Assault on Israeli democratic system is in full swing

It would not have been much to expect of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to take a long, hard look at themselves after a disaster such as the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, took place on their watch. One of the questions they should have asked themselves is how the divisions among Israeli society that they sowed during the months before the attack contributed to the lack of preparedness for such a cataclysmic event.

An honest government would have recognized that the divisive, rapid and radical attempts to weaken the country’s democratic foundations, especially the assault on the independence of the judiciary, was a major contribution to that lack of preparedness, when they should have been searching for a more consensual reform of the judiciary.

For the first few months of the war, the shock of the Hamas surprise attack and the immense loss and pain it caused slowed down the main culprits among those who were cynically and tirelessly trying to compromise the system of checks and balances and harm the gatekeepers of good governance and transparency. However, in recent months, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee — two of the chief architects of the onslaught on the independence of the judiciary — have renewed those efforts with unfortunate vigor.

In one of the more public acts of trying to delegitimize the judiciary, Netanyahu, Levin and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana boycotted last month’s swearing-in ceremony of Justice Isaac Amit as Supreme Court president. This is the first time in Israel’s history that the heads of the executive and the legislative have shown such extreme disrespect to the legally elected head of the judiciary — and only because they wished to install someone else who they believed to be more “convenient” for the government.

If that was not bad enough, far-right demonstrators protested against the new president of the Supreme Court outside President Isaac Herzog’s residence, where the ceremony was held, in a concerted effort to intimidate Amit and the rest of the judiciary and hence persuade them to better cooperate with the government. Amit’s appointment ended more than a year’s standoff between the judiciary and the politicians, leaving the Supreme Court with no permanent president due to the government’s unscrupulous efforts to change the rules of electing the top judge in the country to suit its political agenda.

But failing to appoint a Supreme Court president of its liking has not deterred the government from its drive to control the appointment of all judges in Israel. At a time when the entire nation has been mainly concerned with the fate of the hostages held in Gaza, Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar agreed on a raft of changes to Israel’s judicial system that will increase political power over judicial appointments and curb the High Court’s ability to strike down legislation.

Their measures are not dissimilar to the one that sparked massive antigovernment protests in 2023. This indicates that, in their brutish march to compromise Israel’s democracy, prolong their stay in power indefinitely and in the process ensure that Netanyahu’s corruption trial will never be concluded, they have learned nothing about the damage they caused to the cohesiveness of the nation and, by that, to its security.

They continue to weaken the independence of the judiciary and they constantly smear the names of democracy’s gatekeepers. No one suffers more from Netanyahu’s toxic machinery than Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. The far right simply cannot stand her devotion to the rule of law and accountability and transparency in government. The attorney general blocks appointments to senior positions in the civil service of those who do not meet the necessary criteria. She also continues to remind the government of its responsibility to appoint a state commission to investigate the failures of Oct. 7 because it is necessary to learn from the catastrophic mistakes made. And she generally reminds ministers that they need to operate within the boundaries of the law.

The response by ministers has been a concerted effort to fire Baharav-Miara and replace her with someone more convenient for their purposes.

Ronen Bar, head of the internal security agency Shin Bet, is also walking with a target on his back. He is another whom this extremist government would like to get rid of. Bar admitted his responsibility for the failures of Oct. 7 and that he should leave this sensitive job when the time is right, but Netanyahu’s people are now trying to hasten his departure because the organization he leads is investigating severe breaches of security within the prime minister’s office. Again, they would like to replace him with someone who would be prepared to turn a blind eye to the alleged law-breaking among Netanyahu’s inner circle that compromised the country’s security.

They have learned nothing about the damage they caused to the cohesiveness of the nation and, by that, to its security.

Yossi Mekelberg

And then there are the attempts to damage civil society organizations by singling out those whose activities concentrate on promoting peace or human rights, especially those of minorities (mainly Arabs), those who live in the Occupied Territories and women and workers.

According to a new bill proposed by a ministerial committee, the government will be able to tax donations from foreign governments to domestic nonprofits at a rate of 80 percent, while also instructing that courts need not consider petitions by groups “primarily financed by a foreign political entity.” Unlike right-wing groups that are mainly financed by wealthy private donors, this is not the case with those who support peace and human rights, which rely more on institutional funders, and this is another brutal attempt to silence them.

All these measures add up to a crude and barely concealed attempt to diminish the oversight of government activities by the courts, civil society and even the media. From there, the path toward a democracy in name only is quite short. It also opens the way for the government to further deprive the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories of any rights and access to those organizations that could help them stand up to the arbitrary nature of the occupation and further discriminatory acts against those who are citizens of Israel.

The vision of the founding fathers of Israel as a democratic state is quickly evaporating. Under Netanyahu, Israel is becoming less and less democratic with almost every day that passes, as it is hijacked by the actions of religious zealots — actions that, it should be pointed out, are also putting the lives of democracy’s gatekeepers in jeopardy.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg