Netanyahu’s plan also would give the government control over the selection of judges, which has long been in the hands of an independent selection panel, and it would also remove the independent legal advisers — the internal legal watchdogs — in each ministry. Currently, they are appointed by the Civil Service Commission and can be removed only by the attorney general. Netanyahu wants them instead appointed by and loyal to each minister.
Put it all together, and you would have a government that won by 30,000 votes out of 4.7 million having total control over the Supreme Court, judicial selection and each ministry’s legal advisers.
“I can’t be silent,” Mandelblit concluded. “If there is no independent judiciary, it’s over. It’s a different system of government.” The ruler “will decide,” he added. “He’ll have prosecutors of his own, legal counsels of his own, judges of his own. And if these people have personal loyalty to him, there is no supremacy of the law. This is a sinkhole. We’ll all be swallowed up by this.”
Finally, what Biden has done will add credibility to America’s voice in support of democracy globally. It says that America speaks up not just when China crushes democracy in Hong Kong. We speak up when we see democracy threatened anywhere. America has often taken issue with Israeli human rights abuses in its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. But no American president in my memory had ever spoken out against proposed changes in the democratic character of the Israeli state — because, up until a few weeks ago, none ever had to.
If Biden’s message is not clear to the Netanyahu coalition, let me try to put it as simply as I can: America has supported Israel militarily and diplomatically and with billions of dollars in aid since its foundation, but not because it shares our interests. It does not always. Israel has stayed neutral between Ukraine and Russia, it is indifferent to human rights abuses in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and Israeli businesses sometimes sell defense technologies to China that are very worrying to the Pentagon. We have given Israel so much support since its founding because we believe Israel shares our values.
And even when Israel behaves in ways in the West Bank or Gaza that are not consistent with our values, Israelis often fall back on them anyway. They tell us: “Hey, cut us some, slack. We live in a constant, violent struggle with the Palestinians. We live in a crazy neighborhood. And yet we’ve still managed to maintain judicial oversight of our armed forces, robust democratic institutions, as well as an independent judiciary and a free press.”
That argument is seriously threatened by what Netanyahu is pushing. And without it, what’s left? Shared interests won’t be enough, because they come and go.
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