Knesset passes law curbing court powers

The far-right coalition government of Prime Minister Netanyahu passed the first part of a legislation which restricts Israel’s Supreme Court striking down legislation that the court considers ‘unreasonable’ despite months-long massive protests in the country, and objections from closest ally, the United States. Netanyahu has however said that he would seek a consensus by November.

There are many opinions on the issue in Israel. Many of the left-of-centre Israelis are opposed to the law tooth-and-nail because they believe that it is a threat to Israeli democracy. But many Palestinians feel that the Supreme Court has not been fair when it came to the question of Palestinian rights in Israel, and that many of the liberals opposed to the new law are as much hardliners on the question of Palestinians as the rest of the right-wingers in the country.

The US has described the passing of the law as unfortunate, and reiterated that in a democracy there should be a broader consensus. But the US said that America’s commitment to Israel, especially its defence, was ‘ironclad’. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed the bill curbing the Supreme Court’s powers by 64-0 as the entire opposition had walked out. The opposition leader Yair Lapid asked the protestors to hold pending the appeals in Supreme Court challenging the new law.

Netanyahu and his government will not have much satisfaction and peace now that they have passed the draconian legislation because the protests refuse to die out. Doctors have called a nationwide strike excepting Jerusalem in protest, and many of the newspapers carried black advertisements on their front pages, and a group of hi-tech workers placed an advertisement saying, “A Black Day for Israeli Democracy.”

Israel’s army reservists were in the forefront of the protests, and there has been disciplinary action against two of them. It shows that the opposition to the new law is deep across Israeli society. Perhaps what most Israelis fear is the authoritarianism of the right-wing elements in restricting the individual freedoms in the name of national security and in the name of religion.

Ahmed Tibi, Palestinian member of the Knesset, told Al Jazeera that the new law enables the government to make arbitrary decisions with regard to official appointments, and Amjad Iraqi, editor of 972+ Magazine, said that these decisions would affect Palestinians negatively. And that this law would allow the government to carry through the far-right’s vision, and it eliminates the potential of challenging these laws in the Supreme Court.

Tibi is more forthright in his view of the Israeli Supreme Court. He said that the Court has not been fair to the Palestinians and it has ruled in favour of the “settlers, assassinations, killings, and the occupation itself.” He was candid when he said, “We don’t want the fascist government to gain complete control over the judiciary – even if the judiciary’s decisions are biased.”  And he said that new law “will allow the government even more control over decisions that will have very negative implications towards Palestinians.”

There is first a deep division in the Israeli polity itself between the liberals and the conservatives, between the moderates and the extremists on the right. And there is the division between the Arabs/Palestinians within Israel, whose number is growing who have crucial presence in the Knesset. With fractured verdicts, the smaller Palestinian groups play a crucial role. And with US more than unhappy with the politics of the Israeli far-right, then Israel faces an existential crisis from within and without. Its long-time pretence of being a vibrant democracy in the Middle East is losing credence. If the Israeli far-right consolidates its hold over the Jewish state, then Israel stands to lose much of its influence in the West, including among the Jewish lobbies in the United States.