Israel General Discussion: Annus Horribilis

[Death of a Salesman]

Good of Netanyahu to not back down. He may lose now, but it is better to lose with conviction and courage than to surrender without taking a stand.

Nice to see it confirmed that the modern GOP is actually hostile to democracy.

This proposal is by definition making the judicial process more democratic. Now you can argue that’s a bad thing due to a nature of what a judiciary deals with but please stop with these nonsense talking points .

At its core democracy means that government belongs (and is responsible to) the public as a body, not to some sub-set thereof (whether that sub-set is one king, many oligarchs, or one political party is beside the point),

What Netanyahu is very obviously doing here - allowing simple majority to over-ride the court, and his government to potentially stack the court - is destructive to rule of law, and anti-democratic (much as when Republicans do similar things to stack courts and erode rule of law in the US). That's why people are protesting - because its destructive and obvious.

This is incoherent babble from a hardcore hack. Allowing the legislature to control the court is normal within the Westminster system and is a measure that most Democrats support. If Israel had a liberal government and a right-wing court chosen by a group of conservatives, all of you would support this. Your objection is that it reduces the power of the political faction you like. All of this moaning on about principles is utter nonsense.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

An Israeli government under that system is not one which this reform would produce, since it'd still disenfranchise millions of Palestinians.

The biggest root of the current set of problems is, as mentioned upthread, misalignment of the electorate and the society. Large numbers of Haredis are quite insulated from society and get the vote; large numbers of Arabs suffer all the worst aspects of Israeli society without suffrage. As these portions of the population grow relative to the population as a whole, the government will grow further from society.

At the end of the road is Lebanon, if changes aren't made.

Yes, Israeli politicians are not giving out the vote to people who are hostile to the Israeli state. That's not the issue at hand here. Most Israelis who oppose the court reform still support the basic principle of a Jewish state.

The long-term path of Israel is that it keeps shifting to the right and gradually expelling the Arabs. That might not be your preferred path, but it's clearly what is going to happen.

[Death of a Salesman]

Your objection is that it reduces the power of the political faction you like.

It’s more that it increases the power of a political faction that is fundamentally opposed to what most people would recognize as democracy.

No, this is nonsense. Bibi and his allies are exemplars of majoritarian Democracy. They represent the majority of the nation-state and they believe this entitles them to govern. What you mean by democracy is an incoherent cluster of concepts which fundamentally boil down to a system where you get your way. Most modern leftists are just so illiterate that they are unable to ever conceive of democracy as bad.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

An Israeli government under that system is not one which this reform would produce, since it'd still disenfranchise millions of Palestinians.

The biggest root of the current set of problems is, as mentioned upthread, misalignment of the electorate and the society. Large numbers of Haredis are quite insulated from society and get the vote; large numbers of Arabs suffer all the worst aspects of Israeli society without suffrage. As these portions of the population grow relative to the population as a whole, the government will grow further from society.

At the end of the road is Lebanon, if changes aren't made.

Yes, Israeli politicians are not giving out the vote to people who are hostile to the Israeli state. That's not the issue at hand here. Most Israelis who oppose the court reform still support the basic principle of a Jewish state.

The long-term path of Israel is that it keeps shifting to the right and gradually expelling the Arabs. That might not be your preferred path, but it's clearly what is going to happen.

Ethnic cleansing isn't my preferred path, yes. Is it yours?

The Palestinians should have come to the table and gotten terms for a two-state solution when they were available. Instead, their delusional overconfidence has led to their irrelevance.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

I’m not sure what exactly you mean by this. Care to expand on it?

Over the past three decades, South Africa's demographic majority has embarked on a campaign of expropriation against the wealthier and former ruling minority. The response has been exit, since they no longer possess voice in a meaningful sense. This has not helped the country.

Israel politics has a similar dynamic. The Gush Dan liberals are not especially well-liked by UTJ or Shas, but they pay for the state and serve in the military. A Haredi ANC is not a sustainable path forward.

[Death of a Salesman]

Good of Netanyahu to not back down. He may lose now, but it is better to lose with conviction and courage than to surrender without taking a stand.

Nice to see it confirmed that the modern GOP is actually hostile to democracy.

This proposal is by definition making the judicial process more democratic. Now you can argue that’s a bad thing due to a nature of what a judiciary deals with but please stop with these nonsense talking points .

At its core democracy means that government belongs (and is responsible to) the public as a body, not to some sub-set thereof (whether that sub-set is one king, many oligarchs, or one political party is beside the point),

What Netanyahu is very obviously doing here - allowing simple majority to over-ride the court, and his government to potentially stack the court - is destructive to rule of law, and anti-democratic (much as when Republicans do similar things to stack courts and erode rule of law in the US). That's why people are protesting - because its destructive and obvious.

This is incoherent babble from a hardcore hack. Allowing the legislature to control the court is normal within the Westminster system and is a measure that most Democrats support. If Israel had a liberal government and a right-wing court chosen by a group of conservatives, all of you would support this. Your objection is that it reduces the power of the political faction you like. All of this moaning on about principles is utter nonsense.

If you don't want to understand the context behind why hundreds of thousands are out protesting this legislation, kindly just shut the hell up. We're tired and have better things to do than explaining this to foreigners who don't want to understand.

It's a little rich for someone with a Biden Harris poster in their bio to complain about foreigners talking about international politics.

[Death of a Salesman]

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.

Something alone those lines, or not granting suffrage to those who don't pay taxes, would be an effective way to ensure stability.