Israeli people: This is not what we voted for

Thursday marked another nail in the coffin, for the preservation of the separation of powers, as it relates to the three branches of government, similar to the U.S. – executive (the government leader and his coalition), the legislative (the Knesset members) and the judicial (the judges who are appointed).

Up until now, those judges were placed in their positions through a 9-member Judicial Selection Committee, based on their specific qualifications. The Committee consists of the “Minister of Justice, a cabinet member, the President of the Supreme Court, two other justices of the Supreme Court, two members of the Knesset and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association.”

One would think that within that group, lies a fair representation of diverse ideas, opinions, political leanings, intelligent discourse and sound wisdom, all serving the interest of placing the most qualified people in such high important positions.

But apparently some didn’t think so, and it is those people, headed by Justice Minister, Yariv Levin who, after getting the go-ahead by the government coalition, brought forward a controversial piece of legislation for a Knesset vote, changing how judges are appointed. 

Since the 68-member ultra-Orthodox coalition makes up a majority of the 120 Knesset total membership, there was no doubt that the bill would pass, and it did. This means that the two Bar Association members will be removed from the Judicial Selection Committee, replacing them with one attorney chosen by the government coalition and one by the opposition. 

“It also removes any influence of the three judges on the committee over appointments to the Supreme Court while granting the coalition and opposition vetoes.” If there is a deadlock in the votes, the justice minister can intervene. In short, this “ensures that judges become subject to the will of politicians.”   

Although this law will not be enacted until a new government is elected, it has the potential to change what has been viewed as a robust democracy in the State of Israel, free from undue political influence.

One of the most common questions, by outsiders, who don’t fully understand the workings of our parliamentary system, is why the Israeli public would so bitterly turn against the government which they freely elected. And this is the subject I would like to address.

Unlike other countries, there isn’t a popular vote of one person, who then creates his own cabinet of like-minded individuals to support his agenda. The complex system here is one which is ruled by different political parties, all vying to gain the largest number of votes (called mandates). That party is then tasked with putting together a coalition of smaller parties which, together, must meet a minimum threshold of 61 mandates.

The problem is that those smaller parties do not necessarily support the agenda of the larger party that wins the most mandates, and that is precisely what occurred in our last election of December, 2023 when the Likud party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, won the greatest number of mandates.  

They could have chosen from any number of other political parties to reach the 61-threshold - a centrist party or other more right-leaning parties. They could have even gone to the more liberal parties or others who were more mainstream, but, instead, they chose everyone from ultra-Orthodox parties, extremists who craved power and a total overhaul of the existing laws for the purpose of creating a stronger religious hold on the public. But, in order to be chosen by Netanyahu, they had to also agree to support his agenda, and chief among that was changing laws which would extricate him from the legal cases which have dogged the prime minister the last several years and were coming up for trial.

It was the classic deal of scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Wasting no time to make the changes they sought, changes which would benefit the very religious but discriminate against minorities and the secular population, which comprises the majority within the State, their zeal led them to try to expeditiously implement new laws.  

That was what drove Israelis onto the streets and highways in 2023, protesting against the overreach that they saw happening right before their eyes. Many felt that the Likud party, for which they had voted, betrayed them by choosing an extreme coalition whose agenda was to turn Israel into a more religiously-observant country in the style of Orthodox Judaism.  

A number of these religious coalition parties bitterly opposed military service and even proposed a law which would permanently exempt young Haredi men from being drafted. The divide became so great that it looked as if a civil war was imminent. Of course, that was the perfect time for the enemy to execute a massacre, sensing the weakness of the people who were at odds with their own government.

The war, at least, was responsible for pausing the effort by these Orthodox political parties to enact their agendas, but that came to an end on Thursday, with the passage of this new bill, changing the appointment of judges and injecting their biased political positions into who is chosen. It has, once again, enflamed an already angry public, which has taken to the street en masse, promising to cripple the country by bringing about repeated general strikes, sending a loud message to the government that there will be no cooperation or acceptance of their agenda.

At the moment, the next election is not scheduled until 2026, and if this present government is overturned at that time, which is likely to happen, the incoming coalition will have the chance to strike down this new legislation, returning the system to the way it was previously.

Until then, however, we can expect that this government will work overtime, to change much more, despite the very sensitive period of being embroiled in a war which is far from finished and the immense struggle to return all of our remaining hostages. The timing couldn’t be worse, but that seems to be of little consequence to politicians who have waited years to attain unbridled power but who also know that their days are numbered. 

It makes you wonder if the Likud, Israel’s most popular party, can, once again, be entrusted with being tasked to build a broader, more diverse coalition which will better represent the will of all of the people, and not just their special interest groups, because one thing is for sure. Most Israelis will tell you that this is not the government for which they voted!