Protests continue in Israel against Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul judiciary

The roots of the current crisis lie in Israel’s national security culture.

Protesters outside  the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem on March 27. The country is seeing ongoing demonstrations in response to the government’s push to overhaul the judiciary. | Photo Credit: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP

In the last week of March, astonishing images emerged from Israel as tens of thousands of people raged on the streets. Reports said that even the country’s police chief joined the protests. On March 26, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked Yoav Gallant, his Defence Minister, who had asked for a halt to the government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary through a Bill. The latest developments come on the back of months of marches and rallies that Netanyahu has steadily ignored. Not only did Gallant warn Netanyahu that the proposed Bill had started creating divisions within the military but that Israel’s top allies, including the US, had expressed concerns.

Tel Aviv witnessed one of the largest protests. The Histadrut labour federation, the largest trade union in Israel, gave a nationwide call for protests. Airports, shops, banks, and even hospitals stopped working. Many diplomats in Israeli embassies across the world stopped work and joined the call. Yair Lapid, Leader of the Opposition, called it the “biggest crisis in the history of the country”. Israeli President Isaac Herzog was forced to intervene. He asked the Prime Minister to delay the proposed judicial reforms.

Netanyahu has so far been steadfast in refusing to bow down to any pressure: whether from the opposition in the Knesset, the mass protesters, the judiciary, intellectuals, or activists. He has disparaged them in terms autocratic leaders across the world typically use against opponents: saying they are foreign-funded and traitors. However, finally realising that the situation was getting out of control, Netanyahu announced a delay on March 27, holding the Bill over until Passover, a major Jewish holiday. Netanyahu said: “When there is a possibility of preventing a civil war through dialogue, I, as the Prime Minister, take a time out for dialogue.”

People demonstrating outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv on March 30 praising US President Joe Biden’s comments over the Israeli government’s controversial judicial reform Bill. | Photo Credit: JACK GUEZ/AFP

Given that the changes are spearheaded by Netanyahu’s far-right partners, such as Yariv Levin, the Justice Minister, and Simcha Rothman, Chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, it would have been difficult for Netanyahu to convince them to delay the process of curbing the powers of the judiciary without offering them something in return. Thus, in a significant move, Netanyahu granted Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right National Security Minister, who has called the protesters “anarchists”, the authority to form a new “national guard”, a paramilitary force and potential private militia that will be under his exclusive control.

What led to this

The genesis of the ongoing protests is a Bill Netanyahu’s right-wing government introduced to overhaul the judiciary. The government is an alliance of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and five far-right parties/groups: United Torah Judaism, Shas, the Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit, and Noam. From the beginning, the tenet that has united the six ally partners has been an abhorrence for Israel’s Supreme Court, which they believe is too powerful and biased against the settler movement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset on March 27, the day he announced a pause to the divisive judicial reforms until Passover, a major Jewish holiday. | Photo Credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/AFP

On the pretext of balancing the distribution of powers, the far right has for a long time been demanding that the power of the judiciary be curbed. The demand picked up momentum after 2009, when a range of Bills and policies were unleashed. The far-right leader Ayelet Shaked launched a new phase of the war against the Supreme Court when she was Justice Minister from 2015 to 2019.

The judicial overhaul Bill proposes radical reforms of the judiciary, one of which is to change the selection process for judges and bring it under the control of the government. When it was first discussed in the Knesset on February 21, 2023, amidst strong protests from the opposition, thousands were protesting outside.

The Bill was passed in the first of three readings (debate and voting) in the plenum and was to be passed in two further readings to become a law in the Book of Laws of the State of Israel. (Israel does not have a formal written constitution because in the early days of its creation in Palestine various contesting political forces, representing secular and religious interests, could not reach a consensus on the nature of the Israeli state and failed to formulate a constitution. Instead, certain laws called basic laws together act as a constitution.)

Opponents argue that the Bill is an attack on the independence of the judiciary and on democracy. They say that the aim is to give corrupt politicians such as Netanyahu a clean chit by not allowing the judiciary to act against them, which will undermine democracy in Israel and push the country towards authoritarianism.

Israel’s judiciary

The judiciary in Israel has played the important role of providing “checks and balances” to the executive and the legislature. It has often struck down Bills or amendments that it thought violated the human rights and dignity of individual citizens or the basic laws. This included cases and petitions filed by human rights activists and Palestinians from the occupied territories. Such action is seen as interference by right-wing parties and their leaders, who flourish on the anti-Palestine agenda and who would like the independent judiciary to come under the control of the government.

Netanyahu’s conservative Zionist allies would like to introduce sections in the Bill that allow separate public buses for men and women and exempt the readers of the Torah from essential military conscription.

Most importantly, the new Bill will allow the Knesset to overrule almost any Supreme Court ruling by a simple majority of 61 in the 120-seat Knesset. And it will allow politicians to appoint most of the judges. Critics argue that this will bring the judiciary under the government and reduce the accountability of elected representatives. The Bill is clearly meant, critics say, to emasculate a judiciary that has been reasonably independent so far and acted against policies it considered “unreasonable”.

In 2005, the court played a large role in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The Bill will also make it harder for the Supreme Court to declare a Prime Minister unfit for office. Many see the Bill as a tactic by Netanyahu to absolve himself of the corruption charges he faces, which led to his trial in 2020. He was accused of obtaining inappropriate favours from businessmen and attempting to strike a deal with a publisher for favourable coverage in the media. Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit indicted Netanyahu in February 2019. Under Israeli law, the Attorney General has the authority to indict a Prime Minister, and right-wing politicians do not like this authority exercised by an “unelected” official. The Bill thus created a division between the conservative supporters of the Likud-led government and the liberal sections of Israel.

Highlights

• Tens of thousands of Israeli citizens have been protesting for weeks on the streets against the attempt by the far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin to control the judiciary through a Bill that would, among other things, give the Knesset the power to overturn a Supreme Court ruling with a simple majority.
• Netanyahu has so far been refusing to bow down to any pressure, disparaging the protesters in terms authoritarian leaders normally use. However, on March 27, he announced a temporary halt to the Bill. 
• Israel’s crises stem from the fact that politicians tend to link every issue with the country’s formation and security, which makes it difficult to separate any issue’s presumed security aspect from its real aspect.
• The protesters on the streets of Israel have seen through the Netanyahu government’s design to “undermine democratic checks and balances”, but they do not come out on the streets to oppose any of the state’s anti-Palestinian policies. The opposition by liberals would be more effective if they widely upheld democratic norms and included the issue of the Palestinians in their struggle.

Political stability

Political stability has always been an issue in Israel, but it hardly gets noticed because of its link with the security aspect of the Israeli state. Israel’s security remains the world’s foremost focus, and the attention is always on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Thus, every time elections are announced, nearly all political leaders or parties take a radical stand against Palestinians.

In September 2000, Ariel Sharon visited the Qibli (Al-Aqsa) Mosque along with a 1,000-strong police force and said the complex would remain under Israeli control, which evoked an emotional response from Palestinians. He became Prime Minister in March 2001. In April 2019, Netanyahu said that he would annex Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was elected to power. In a similar vein, while forming the present ruling alliance with right-wing parties, Netanyahu said that he would legalise dozens of “outposts”, that is Israeli settlements, in the occupied West Bank. These outposts are illegal even according to Israeli law. Even as debates about the judicial reform Bill were going on in January-February 2023, Israel launched a big raid in the Jenin area of the West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians on the pretext of arresting possible “terror operatives” planning “major attacks”.

Strong conservative agenda

It is a clear reflection of Israel’s political crisis that five Knesset elections have been held in the last four years. One after another, coalition governments were formed and dissolved. The current Netanyahu government was formed in November 2022. It has a strong conservative agenda—which includes annexing the West Bank, rolling back queer and women’s rights, and giving the police and soldiers more leeway—and sees the judiciary as the main hurdle to achieving this.

If Israel continues to get world support for its policies, it is because, as Jeff Halper says in his book War Against the People, the country plays a major role in “global security politics”, which sees governments engaged in continuous low-grade warfare against civilian populations to “enforce the hegemony of transnational capital”.

Israel’s security state approach causes a perennial political crisis. It is easy for politicians to link every issue with the country’s formation and security. When it becomes difficult to separate any issue’s presumed security aspect from its real aspect, it is easy to centralise power. An electoral political system provides the path to pursue such centralisation. If Israel continues to get world support for its policies, it is because, as Jeff Halper says in his book War Against the People, the country plays a major role in “global security politics”, which sees governments engaged in continuous low-grade warfare against civilian populations to “enforce the hegemony of transnational capital”. Israel supplies advanced weapons and technology to at least 130 countries.

Israel as a democracy

Democracy in Israel has structural flaws. Steven Levitksy and Daniel Ziblatt argue in their book How Democracies Die that threats to democracy since the end of the Cold War have come from “elected governments themselves”. Authoritarian leaders emerge in all democracies. The test of democracy, they argue, is how such leaders are prevented from gaining power by political leaders and parties who refuse “to endorse or align with them”.

Steven Levitksy and Daniel Ziblatt argue in their book How Democracies Die that threats to democracy since the end of the Cold War have come from “elected governments themselves”.

Once the authoritarian leader “makes it to power”, then the second test emerges: “Will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them?” Here lies the problem. Democratic institutions are not independent of leaders; they are created by leaders/elected representatives. Therefore, Levitksy and Ziblatt argue, “constitutions must be defended by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms”. Without robust norms, they say, “constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be”.

The protesters on the streets of Israel over the past few weeks have seen through the design of the Netanyahu government to “undermine democratic checks and balances”. Interestingly, however, the same people do not come out on the streets to oppose any policies of the state to dispossess the Palestinians. When the Netanyahu government passed the July 2018 law that officially defined Israel as a Jewish nation state and dispossessed Arabs and Palestinians of equal rights, no protests were held.

Israel’s liberal sections do not see that this selective approach to democracy has led to the mushrooming of leaders such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Ayelet Shaked, Bezalel Smotrich, and others who do not want any hurdles in the way of their illiberal, undemocratic, and anti-Palestine agenda. This is the reason why the Netanyahu-led alliance is moving Israel towards the kind of authoritarian state that the liberal sections fear. The opposition by liberals would be more effective if they widely upheld democratic norms and included the issue of the Palestinians in their struggle.

Nazir Ahmad Mir is a researcher based in New Delhi.