the wizard of israel
The future of Israel depends on both domestic and international political decisions. It’s known that the existence of Israel itself is problematic. The aim of this blog post does not aim to solve the Israeli Palestinian problem, in fact it’ll mostly ignore it, pretending it doesn’t exist, instead, we will discuss the issues facing domestic Israeli politics, varying from the confusing constitution, to discrimination against secular Jews.
So, the constitution. Israel is one of the few countries who technically don’t have a constitution but yet have constitutional laws, I know confusing. Israel has 14 basic laws, which mostly form the constitution and can only be amended through a supermajority vote in the Knesset (The Knesset, n.d.). Although the contention around these 14 basic laws is severe, one key part of the laws, is the prime ministerial term limit. It’s commonly understood that a prime minister in Israel is entitled by law and should only carry out a maximum of two, four-year terms, meaning one can serve 8 years maximum (The Knesset, n.d.).
Although that not been the case. Benjamin Netanyahu the current, dictator, prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu has served well over 8 years, but it was decided he hasn’t broken the law, because the Knesset decided he is allowed to extend his term (Badi, 1963). They didn’t really have a choice, Netanyahu used dirty tricks such as, weakening his opponents to a point where 3 general elections were held in a year just to find a government coalition. All this resulted in the opposition party allowing Netanyahu to serve an 18-month extension on his term for leadership, just to end the cycle of elections. (Ahren, 2019)
Although this caused issues in Israel, Gantz, the opposition whom previously promised voters he would not, under any circumstances join a Netanyahu led government, it was surprising to voters when he did exactly that. Netanyahu is facing trial for corruption charges, which Gantz had previously said made him unfit to govern.’ (Mitnick, 2020)
This brings us on to the next topic, the judicial system of Israel, the extreme right ring political parties of Israel has complained for years at the role of the high court, and Netanyahu the leader of a right-wing party himself supports a legislative restriction on the powers held by the high court, said the bill would remove the key power of ‘overturning legislature and practices that is deemed unconstitutional’ (Bendor, 2020). The reason to why the right-wing political party led by Netanyahu, wants to reduce the power the high court holds is essentially so they can go ahead with plans of forcibly removing African asylum seekers without due consideration, something which ultimately ends up in the high court (Staff, 2018).
This is shocking, a partially democratically elected prime minister wanting to remove check and balances to his power to allow him, and his government to do whatever they please. Although, Netanyahu himself said he doesn’t want to remove the court’s power but to reform the judicial system of Israel to be closer to that of Britain rather than America, making the high court’s rulings purely advisory (Staff, 2018). Opposition party members met with Netanyahu to discuss such a bill that he claimed was vital and stated he instructed the tourism minister to draft the bill as a matter of urgency, this was not met with positivity from opposition parties, claiming they would block any bill that curtails the High Court of Justice’s powers and refused to attend any further discussion on the topic (Staff, 2018). Not only does Netanyahu want to remove powers from the judicial system he has also villainised the courts publicly, stating that they are working against the will of the people, but this is also due to the liberal-leaning of the courts where they have sided with minorities multiple times and protecting minorities rights several times; this has been twisted to mean the courts care about minorities more than native Israelis (Staff, 2018).
Israel has a unique position regarding religion, it is Afterall the Jewish state, however even in Israel not all Jews are treated as equals (The Knesset, n.d.); I hope you’re prepared for a very confusing look at Israeli religious politics; orthodox Jews in Israel make up just 12% (Beaumount, 2014) of the population but have a monopoly on religious services such as weddings, burials, divorces and basically anything Jewish; meaning a secular Jews must be married by orthodox Rabi, not fair right, well wait till you hear about military service.
Military service is compulsory for those born in the state of Israel…. Well, that is if you’re born anything but orthodox, orthodox Jews by law do not need to serve their military service! however, it should be noted that some do volunteer to (Teibel, 2019). Now I know you’re wondering why? Isn’t discrimination based on religion against the law, well no, the 2005 Israel Security Service Law states clearly that orthodox Jews are exempt; who can you blame, Netanyahu. Netanyahu relies heavily on the support of ultra-orthodox right-wing political parties, and has a long-time collation with them, this is about to change. A man called Avigdor Lieberman who is the leader of a right-wing secular political party insisted that orthodox men must be enlisted, this statement prevented Netanyahu to form a collation with the ultra-orthodox right-wing parties as he usually does. a coalition of entirely secular political parties would transform Israel, ultimately meaning that the ultra-orthodox population will not be the ruling majority (Teibel, 2019).
To conclude Israel is problematic. Like every democracy there are issues, though the difference is here, I’m not confident things will get better. I discussed a couple of the issues facing Israel, there are many more, such as Arabs not having the same voting rights as Jews. It’s clear that Israel well-being technically a democracy, is not upholding its democratic nature, I’m fearful for the future of Israel to be quite honest. The only question I have is does Israel want to succeed?
Bibliography
Ahren, R. (2019, May 28). Israel is already in a constitutional crisis, leading law scholar warns. Retrieved from The Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-is-already-in-a-constitutional-crisis-leading-law-scholar-warns/
Badi, J. (1963). Government of the State of Israel: A Critical Account of Its Parliament, Executive, and Judiciary . Israel: Twayne Publishers.
Beaumount, P. (2014, May 4). Netanyahu pushes to define Israel as nation state of Jewish people only. Retrieved from Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/04/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-jewish-state
Bendor, A. L. (2020). The Israeli judiciary-centered constitutionalism. International journal of constitutional law.
Gur, H. R. (2020, April 28). Up against the clock and the constitution, new coalition is far from a done deal. Retrieved from The Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/up-against-the-clock-and-the-constitution-new-coalition-is-far-from-a-done-deal/
Mitnick, J. (2020, March 27). The Political Wizardry of Benjamin Netanyahu. Retrieved from ForeignPolicy.com: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/27/benjamin-netanyahu-political-wizardy-prime-minister-extended-term/
Newman, M. (2019, May 27). Liberman won’t budge on Haredi draft, likens pro-PM daily to ‘Stalin’s Pravda’. Retrieved from The Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liberman-wont-budge-on-haredi-draft-likens-pro-pm-daily-to-stalins-pravda/
Rolef, S. H. (2020, Febuary 18). Constitutional changes in the post-Netanyahu era. Retrieved from The Jerusalem Post : https://www.jpost.com/opinion/necessary-constitutional-administrative-changes-in-the-post-netanyahu-era-617803
Staff, T. (2018, April 11). Netanyahu backs bill to remove High Court’s ability to strike down laws. Retrieved from The Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-backs-bill-to-remove-high-courts-ability-to-strike-down-laws/
Teibel, A. (2019, September 15). How Ultra-Orthodox Perks Set Israel Election Agenda. Retrieved from Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-15/how-ultra-orthodox-perks-set-israel-election-agenda-quicktake
The Knesset. (n.d.). Basic Laws of the State of Israel. Retrieved from The Knesset: https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/activity/pages/basiclaws.aspx
