Bibi's Judicial "Reform" Plan Gets Nixed

 

Bibi's efforts to neuter Israel's judiciary gets smacked down (for now):

Israel’s high court on Monday struck down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s polarizing law that sought to limit the court’s power over government decisions, putting the country on the brink of a constitutional crisis just three months after Israelis united behind the war effort in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary sparked nearly a year of widespread social unrest before the Israel-Gaza war. The unprecedented standoff drew international condemnation and extraordinary opposition from military and senior security officials.  [snip]

Monday’s ruling concerned one part of the package, an amendment to Israel’s Basic Law — which serves in place of a constitution — that was pushed through and passed by Netanyahu’s far-right government in July. The altered law removed the right of the Israeli Supreme Court to block decisions made by government ministers that the judges deem “unreasonable.”

In striking down the law 8-7 on Monday, the top court’s ruling calls for the legislation to be removed. If Netanyahu’s government refuses to honor the ruling, the wartime country could face a constitutional crisis...

It's already been suggested that Netanyahu's prolongation of the war against Hamas is designed to keep him in power (and out of jail).  The judicial "reforms" that Netanyahu wanted to implement would also help with the latter.  We'll see if he'll abide by the decision, or if his personal survival instincts will cause him to deepen the crisis in Israel over the legitimacy of the government and the origins and prosecution of it's war against Hamas by ignoring the court's decision.

(Photo:  Ronen Zvulun / AFP via Getty Images)

 

QOTD -- Dictatorship

 

"The 64 Knesset members who voted on Monday in favor of the law canceling the reasonableness standard have struck a serious blow to the State of Israel’s infrastructure of democracy and have signaled the direction in which they plan to take the country, namely dictatorship. They did it in a Knesset empty of opposition lawmakers, befitting of a imperious group that chose to ignore the millions of citizens who took to the streets for weeks to express their concern about the change in Israel’s democratic structure. 

"All those 64 will be remembered forever as being responsible for crushing the rule of law and fatally undercutting the separation of powers. Even the moderate forces in the coalition, who worked to forge a compromise with the opposition and soften the terms of the law, will not be able to wash their hands of it. They are no less responsible for this black day than the law’s architects – Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman.

"But the heaviest blame falls on Benjamin Netanyahu. The most destructive prime minister in Israel’s history has again proven that he is prepared to sacrifice Israel’s democracy for his personal political survival. Netanyahu is smashing Israel into tiny parts using the divide and conquer method. He incites and stirs up emotions, disrupts, tears the social fabric, crushes the rule of law and weakens the judicial system – all in order to escape the horror of judgment. Netanyahu is taking revenge on the system that decided to put him on trial, and along the way he is taking revenge on the entire country..."  -- Haaretz editorial board, July 25, on the passage of a law undercutting the independence of Israel's judiciary and paving the way to dictatorship.  Read that last paragraph again -- does it remind you of a certain lawless Malignant Loser?  The forces of ultra right- wing authoritarianism are showing us in plain sight their methods and goals, whether it's in Texas and Florida, or Hungary, or now Israel.  They're determined to have a dictatorship.  They must be stopped.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is poised to remain prime minister as a result of Sunday’s inconclusive national elections in which the center-right Popular Party won the most votes but was left with no clear path to form a government.

As expected, none of Spain’s major parties secured a governing majority. With 99 percent of the votes tallied, the Popular Party had 136 seats, the Socialists 122, the far-right Vox 33, and the left-wing Sumar 31.

Prior to the vote, conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo indicated that he would be willing to form a coalition government with Vox, but both parties fell short of the 176 seats needed to control the Spanish parliament.

There is no scenario in which Spanish MPs would back a minority government composed of the Popular Party and Vox, and Feijóo does not appear to have enough support among the country’s smaller, regional parties to cobble together the support he would need for minority rule on his own.

The outcome opens the door to Sánchez remaining in power...

Associated good news:  the far-right Vox party absolutely cratered, going from 55 seats to 33.

The bad:

... Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul bill, which had been shelved in the spring after massive protests brought Israel to a standstill, is now moving rapidly through the Knesset, despite mass protests and threats from Israeli military reservists (including elite fighter pilots and commandos) to refuse to report for duty if it passes. If the bill is approved, which might happen as soon as this week, Israel will lose one of its few checks on majoritarian tyranny, because the Israeli Supreme Court will no longer be able to override legislation on the (admittedly amorphous) grounds that it is not “reasonable.” The court has incurred the wrath of the right by overruling mass exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox from compulsory military service, limiting the expansion of illegal West Bank settlements and blocking Netanyahu from appointing to his cabinet the leader of an ultra-Orthodox party who was convicted of tax evasion, fraud and bribery.

Soon Bibi and his far-right cabinet are likely to have a free hand to enact even more of their ultranationalist agenda despite their ultrathin electoral majority — with dire consequences not only for Israeli democracy but also for Israel’s security...

We agree with the author:  Netanyahu is Israel's number 1 security threat.

The ugly:

The DeSantis campaign deleted a video that flashed a number of concerning images. Just a few weeks ago, another video surfaced using photos of shirtless men previously mocked by Secretary Pete Buttigieg. In the latest video, however, a Nazi symbol flashes on the screen with a row of marching soldiers on either side of it and Gov. Ron DeSantis' face fading in. 

Podcast host Luke Thompson of "Constitutionally Speaking" spotted the symbol and explained it is a sonnenrad. The symbol is an ancient European symbol used by Nazis while idealizing "Aryan/Norse" cultures, explained the Anti-Defamation League.

"In Nazi Germany, the Nazi Party, the SA and the SS all used sonnenrad symbology at times, which has led neo-Nazis and other modern white supremacists to adopt such images," the group explained.

In DeSantis' version, the outer part of the circle says "Make America Florida," which has been his slogan. 

While the campaign deleted the video, Thompson reposted it, ensuring the campaign couldn't deny it existed.

DeSantis has had troubles with Nazis over the past few years that he's been in office. In 2023, he hired a speechwriter with ties to neo-Nazis. After DeSantis waged war with Disney, neo-Nazis began protesting outside the park south of Orlando. The move came after a number of neo-Nazi groups started popping up around the state.

At least one columnist has warned that no one should ever expect DeSantis to denounce neo-Nazis or white supremacists. 

Ironically, one neo-Nazi told a reporter that their groups use "woke grievances" to recruit angry white men to their cause. DeSantis has adopted a similar campaign effort...

When they tell you who they are...

Netanyahu's Push For Autocracy

In recent weeks, Israel's far-right Prime Minister Bibi "BombBomb" Netanyahu has been pushing what he calls "reforms" to Israel's judicial system, making it far less independent and subject to the whims of power politics. Critics view the proposed changes as actions that would solidify Netanyahu's grip on power, along with the extreme right coalition he leads. From Douglas Bloomfield in the Jerusalem Post:

"Netanyahu and his extremist coalition appear hellbent on rushing ahead, in defiance of public and international calls to slow it down and seek a national consensus. He and his Knesset allies appear prepared to sacrifice democracy in favor of power.

The prime minister insists his approach would make Israel more democratic, but the evidence points emphatically in the opposite direction.

Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul-general in New York, said the Netanyahu proposal is 'a swift, brutal and illegitimate attempt to change the regime, curtail civil liberties, deny the Supreme Court its judicial-review powers, weaken checks and balances, destroy constitutional guardrails, and control the media and academia through constant harassment.'

For Netanyahu, it is also personal. These changes – reforms are a misnomer – are Netanyahu’s 'get out of jail free' card, thanks to provisions that would effectively quash the criminal charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust for which he is currently on trial, and grant him future immunity."

Former attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit, who had indicted Netanyahu for these crimes, said in a recent interview that the prime minister’s motivation is to nullify his trial. 

Tzipi Livni, a former justice minister and foreign minister, has said Netanyahu’s 'personal interest is to delegitimize the judicial system.'” (our emphasis)

Sound familiar? We noted last month that there's "a strong whiff of lawless Trumpism" in Netanyahu's move to undermine and control Israel's judiciary. That Bibi and the Malignant Loser would be in a race toward corrupt, self-serving autocracy isn't surprising. Netanyahu's cozy relationship with Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin is another indication that he's chosen autocracy over democracy in his grab for power. His attack on Israel's independent judiciary will be just the first step.

(photo: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)