goldman going to do?

[jaymichaud]

A shadowy international cabal of activists is working together to ensure a victory for Netanyahu.

This coalition, composed of "pro Israel" groups, think tanks, NGOs, big social media accounts, fellow right wing populist political parties, Orthodox Jewish community apparatuses and Evangelical Christians, aims to entrench Likud rule.

We cannot allow them to hurt Israel’s democracy and national fate.

[KaiserDave]

AIPAC has nothing substantive to say about events in Israel, in keeping with their total moral cowardice and unconditional support of Israel.

[Red Velvet]

https://twitter.com/GeopolPt/status/1684306242431328259

Israeli authorities putting tons of cement in water sources in the South of the occupied city of Hebron so that Palestinians can’t be able to use it for agricultural purposes.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Is Israel finally gonna rid itself of this jackass?

[Blue3]

It seems more likely for Netanyahu to die in office with his recent health issues.

[CumbrianLefty]

If that is what is required, I will settle for it.

[Dr. MB]

https://twitter.com/OrganizerMemes/status/1688598906324631568?s=20

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/OrganizerMemes/status/1688598906324631568?s=20

I reject that premise when Brittany Pettersen is present.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

About ten years until Ben-Gvir is the reasonable center of Israeli politics
https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1694424402262118475