Under massive and unprecedented pressure from demonstrators, military reservists, labor unions and concerned democrats abroad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has paused efforts to make Israel’s independent judiciary subservient to the majority that controls parliament.
It remains to be seen if he will revive this effort after the Passover holiday and Israel’s marking of its 75th year of independence.
Whatever Netanyahu decides, the political crisis in Israel is not a purely internal Israeli matter. It’s part of a global democracy crisis that’s infected multiple democratic countries around the world, from Hungary to India to the United States. It’s also relevant to the American Jewish community, which has spent decades laboring to build U.S. support for the Jewish state, arguing that the two countries share fundamental values.
A successful weakening of judicial independence by Netanyahu could seriously imperil that support and even give energy to those who question the billions the US sends Israel each year in military aid. It would also remove the last check on Israeli overreach against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and undermine civil rights protections for Israel’s Arab minority. And it would no longer ensure that a prosecutor could pursue corruption charges against a politician without fear that the court’s decision could be overridden by that politician’s political allies.
That makes navigating this crisis not just a national security challenge, but also a domestic political one. It requires a deft American response to help calm the situation so that Israelis can regain their democratic balance.
One thing is clear: what happens in Washington impacts matters to Jerusalem. Israeli eyes are looking to America to see how we’ll respond.
Ever since Israel’s founding in 1948, Israelis and their American Jewish supporters have rightly prided themselves on the democratic nature of the state. There have generally been two core checks on power in this democratic system: the broad centrist nature of Israelis and the Israeli Supreme Court.
Unlike many western democracies, Israel doesn’t have a triangular system of checks and balances with independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches undergirded by a strong constitution. In Israel, there’s no real separation between the executive and legislative branches and there’s no constitution. The Supreme Court bases its power of legal oversight on overlapping statutory authorities derived from decades of jurisprudence tied to Israel, the British Mandate, and even reaching back to Ottoman rule.
This means that Israel’s democracy depends on compromise being fostered amongst a consistently unruly collection of diverse political parties that represent all manner of Israeli political views in parliament, also known as the Knesset.
Historically, two parties have dominated this landscape from the center-left (Labor) and center-right (Likud), typically holding roughly 80 of the 120 Knesset seats, with the rest split between Israeli-Arab and Jewish religious parties. This meant that power was generally wielded from the center, albeit somewhat to the right or left depending upon elections, with the major centrist parties driving important policy decisions. It was a stable arrangement.
However, that formula, which provided checks on extremism, no longer exists. Today, the Likud has 32 members in the Knesset and Labor has only four. There are splinters in every direction. Extremist parties are now the kingmakers and centrist political checks have disappeared. The one other check on political power in Israel—the Supreme Court—is all that remains.
That’s why this one democratic mainstay is now under threat from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. This last, final check on raw partisan political power is all that stands in the way of the goals of Netanyahu’s most extreme coalition members to remake Israeli society in their image. The result: Israelis have taken to the streets; military reservists have sworn to not observe their reserve duty; labor unions, universities, and business leaders have called for a general strike; and both the largely ceremonial Israeli president and the far more powerful American president have each called for an inclusive judicial reform process that can be achieved through consensus.
The core demand of these protestors is to maintain the current checks and balances in Israeli democracy and to have accountability for Israel’s leaders. The proposal by Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges, does the opposite.
If successful, Netanyahu would be able to stack the Supreme Court while giving the Knesset the power to override any court decision through simple majority. Israel would then be entering autocratic rule, with a direct negative impact on the US-Israel security relationship.
Every year, the American people send $3–4 billion in military assistance to Israel. It’s considered by most to be money well spent and it is sent to a democracy with no strings attached. That could change if Israel were no longer considered to be a democracy, as the U.S. typically conditions military aid sent to non-democratic governments.
This means that for American Jews, who have made Israeli democracy a cornerstone of their advocacy for American support for Israel, this is a tipping point. American Jewish leaders are grappling with how to speak about the crisis, nervous about being seen as too critical of the Israeli government. But they shouldn’t be, because by being quiet, they are shrinking the political space that the Biden administration needs to help Israel navigate this moment.
American Jews play a special political role in American support for Israel. They should do everything they can to maintain this key strategic relationship by supporting Israeli calls for keeping their democracy strong. Because just as we’ve seen with backtracking democracies around the world, once democracy is gone, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.
Joel Rubin is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a partner at Democracy Partners, and a longtime American Jewish political leader.
A Moment of Truth for Israelis and Their American Jewish Supporters
By Joel Rubin
Middle East & North Africa
Under massive and unprecedented pressure from demonstrators, military reservists, labor unions and concerned democrats abroad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has paused efforts to make Israel’s independent judiciary subservient to the majority that controls parliament.
It remains to be seen if he will revive this effort after the Passover holiday and Israel’s marking of its 75th year of independence.
Whatever Netanyahu decides, the political crisis in Israel is not a purely internal Israeli matter. It’s part of a global democracy crisis that’s infected multiple democratic countries around the world, from Hungary to India to the United States. It’s also relevant to the American Jewish community, which has spent decades laboring to build U.S. support for the Jewish state, arguing that the two countries share fundamental values.
A successful weakening of judicial independence by Netanyahu could seriously imperil that support and even give energy to those who question the billions the US sends Israel each year in military aid. It would also remove the last check on Israeli overreach against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and undermine civil rights protections for Israel’s Arab minority. And it would no longer ensure that a prosecutor could pursue corruption charges against a politician without fear that the court’s decision could be overridden by that politician’s political allies.
That makes navigating this crisis not just a national security challenge, but also a domestic political one. It requires a deft American response to help calm the situation so that Israelis can regain their democratic balance.
One thing is clear: what happens in Washington impacts matters to Jerusalem. Israeli eyes are looking to America to see how we’ll respond.
Ever since Israel’s founding in 1948, Israelis and their American Jewish supporters have rightly prided themselves on the democratic nature of the state. There have generally been two core checks on power in this democratic system: the broad centrist nature of Israelis and the Israeli Supreme Court.
Unlike many western democracies, Israel doesn’t have a triangular system of checks and balances with independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches undergirded by a strong constitution. In Israel, there’s no real separation between the executive and legislative branches and there’s no constitution. The Supreme Court bases its power of legal oversight on overlapping statutory authorities derived from decades of jurisprudence tied to Israel, the British Mandate, and even reaching back to Ottoman rule.
This means that Israel’s democracy depends on compromise being fostered amongst a consistently unruly collection of diverse political parties that represent all manner of Israeli political views in parliament, also known as the Knesset.
Historically, two parties have dominated this landscape from the center-left (Labor) and center-right (Likud), typically holding roughly 80 of the 120 Knesset seats, with the rest split between Israeli-Arab and Jewish religious parties. This meant that power was generally wielded from the center, albeit somewhat to the right or left depending upon elections, with the major centrist parties driving important policy decisions. It was a stable arrangement.
However, that formula, which provided checks on extremism, no longer exists. Today, the Likud has 32 members in the Knesset and Labor has only four. There are splinters in every direction. Extremist parties are now the kingmakers and centrist political checks have disappeared. The one other check on political power in Israel—the Supreme Court—is all that remains.
That’s why this one democratic mainstay is now under threat from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. This last, final check on raw partisan political power is all that stands in the way of the goals of Netanyahu’s most extreme coalition members to remake Israeli society in their image. The result: Israelis have taken to the streets; military reservists have sworn to not observe their reserve duty; labor unions, universities, and business leaders have called for a general strike; and both the largely ceremonial Israeli president and the far more powerful American president have each called for an inclusive judicial reform process that can be achieved through consensus.
The core demand of these protestors is to maintain the current checks and balances in Israeli democracy and to have accountability for Israel’s leaders. The proposal by Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges, does the opposite.
If successful, Netanyahu would be able to stack the Supreme Court while giving the Knesset the power to override any court decision through simple majority. Israel would then be entering autocratic rule, with a direct negative impact on the US-Israel security relationship.
Every year, the American people send $3–4 billion in military assistance to Israel. It’s considered by most to be money well spent and it is sent to a democracy with no strings attached. That could change if Israel were no longer considered to be a democracy, as the U.S. typically conditions military aid sent to non-democratic governments.
This means that for American Jews, who have made Israeli democracy a cornerstone of their advocacy for American support for Israel, this is a tipping point. American Jewish leaders are grappling with how to speak about the crisis, nervous about being seen as too critical of the Israeli government. But they shouldn’t be, because by being quiet, they are shrinking the political space that the Biden administration needs to help Israel navigate this moment.
American Jews play a special political role in American support for Israel. They should do everything they can to maintain this key strategic relationship by supporting Israeli calls for keeping their democracy strong. Because just as we’ve seen with backtracking democracies around the world, once democracy is gone, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.
Joel Rubin is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a partner at Democracy Partners, and a longtime American Jewish political leader.
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