Strikes and protests as pressure mounts on Israel's Netanyahu

Mass protests happening now in Israel. Lots of rumor today that the far right will have counter protests, which I am sure will not be pretty.

I'm just learning whats going on because I am American, but what I can see from the reforms is that the Attorney General seems to have a lot of power, which might need some curbing. Some of their other reforms seem to weaken their Supreme court to much, so I can agree with the protests. As always, it looks like the Government there and the opposition need to meet in the middle somewhere as a compromise.

I know we have some Israeli posters who could probably add better information than what I am seeing from western news sources.

 

Same old story - Politicians think the rules shouldn't apply to them: they're above it all.

Benny doesn't want his power restricted by his criminal behavior. Solution ? Muzzle the judiciary.

 

I don't know. For years I have been hearing from people complaints that the Supreme court should not cancel legitimate decisions of the elected government but right now the ratio of those who support the reform vs those who oppose is something like 1 to 10. And I live in the South which mostly supports rightwing ideology. Maybe it's just my social circle has changed. Don't know. Maybe it's that the supporters of the reform are closeted.

Talking to people who passionately oppose this reform reminds me Reagan's quote 'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'

 

This is not about some grand reform of the judiciary. This is about Bibi trying to stay out of jail.

His motive in this “reform “ are so transparently self-serving as to be absurd .

 

In my opinion, the opposite is true. Leftist activists inside the judicial system are trying to put Netanyahu in jail at all costs. They don't even care that at this point it looks more like a Kafkian 'Process' than a fair trial.

Actually it feels so bizarre that people are going around their business and in the middle of all of it some b@stards are trying to put an innocent man in jail. At least in America when there was a Muller investigation people on the right were mocking it. Laughing at it. In Israel it already lasts for many years and nobody seem to care.

I guess Israelis are just so used to crime and injustice they just don't care. I honestly don't know what is the reason.

 

Does it seem normal to you that a prime minister would prefer to destroy the country he pretends to love and cherish just to save his own skin? Bibi is leading the country to an extreme right-wing dictatorship. Even if he's not guilty of the charges brought against him, he's clearly guilty of leading us to a disaster. A man with a clear conscience wouldn't do that, me thinks. Is he so addicted to power that he doesn't care about the consequences anymore? He's destroying his own party in the process, too.

But all's well as long as La Familia is on his side...right? Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

I did vote for him once, years ago. He never failed to disappoint me ever since.

 

Please explain why the reforms will lead to dictatorship in your country..
And ... if so .. Can it be the other way ? An extreme Left-wing dictatorship

 

Separation of powers is paramount in a democracy. The justice system is one of the guard dogs of democracy. Once the justice system looses its independence, the government is able to pass laws allowing it to remain indefinitely in power.

I know dictatorship inside out. I didn't escape one to be thrown into another. And yes, the one I escaped was an extreme left-wing dictatorship.

 

For Americans, including me, a piece of the puzzle of understanding Israeli politics is the fact that Israel does not have a constitution. The Israeli Supreme Court has no ur document to refer to as a standard for decision-making. This gives the Court a range of power far greater than that of its US equivalent.

Couple that with what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees as an opportunity to cement his power and Bob's your uncle.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

Comparisons with America are essentially worthless here. America has a system that fragments power not only between different levels and branches of government, but often within them too. Political power in Israel is much more concentrated in the Parliament, which is unicameral. That means that there is no equivalent to the Senate acting as some sort of check on the legislature. There are no state governors to challenge central authority....and so forth.

The court in question can act as a check on the power of government where often nothing else can. Personally I don't like the idea of an unrestrained government of any persuasion. If you think this is a bad idea 'because the left' then you don't have an opinion so much as a hard wired prejudice.

 

Israel has a set of basic laws. The Supreme Court refers to these basic laws as a standard for decision-making, as well as to international laws.

 

In a nutshell

 

Maybe what you say is true ... but i watch the news and i believe 50% of the demonstrators are "Just not Bibi"

 

No. "Just not Bibi" has been with us for years. There have never been demonstrations or riots for "just not Bibi".

Even Likud members are starting to voice opposition to the reforms, the (now almost former - he wasn't given an official termination letter yet) defense minister among them.

 

Myth Alert ...

 

Hi, Pisa.

Basic laws can be overturned if there's no chiseled in stone underlying document. Consider Roe v. Wade. Precedent, as we've seen in the process for the selection of Supreme Court justices here in the United States of America, can be effectively ignored by a single legislator as well as by a supreme court.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

What the coalition wants to do is to remove all checks from Knesset decisions. If Knesset will decide to make a law (with more the 50% Knesset majority) that 2 + 2 = 5, it will became a law of the land and anyone who will say 2 +2 = 4 will be breaking the law.

 

Aharon Barak, former president of the Israeli Supreme Court, explains it better than I can.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...aharon-barak/A882F2FAA2F1DE7A44F9FBBE2F49540D

 

Proof?

 

It's not a dictatorship if the elected government does exactly what people who voted them in wanted them to do. Do you understand what I mean? I voted for this coalition and I fully support what it's been doing so far.

 

If he is not guilty then something is really big time wrong with our judicial system if they allow criminal cases to be open for so many against an innocent man. While they close criminal cases against real criminals. Everyone know that when arabs steal something from you, you can present the best footage ever and police would do nothing. If you do business arabs will come to you and will demand money for protection against themselves and police would still do nothing. But Netanyahu taking cigars as a gift is certainly a good enough reason for many years of investigations.

 

But parliament is what people elect here. We have mayoral elections as well but people seem just not to care too much about them for some reason.

 

The government is not supposed to care only for some. Democracy is not the tyranny of the majority. Besides, nobody can convince me that all voters of all the six parties in the coalition want the exact same thing.

Would you agree to live like voters of religious parties want us to live? Should the elected government make it illegal to watch TV, wear bikini on the beach, eat bacon, drive on weekends? This is what their voters want. Is this what you want?

Compromise is paramount in a democracy.

 

......and? Not really seeing a point or an argument here.

Properly constructed democracies have structures & institutions designed to put limits on the power of elected bodies. That is perhaps the key difference between democracy & dictatorship - elected bodies don't have unrestrained or nearly unrestrained power.