Israel judicial overhaul: Protests mount against Benjamin Netanyahu after bill passed

[Kamaji]

Israel judicial overhaul:  Protests mount against Benjamin Netanyahu after bill passed

By Reuters
July 25, 2023

Israeli doctors declared a strike and black ads covered newspaper front pages on Tuesday in a backlash over the hard-right government’s ratification of the first part of a judicial overhaul that critics say endangers democracy.

With long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing his gravest domestic crisis, Israel’s military took its first known internal disciplinary action over the protests.

One reservist was fined 1,000 shekels ($270) and another given a suspended 15-day jail sentence for ignoring call-ups.

“A Black Day for Israeli Democracy,” read the ad on the front of major newspapers placed by a group describing itself as worried hi-tech workers.

The bill curbing Supreme Court review of some state decisions passed in a stormy Knesset parliament on Monday after an opposition walkout. As the vote took place, protesters were out in their thousands, some scuffling with police.

Protest leaders said growing numbers of military reservists would no longer report for duty if the government continued with its plans. Former top brass have warned that Israel’s war-readiness could be at risk.

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Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/07/25/israel-judicial-overhaul-protests-mount-against-benjamin-netanyahu-after-bill-passed/

[The_Reader_David]

I really have no well-formed views on the merits or demerits of Netanyahu's reforms. 

What amuses me is the oft repeated notion that the represent an attack on Israeli democracy.  Giving the elected government more power to restrain unelected judges is actually more democratic than letting unelected judges restrain the elected government. 

It may well represent an assault on the rule of law in Israel, but rule of law and democracy are hardly coextensive.  Britain had the rule of law for centuries when the King or Queen and House of Lords still had significant power and the Commons was still elected only by male land-owners.  Lots of countries in Africa and South America have democracies (in the sense that the current kleptarchs stood for election) but lack anything like the rule of law.

As an American who likes the anti-democratic features of our Constitution (the Bill of Rights, the Electoral College, the Senate, the Supreme Court), I think the reforms are probably a net negative for Israel.  But an attack on democracy?  Hardly! they are democracy in action, unrestrained by a written constitution (as we have) or long enough tradition (as Britain has).