Why 'Pro-Israel' Shouldn’t Mean Backing a Bad 'Reform'

It's time to get beyond the typical "left vs right" ideological frame.

Photo by Timo Wagner on Unsplash

I’ve been amazed at how some of my former, mainstream-right, pro-Israel commentator-colleagues keep viewing what’s now happening in Israel—particularly the government’s efforts to legislate the so-called judicial overhaul—through the same old “right vs. left” lens even when it doesn’t fit the reality.

Let’s start with the makeup of that government. Comprising 32 of its 64 Knesset seats is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, the mainstream-right Likud. The other 32 seats are held by parties that deviate considerably from what could be called a mainstream-right or conservative agenda.

The national-religious bloc with 14 seats consists of Religious Zionism (7 seats), Otzma Yehudit (6 seats), and Noam (1 seat).

Religious Zionism is led by Bezalel Smotrich, who was arrested in 2005 on charges of planning to blow up part of the Ayalon Highway, and last month called to wipe out a Palestinian town (later retracting the words after they ignited a storm). Otzma Yehudit is led by Itamar Ben Gvir, who was convicted several times over the years for incitement to racism, supporting a terror organization, and other offenses. And the one-man Noam faction consists of the outlandish Avi Maoz, a self-proclaimed “proud homophobe.”

More broadly, what’s the political agenda of the national-religious parties? The centerpiece of both Religious Zionism’s and Otzma Yehudit’s agenda is to extensively settle, and eventually annex, all of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). 

If we look at the current demographic composition of Israel proper, we find that it comprises 7.1 million Jews, 2 million Arabs, and half a million others. Though few Israeli Arabs are patriots outside the Druze community, many are peaceful, productive citizens. But many are not. Bedouin and other Arab crime in the Negev and Galilee regions is a severe problem, turning the lives of many Jewish farmers and shop-owners into hell.

And during the May 2021 Gaza war,

[Israeli] Arab rioters set ablaze 10 synagogues and 112 Jewish residences, looted 386 Jewish homes and damaged another 673, and set 849 Jewish cars on fire. There were also 5,018 recorded instances of Jews being stoned. Three Jews were murdered and more than 600 were hurt. Over 300 police officers were injured in disturbances in over 90 locations across the country. 

The current Palestinian Arab population of Judea and Samaria is estimated at 2.75 million. One can hardly imagine a worse nightmare than permanently adding that population, too, to Israel—whether as citizens or in some sort of vassal status. But it’s the explicit aim of the national-religious parties in the current coalition—and is shared by some of the Likud Knesset members as well.

This, in other words, is a radical agenda. Whereas conservatives would presumably want to “conserve” Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, this agenda—if, God forbid, it were realized—would turn Israel into a nonviable binational entity that would be a cauldron of violence and strife.

Apart from Likud and the national-religious parties, the coalition includes two haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, Torah Judaism and Shas. And what’s their agenda? Does it align with that of mainstream right-wingers/conservatives?

As widely reported, the main favors these two parties expect to be granted by the current coalition—of which they’re an integral and indispensable part—are a blanket exemption from military or national civilian service for all students in haredi yeshivas, and increased funding for haredi schools, including the many that teach almost no or no subjects apart from Jewish religious texts. Such funding, in other words, means perpetuating and expanding a large sector of the Israeli population that will be welfare-dependent for life.

Refusing military or other national service doesn’t comport well with a patriotic, mainstream-right or conservative ethos. And to say that cultivating a large welfare-dependent sector of the population doesn’t jibe with conservative economics is a great understatement.

Not surprisingly, then, the “judicial overhaul” being pushed relentlessly and obsessively by this coalition is radical and destructive. It’s fueled in part by the national religious parties’ fierce enmity toward the Supreme Court for sometimes ruling that settlements were illegally built on land owned privately by Palestinians, and by the haredi parties’ fierce enmity toward the court for sometimes ruling against their pet causes including the total exemption from military service.

What does the “overhaul” envision? Moderating the Israeli Supreme Court’s excessive activism? Creating a better balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches?

Hardly. According to the “reform” now championed by Likud’s Yariv Levin and Religious Zionism’s Simcha Rothman:

• The Knesset can designate any law to be immune to judicial review.

• If any laws are not designated as such, the Supreme Court can invalidate them only with a majority of 12 of 15 justices.

• If that happens, the Knesset can override the invalidation with a majority of 61 of 120 Knesset members.

• In any case, the Supreme Court justices—including, crucially, the president of the court—will be appointed by a committee in which representatives of the current, serving government hold a clear majority.

This, in actuality, would be a takeover of the court by the government, not a reform that achieves greater balance. While the court would retain its function as the country’s highest appeals court, its judicial-review function would be reduced to nil.

In other words, what some “conservative” pro-Israel voices are now in effect backing is the destruction, not the reform, of a crucial function of an Israeli institution.

The government’s fallback position is that, since it was elected, it represents the will of the majority, including on the Supreme Court issue. Problem is, if it was ever true, it no longer is.

Two polls last week found that the coalition’s support has, in fact, plummeted, and that the “judicial overhaul” has a lot to do with it. From its current 64 seats, the coalition would now win only 53 or 54—far short of the 61 needed to form a government. And as for the overhaul, one poll found 63%—including 60% of Likud voters—in favor of halting it; the other poll has 62% wanting to put a halt to it.

And perhaps most dramatically, one of the polls found that Netanyahu’s support as prime minister has now fallen to 30%—compared to 37% for Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist National Union party, which has been decrying the severe flaws of the “reform.”

So pro-Israel conservative commentators who keep proclaiming that the “judicial overhaul” is a great thing supported by a majority of Israelis should: take a timeout to look at the reality; stop deriding the hundreds of thousands of Israelis actively opposing the overhaul as “leftists”; and start taking a good look at the current coalition to ask if it’s really to their taste.

Update: The Bank of Israel now says the reform would cause grave damage to the Israeli economy, to the tune of 14-48 billion shekels ($4-13 billion) per year for the next three years. Must be leftists.

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