Israel General Discussion: Annus Horribilis

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

When Binyamin Netanyahu forms his new right-wing Israeli government, it seems likely that the extreme right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir will become internal security minister. This may have severe consequences for Israel's Arab minority, since Ben-Gvir has spoken in the past of deporting them. (He now denies this is his position). If you are wondering how this could come to pass, these photos are all the explanation you need. Every time the Palestinians do stuff like this, they drive the Israeli electorate to the right, strengthen support for politicians like Ben-Gvir, and make any kind of peace settlement, let alone a Palestinian state, less likely. This has been true (and obvious to most people) for the past 40 years, but the Palestinians and their false friends in the Western left never seem to learn this lesson.

Is this really necessary?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

General strike starting from now. Big labor and big capital cooperating.

That alone says whole novels.

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 .

The thing is that the American system of judicial appointments would be, and indeed is, seen as ludicrously corrupt and cavalier in many other countries.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Checks and Balances is one of the best ways to defend liberty

There's depressingly little real evidence for this given how much sense it makes on paper and how thoroughly most Americans believe it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

Better horrible courts than no courts, as thousands of Palestinians can attest.

The proposed reforms don't even pretend to solve that problem, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Otzma agree to postpone the legislation in exchange for Ben Gvir getting a private militia.

 that. I’m heading out to protest.

I can't help but feel that this is or will be or would be quite a few alufs' reaction to this idea as well.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Those expressing confusion as to why these particular reforms are sparking so much outrage would, I think, do well to keep two things in mind:

1. The stated reason why the coalition wants this is part of what's so inappropriate here. Even Trump, whose judicial appointments were more unapologetically geared towards obtaining particular policy results than any other President since FDR, contented himself with appointing SCOTUS justices who were solid on overturning Roe. The equivalent to this would have been if they had instead been appointed for being solid on stopping the steal (which, as it turns out, precisely zero out of nine were, and the two who came closest weren't even ones he had appointed).
2. Actions can be out-of-bounds or extreme within particular political systems even if they aren't objectively immoral or antidemocratic. Mexico puts "SUFRAGIO EFECTIVO. NO REELECCIÓN." as a valediction at the end of completely unrelated legislation, and impeachments in the United States tend to be perceived as Congressional power grabs, but nobody thinks that reelecting officeholders or having the legislature scrutinize and remove the executive is some kind of massive violation in countries whose histories and political cultures traditionally allow for those things.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In order to Make The Patriotic Knights Corps From Legend Of The Galactic Heroes Real to make things right with Big Daddy Itamar, would Bibi actually have to put legislation through or would it just be a matter of letting the security ministry rustle up a bunch of far-right tough guys ad hoc? If it's the latter, I really don't see how this ends without the IDF calling bullsh**t.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The government is expected to agree on a 1.5% budget cut for all government ministries (including Defense, Education and Health) in order to increase Ben Gvir's budget for establishing his personal militia.

I have to imagine the demonstrations will continue? This is if anything worse than the court overhaul.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The government is expected to agree on a 1.5% budget cut for all government ministries (including Defense, Education and Health) in order to increase Ben Gvir's budget for establishing his personal militia.

I really doubt this national guard nonsense could take shape so fast, and public officials have ways of delaying undesired policy.

But if they agree a 1.5% general cuts the Haredi are going to find out they can’t afford all the things they’ve demanded…

Ben Gvir is the key for taking down this government

Complaining that you can't get exclusive perks after demanding money be spent on the oppression of Palestinians is the most Haredi thing ever.

To be fair to the Haredim, the people who want first and foremost to get the perks and the people who want first and foremost to bash the Palestinians are pretty distinct from each other within the Israeli far right.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

It makes Israel more democratic but less liberal-democratic. I'll allow that a lot of the rhetoric around it doesn't really make the distinction.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The steelman of the "end of Israeli democracy" messaging is that, if a country democratically abandons liberal democracy, a democratic abandon of democracy itself may not be far behind. I am very sympathetic to this case, although I would argue that the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Area C alone are subject to Israeli civil and military authority without any voice in its government, let alone in their being subject to said authority, by itself calls Israeli democracy into question.

The reality, of course, is that it is messaging targeted at center-right Israelis and at Americans. But even then, messaging is just how politics works. You need to be able to explain to a population that might not intuitively understand the distinction between democracy and liberal democracy why they ought to oppose this reform.

Yeah, I agree with all of this. I think risks to liberal democracy are, you know, very very very bad, not just risks to "democracy" in the (as Cathcon once put it) "you vote for who you like and if they win they get in" sense. I don't think DavidB's semantic point actually works as an argument against this and I wasn't trying to suggest that it does by conceding it; quite the contrary.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

National Unity-Yesh Atid-YB has a majority on these numbers and would actually be an ideologically coherent coalition. Remarkable.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

National Unity-Yesh Atid-YB has a majority on these numbers and would actually be an ideologically coherent coalition. Remarkable.

And it makes sense. It's a choice for unity, competency and national security over corruption and ideological projects. The pundits who will undoubtedly interpret it as the Israeli population swinging towards the left will be wrong, though.

Oh, of course this would still be a substantively center-right government, arguably more than merely "center-"right on The Security Issue (especially after this war). But it's still a sea change from "are you fer or agin' Bibi? If you're agin' him your only hope is to join this 60-59 coalition with one especially principled Islamist abstaining, no matter what else you believe."