Today, Israel is a cauldron with lots and lots of steam building inside, and lightning bolts are about to fly off in all directions.
Deadly attacks by Palestinian youths on Israelis coincide with Israeli settlement expansion and the burning of Palestinian villages by settlers, as well as a popular uprising against the prime minister’s takeover of the judiciary Benjamin Netanyahu.
Together they threaten a government collapse never seen before in Israel.
An indication of the seriousness of the situation is that several former Mossad chiefs – among the most respected public officials in the country – have denounced the judicial coup of Netanyahu, the latest being Danny Yatom.
On Saturday night, according to Haaretz, Yatom told Israel’s channel 13 that if Netanyahu goes ahead with his plans to effectively remove the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court, fighter pilots and special forces operatives will be able to lawfully disobey government orders.
They have “signed an agreement with a democratic country,” Yatom said.
“But when, God forbid, the country becomes a dictatorship” and they receive “an order from an illegitimate government, then I think it would be legitimate to disobey it”.
This is not idle speculation.
In recent days, some 250 officers of the Military Intelligence’s Special Operations Division signed a public letter saying they will “stop reporting for duty” if the government proceeds with its autocratic judicial review, he said. Times of Israel.
They added their voices to “groups of pilots, tankers, submariners, sailors and other special forces who have written similar letters.”
Israel has never experienced a Palestinian intifada, an intifada by Jewish settlers and a judicial intifada by Israeli citizens at the same time.
But that has been happening since Netanyahu’s far-right government came to power.
On Sunday, a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli Jews near Nablus in revenge for the deaths of 11 Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces in Nablus a few days earlier.
The settlers then set fire to and vandalized at least 200 buildings in four Palestinian villages in the area where the shooting occurred.
And that came after an estimated 160,000 Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to oppose Netanyahu’s judicial settlement after he told his cabinet ministers:
“I want to punch them to hit them,” to the protesters.
Violence between settlers and Palestinians is not new.
But when it coincides with the most ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox government in Israel’s history – which is now run by messianic religious fanatics, whose goal is to annex the entire West Bank and who now control key portfolios of police, finance and military affairs – the traditional sober Israeli ministers who would normally draw a line against such actions have been replaced by those who want to bcompletely delete the lines.
Haaretz reported on Monday that ahead of the settlers’ attack, one of Netanayhu’s coalition partners, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich, who is finance minister, enjoyed a tweet from a prominent settler leader, Davidi Ben Zion.
Ben Zion tweeted that “the people of Hawara” – one of four attacked by settlers – “it should be demolished today“.
Yes, a Netanyahu minister liked that tweet.
The new factor, however, that could truly destroy Israeli democracy is Netanyahu’s plan to end the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court in the name of “judicial reform.”
Ignoring polls showing a majority of the population against judicial takeover – and despite the appeals of the Israeli and US presidents to postpone changes until there is a national dialogue on the issue – Netanyahu and his hardline allies are moving to get him out of the Knesset in the coming weeks.
The dizzying speed of the maneuver is exposing the outright fraud which is Netanyahu when he softly insists to foreign leaders and journalists that he simply wants to pass some innocent technical fixes to bring Israel’s Supreme Court more in line with Israel’s. United States, Canada or France.
Truly?
Ask yourself this question:
Which Israeli leader would risk a civil war in his own country, a break with Jewish Democrats around the world, a break with the United States, significant damage to Israel’s high-tech miracle, and now Israeli troops openly say they will not die to protect a dictatorship?
What Israeli leader would risk all this for a few judicial technical provisions?
Netanyahu would only risk all of this for something very big, very important and very personal.
And this is judicial “reform” that he hopes will end his trial on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraudwhich could land you in jail.
Judicial “reform” would also give his right-wing coalition unlimited power build settlements everywhere, confiscate Palestinian land and direct taxpayer money to orthodox religious schools where young people only have to study Torah, not mathematics, science or literature, not to mention military service.
In other words, none of these judicial “reforms” fall short.
It’s a power play that Netanyahu wants so that with a flick of his wrist – a simple majority vote for a Knesset seat – he can Cancel whatever the Supreme Court orders.
That is why the protests against this judicial coup continue to gain strength.
Israel doesn’t Hungary, where the leader can impose autocracy without further ado.
On Saturday evening, a crowd gathered in central Tel Aviv to hear from, among others, Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and army chief of staff.
Barak couldn’t be clearer about the existential moment Israel is experiencing.
In the coming weeks, if Netanyahu’s coalition passes these “new dictatorship laws,” Barak said, they will be “overturned by the Supreme Court” as illegal.
When that happens and the government takes steps to overturn some Supreme Court rulings, the four key “guardians” of Israeli security – the military chief of staff and the heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and police – will have to decide from whom take orders.
Theshold
“This will create a constitutional crisis extremely serious,” Barak said.
“If the threshold is crossed – he added – and the laws of the dictatorship are implemented, the responsibility will pass to us, the citizens of the country.
We will have to follow the tradition established by Gandhi, 80 years ago in India, e Martin Luther King60 years ago in the United States, following the path of nonviolent civil disobedience… It is the right, even the duty, of citizens when their government acts in a way that violates the rules of the game and is contrary to its own fundamental norms and value system of the village”.
Finally, one more thing I’ve never seen before:
A spooky reality check from one of Israel’s cutting edge startups.
On Monday, Assaf Rappaport, CEO and co-founder of Magiciana cloud security startup, announced that Wiz had just raised $300 million in a Series D funding round at a $10 billion valuation.
Normally, this would have been great news for Israel as well, but Rappaport said his company cannot ignore what is happening in the country.
“We share the grief of the families who have lost loved ones over the past day and are concerned about the rapid deterioration of security on both sides. Unfortunately,” he said, “in light of the judicial coup, the money we raised won’t go to Israel…. We’ve heard from concerned investors and businessmen who are quietly moving their money out of the country, as well as from employees worried about their future in Israel.
“Wiz was successful thanks to the unique ecosystem that exists in Israel, but we now face an existential threat. We believe it is essential that the government prioritize the safety of citizens and stop any legislative measures that could aggravate the current situation.”
Hey Friedman, you seem to be writing only about Ukraine and Israel lately. Don’t you have anything else to say?
It’s not by chance. I believe that if Ukraine fell into the hands of Vladimir Putin and Israel were to become a false democracy like Hungary, the whole world would go to the wrong side.
Israel is the only true democracy with an independent judiciary in the Middle East.
Ukraine represents the European Union, a gigantic engine of the rule of law, free markets, human rights and democratic norms, even if not all EU countries have fully implemented them.
If democracy in the EU and in Israel is undermined, democracy everywhere will be further endangered.
c.2023 The New York Times Society
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.