A Diary from an Israel in Crisis
Reflections on the past week in the Jewish state.
Wednesday, February 22
I was hoping to begin this “diary” on a more upbeat note, hoping that by now there’d be a serious dialogue between the proponents and opponents of our government’s “reform” (read: demolition) plan for the Supreme Court. But it’s still not happening. Was it naive to even hope it would?
Last week President Herzog called for a negotiation between the advocates and adversaries of the “reform.” As a condition, he said Netanyahu’s governing coalition should pause the process of legislating it, which is well underway. The coalition refused.
Why is the opposition to the “reform” so widespread and fierce? Because it doesn’t just curtail the excessive power the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself since the mid-1990s; it strips the court of any meaningful capacity for judicial review and leaves Israel as a gravely flawed democracy that effectively lacks a judicial branch.
At this stage, the level of outrage in much of the general public and much of the financial, high-tech, legal, and security elite is as high as the level of disdain in the coalition. It looks like a collision course.
Police Chief Koby Shabtai, a few days ago: “The situation we’re in keeps me awake at night. We’re on a steep slope… This is an opportunity to tell everyone… not to become violent in words or deeds.”
President Isaac Herzog, last week: “[We are on the verge of a] societal and constitutional collapse.”
So much for the domestic scene. What about the foreign-and-defense front? Also not exactly quiet.
In the wake of a report that Iran is now enriching uranium to 84 percent—just 6 percentage points short of bomb-grade enrichment—an Israeli TV report said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
held a series of secret high-level meetings with top military officials aimed at upping preparations for a possible confrontation with Iran….
The report said the result of the meetings—that Israel will act alone if the international community does not step in—had been shared with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and French President Emmanuel Macron….
Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said:
“Iran is closer than ever to producing a nuclear weapon and has almost reached the red line. We will not allow that to happen—all the options are on the table. Our duty is to defend the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
He could have added—even when they’re being torn up from inside.
Thursday, February 23
“US ‘deeply concerned’ by large number of civilian injuries, deaths in Nablus raid.”
That was another thing that happened yesterday, Wednesday: in Nablus in the West Bank, Israel forces raided a terrorist enclave, which calls itself “Lion’s Den,” in a strike aimed at preempting imminent terror attacks. Such terror attacks this year have already killed eleven, and last year killed thirty-one; without military initiatives like yesterday’s, Israel would be a slaughterhouse that no one could live in.
Preliminary figures from yesterday’s raid say eight terrorists were killed and—according to the Palestinian Health Ministry—three civilians. Even if accurate, collateral loss of civilian life is hardly an anomaly in urban antiterror warfare. Supposedly “over 100 Palestinians were also injured in the gun battle”—a highly suspicious figure that doesn’t explain who (terrorists? civilians?) allegedly suffered these injuries.
Nevertheless, the condemnations—not of the Palestinian Authority for harboring terrorists, financially incentivizing terrorism, and encouraging terrorism even in children’s textbooks, but of Israel—came pouring in. And not just from the UN, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Turkey, but also from Ned Price of the US State Department, who said among other things: “We are deeply concerned that the impact of today’s raid could set back efforts aimed at restoring calm for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
It boils down to one democracy publicly berating another democracy for fighting terror, and it adds to Israelis’ sense of beleaguerment and to Palestinians’ sense that they’ll always be coddled no matter how much they glorify and practice violent aggression.
Meanwhile, late Wednesday the governor of Israel’s central bank held an emergency meeting on Israel’s rapidly destabilizing financial situation—as reflected in rising inflation, a plunging shekel, and interest rate hikes.
Behind that crisis are “rampant investor worries over the government’s judicial overhaul.” It’s feared that, if Israel turns into a country without an independent judiciary, it will sink into political instability, its credit rating will go south, and investors will flee.
When I moved here from the US thirty-eight years ago, it was partly because Israel was beleaguered and I thought that, as a Jew, I should lend a hand to the effort to sustain it. I’m still proud and happy I made that decision, and much about living here has been joyous for me. But we’re in a rough patch now, and our own political turmoil is making it a good deal worse. Call it the Israeli version of the march of folly.
Friday, February 24
Reservist officers and soldiers of the Military Intelligence’s Special Operations Division came out strongly against the coalition’s planned judicial overhaul on Friday, warning in an open letter that they would stop showing up for duty should the government move ahead with its plans.
…The reservists called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to halt the proposed judicial legislation immediately and reach a consensus, or risk “the erasure of Israeli democracy.”
…“This is a moment of emergency. If the legislation that aims to turn the judicial system into a political and non-independent branch [of government] continues, ... and if a broad consensus is not reached on the issue, we will not continue to volunteer for reserve service in the Special Operations Division,” the reservists wrote.
… Much of the Special Operations Division is classified; however, it is known to conduct undercover intelligence-gathering operations deep in enemy territory….
Especially in light of the security challenges involving Iran and Palestinian terror—and of course, there are others as well—that I’ve noted in this article, for elite reservists to threaten not to show up for duty is, of course, very serious stuff. On the one hand, I’m taken aback; on the other, my hope-barometer has risen again. Something has to get through to our breezy, arrogant, destructive governing coalition that they can’t just run roughshod over an institution like the Supreme Court behind a very thin veneer of “reforming” it.
One might ask: If it’s that bad, how can the governing coalition be doing it? The answer is multifaceted. It has to do with the rise of right-wing populism in democracies at large; with Netanyahu’s need to find coalition partners among far-right parties because leaders of more moderate parties have deep grudges against him; with a general deterioration of public discourse and of the ability to take nuanced positions.
Beyond all that, in the Israeli right—which I used to be part of, before relocating to the center a few years ago—I see the rise of a victim mentality. The belief that they’ve long been victimized by the country’s left-leaning media, academic, and judicial elites gives rise—as the victim mentality always does—to the feeling that they’ve earned the right to strike back as ruthlessly as they want.
In a few more hours the Sabbath falls on the land, and it couldn’t be more welcome. It doesn’t mean, of course, things will necessarily be peaceful, certainly not on the security front. Nonetheless I’m looking forward to it, and will take a break from this diary until Sunday.
Sunday, February 26
Two Israeli brothers, aged twenty-one and sixteen, were shot dead in a terror attack today on a highway in the West Bank. A Palestinian terrorist “opened fire from close range” at the brothers’ car, “[taking] advantage of a traffic jam on the highway.”
This act was, of course, profoundly different from the above mentioned Israeli raid last Wednesday on a terror enclave in Nablus. One constitutes terror; the other constitutes fighting terror. In the latter case, though, as noted, the State Department was “deeply concerned that the impact of today’s raid could set back efforts aimed at restoring calm….”
In truth, without such raids “calm” would not be possible at all and the situation would revert to the all-out terror onslaught of the Second Intifada (2000–2004). Characterized by buses blowing up in Israeli streets, that assault was made possible by Israel’s hasty, ill-considered withdrawal of its security forces from the West Bank during the 1990s.
Meanwhile, CIA chief William Burns said Iran could now “enrich uranium to weapons-grade within weeks,” and that “in terms of their missile systems, their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon once they’ve developed it has also been advancing….”
Reportedly, the newly passed Israeli budget includes a $2.8-billion outlay for a prospective strike on Iran.
So much for the security news.
On the political front, last night’s demonstrations against the government’s judicial overhaul were said to be the largest yet, “with estimates pointing to 130,000-160,000 in Tel Aviv and tens of thousands more around the country.”
Claims by some on the right that opposition to the overhaul is a “left-wing” phenomenon are belied by polls. One of them found 52 percent of voters for Netanyahu’s Likud Party worried that the overhaul would harm the economy—which it is already doing, in spades.
Another survey found 47 percent of Likud voters supporting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down problematic laws (an ability the government is trying to eliminate), and 60 percent of voters for the right-wing coalition as a whole favoring the dialogue that the government has so far foreclosed by insisting on going full-steam ahead with the overhaul.
To sum up, while the threats on the security front are daunting and there is no one-off solution to Palestinian terror, Israel remains the dominant military power in the region and it’s not likely that ultimately any of its enemies can defeat it. The threat to Israel’s cohesion as a society appears, at this moment, more ominous. I take heart, however, from the vast numbers of people—of varied political outlooks, including outlooks divergent from mine—who are out there trying hard to do something about it.
I agree that the Right feels victimized, it is. But more than that, the Left feels threatened and it is. They are Israelis WASPS - the White Ashkenazi Supercilious Patricians who despite their losing election after election, have controlled Israel through the two steadfast leftist political parties that never waiver — the media and the judiciary. They work hand in hand, the media supplies the headlines, which is what they decide is most important and the judiciary acts. Whenever and whatever the right-wing governments decide the media screams bloody murder, the Left turns to the Supreme Court and boom, the government is emasculated. The reform that the government is now acting on is to strip the veto power that the court holds over who will become the future justices. In the overwhelming majority of democratic countries, the political echelon chooses the judges, in Israel it is a committee where the court along with governmental lawyers vote as a left-wing block to make sure only the right (left) kind of people are appointed. In other words, Israel is ruled by a left-wing mafia. The laws will be past despite the entitled spoiled brats who have been rampaging and playing with fire.