A “constitutional crisis of historic proportions”. The rightward turn of the Jewish state, driven by Benjamin Netanyahu in the last elections, is putting the stability of Israeli society at risk.
While protests are mounting in the main cities of the country, the alarm is raised directly by the Israeli head of state, Isaac Herzog. “We are grappling with a profound conflict that is tearing our nation apart,” warned the Israeli president, just two weeks after the installation of the sixth government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. An executive in which forces that had been excluded from Israeli political life are present for the first time, now capable of guaranteeing the stability that has been missing for three years.
From Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who defined himself as a “fascist homophobe”, to convicted of inciting racism who ended up leading the police, the profile of the new majority has not failed to cause discussions inside and outside the country. Regardless of the past of its members, however, the measures that the government is preparing to implement immediately have triggered strong protests.
A radical reform program, which brings many long-standing demands of the Israeli right to the center of the agenda. First of all, finally settling the score with the judicial establishment.
War on the Supreme Court
“We go to the polls, we vote, we elect and, from time to time, the people we have not elected choose in our place”, the summary of the new Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, who points the finger at the Israeli Supreme Court: “This it’s not democracy.” The proposals presented by Levin aim to bend the “judicial activism” of the Court, accused of having hindered the action of conservative governments over the last thirty years. Under the reform, a simple majority in parliament will suffice to ignore the sentences with which the Supreme Court decrees the annulment of a law. Furthermore, an unspecified “special majority” of the 15 members of the Supreme Court will be required to repeal the rules.
Measures that “threaten to destroy the entire constitutional structure of the State of Israel”, according to the leader of the opposition and former prime minister, Yair Lapid, which is also echoed by important exponents of the judicial world, such as the current attorney general. The same president of the High Court, Esther Hayut, spoke in no uncertain terms of “a plan to crush the judicial system”.
The appointment as Minister of the Interior and Health of the ultra-Orthodox, Aryeh Deri, already convicted in 2000 for corruption and last year for tax evasion, also raised the level of the clash. An assignment destined to end up under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, which has in fact ordered the government to remove it. “This unfortunate decision ignores the will of the people,” commented Netanyahu, himself under investigation for corruption, fraud and abuse of office. Despite the discontent within the coalition, Netanyahu has chosen to respect the sentence, even if with the reform it will no longer be possible to adopt similar decisions. In fact, the Court will no longer be able to resort to the criterion of “reasonableness” to decide whether or not government decisions fall within the confines of the law, the same one cited in the Deri case. The appointment of the leader of Shas, the second party in the coalition, was considered “unreasonable” in light of past convictions.
“The Hour of Darkness”
In addition to a profound reform of the country’s highest judicial body, the right has promised to further expand the settlements in the Palestinian territories, considered illegal by the international community, and a profound change in the relationship between state and religion, up to allowing discrimination on the basis of religion of a supplier of goods or services. In this way, according to the parliamentarians who made the proposals, doctors could refuse treatment to LGBT people or hotels could give up hosting a gay couple. Netanyahu responded to these statements by promising that his government will not allow “any discrimination against LGBTQ people nor harm the rights of any other Israeli citizen”. However, fears remain of a generalized tightening of rights, no longer limited only to Palestinians, who according to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch are now living in a regime of full apartheid.
Since the government took office, tens of thousands of people have crowded the streets of major Israeli cities on a weekly basis, fearing that Israel will become “the next Poland, Turkey or Hungary”. The biggest protests were seen in Tel Aviv, a city that symbolizes the freedom and well-being promised by the Israeli model, which every year hosts one of the most important gay pride parades in the world. “Now is the hour of darkness,” noted author David Grossman said at one of the rallies. “What happens today will determine what it will be and who we and our children will become.”
Even the international press has not hidden its concern for the trajectory of Israeli society. The “oasis of democracy” evoked in recent years by Netanyahu risks becoming little more than “a mirage” according to the Washington Postwhich, like other publications, has given voice to those in Israel and abroad who fear that the illiberal drift of the Jewish state could even jeopardize its stability, as well as the rights of those who live there.
According to Benny Gantz, a leading opposition figure but also a former Chief of Staff, it is “predictable” that stability in the Palestinian territories will be affected by the new political balance and that “blood will be shed” in the West Bank, where the Israeli security forces have intensified raids as part of the so-called “Operation Breakwater”. According to the Israeli NGO B’TselemAt least 146 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2022, the highest number since 2004.
The declarations of the Minister of National Security, the extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who ordered the police to remove Palestinian flags from public places, a few days after visiting the Esplanade of mosques, have also contributed to inflaming tensions in recent weeks.
After Ben Gvir’s visit, the US ambassador reiterated the need to maintain the “status quo in the holy places of Jerusalem” while the Biden administration asked to avoid actions that could “inflame tensions”.
Washington’s perplexities, and differences over the Iranian nuclear deal, have not hindered close military ties. Just last week the joint “Juniper Oak” exercise was held, considered “the most important” in the history of the two countries. Approximately 6,400 US troops took part, involving land, sea, air and space forces. A significant deployment, seen as a message to Iran and also to Russia, which is preparing to hold naval exercises with the Chinese navy in South Africa.
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