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Another sign of the times?

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  • Another sign of the times?

    Given the concerns many have expressed about the UK shifting towards the Right with the "silent prayer" issue, there also appear to be serious concerns over the Israeli government's attempts to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, thereby giving the Knesset the authority to over-ride any decisions made by that Court.

    Israel has always been hailed as a bastion of democracy in a region of totalitarian and/or authoritarian regimes and therefore this attempt is a matter of grave concern considering Israel's [hitherto] democratic values.

    As the article notes, even a Times correspondent normally sympathetic to Netanyahu has criticised this "threat to Israel's moral standing".

    The article also makes reference to Orbán's authoritarian government in Hungary, an EU member state. Nor is Hungary an isolated incident as other EU member states are shifting to the Right. It therefore seems that these attempts by the Israeli government appear to be yet further evidence of a move within an existing democracy to authoritarianism with all the attendant risks.

    The penultimate paragraph and the appointment of Ben-Gvir as the national security minister [given his threats to and comments about the assassination of Rabin] appears to be [to use an idiom] putting the fox in charge of the hen-house.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/b...netanyahu.html

    Political leaders who have already been in office for more than 15 years — which is how long Benjamin Netanyahu has been Israel’s prime minister — do not typically upend their country’s politics. Yet that’s what Netanyahu has done in recent weeks.

    His government’s proposal to reduce the power of Israel’s Supreme Court has created what our Opinion colleague Thomas Friedman calls the nation’s “biggest internal clash since its founding.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis — approaching 5 percent of the population — participated in protests last weekend. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, has encouraged Israelis to engage in civil disobedience if the proposal becomes law. And many military officers have said they would refuse to report for duty.

    Bret Stephens, another Times Opinion columnist — who has often been sympathetic to Netanyahu’s policies — has criticized the judicial plan as a threat to Israel’s moral standing. “Hyper-personalized, populist rule achieved by gutting institutional checks and balances is how democracies devolve into mobocracies,” Bret wrote.

    In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain why the later stages of Netanyahu’s political career are turning out to be more chaotic than anything that came before.

    What changed?


    Netanyahu has always been on Israel’s political right, but he was long able to build alliances with the center. The Israeli left, by contrast, has been marginalized and has not led the government since 2001.

    One important cause was the breakdown of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the early 2000s. The failure of those talks — including the Palestinian leadership’s walking away from the Camp David negotiations in 2000 — led many Israeli voters to give up on the idea of peace and support conservative parties. Netanyahu often led the coalitions that spanned the center and right.

    But in 2019, while he was prime minister, Netanyahu was indicted on corruption and bribery charges. Many politicians who agree with his Likud party on substantive issues decided that he needed to resign. “Israel’s centrist parties are willing to serve in a coalition with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud in charge,” Matti Friedman, a journalist who lives in Israel, wrote for The Free Press. “But they will no longer serve under Netanyahu himself: The prime minister, a master of the political maneuver, has simply lied to too many people too many times.”

    This refusal, combined with the continued popularity of the political right, has thrown Israeli politics into turmoil. The country has held five elections since 2019. Likud received the largest share of votes — 23 percent — in the most recent election. Even so, Netanyahu was able to put together a governing coalition only by allying with far-right and religious parties.

    The current government, as a result, is more radical than the previous governments Netanyahu led.

    Why the Supreme Court?


    Israel’s Supreme Court has something in common with the U.S. version: Both are among the most powerful courts in the world. In many other countries, the top court does not overturn major laws and instead tends to make modest, technocratic changes. In Israel and the U.S., the court often has the last word. (In Israel, the underlying reason is the lack of a constitution.)

    The proposed changes by Netanyahu’s government would strengthen the authority of the legislature, which in Israel is known as the Knesset. It is already more powerful than the U.S. Congress, because there is no independently elected president; a majority of legislators choose the prime minister. If the judicial changes go through, the Knesset would also gain the power to override Supreme Court decisions and would have few checks on its power.

    Yesterday, the Knesset passed an initial version of some of the changes. Lawmakers will have to vote twice more before the policies becomes law.

    Some political commentators argue that the changes themselves are reasonable. “What’s at stake here isn’t the death of the nation’s democracy, but straightforward party politics,” Lahav Harkov of The Jerusalem Post wrote. “The discussion is, in fact, about the proper balance between different elements of a democracy.”

    Many other analysts disagree, arguing that the reforms would allow a prime minister to dismantle democracy, much as Viktor Orban has done in Hungary. “Theoretically, you could end up with a government that decides that elections are going to take place once every 20 years,” our colleague Isabel Kershner said.

    Either way, the changes have inspired intense anger because they would give Netanyahu’s government sweeping power to implement its preferred policies.

    “Underlying this technical debate about the judiciary is a much broader conflict about what kind of society Israel should be,” Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, told us. “Ultra-Orthodox Jews and settler activists are taking advantage of the fact that they wield unprecedented power in Israeli society and government to try to unravel the influence of the court.”

    The stakes

    Netanyahu and his far-right allies have different incentives to neutralize the court.

    For Netanyahu, a court that was subservient to Israeli’s legislature would allow him to end his own corruption trial, which is still taking place. Netanyahu has denied he would do so.

    For far-right parties, a neutered court would help the Knesset to enact major policy priorities — such as making it easier for settlers to seize land in the West Bank; protecting government subsidies for religious schools; and helping ultra-Orthodox Israelis avoid mandatory military service.

    One reason for the intensity of the debate is the polarization between Israelis who are part of Netanyahu’s coalition and who are outside of it. He has appointed ultranationalist figures to major posts, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, who threatened Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin weeks before his 1995 assassination and publicly thanked a rabbi who justified Rabin’s murder. Ben-Gvir is now the national security minister.

    “Israeli society is at fever pitch,” Patrick said

    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

  • #2
    Where was your concern about "movement to the Right" when Jayapal open called for Biden to use dictatorial power to enact sweeping legislation? Where is your concern for the legitimacy of the SCOTUS when Democrats openly call for expansion of the Court when they were out maneuvered by Republicans using Democrat tactics?
    P1) If , then I win.

    P2)

    C) I win.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
      Given the concerns many have expressed about the UK shifting towards the Right with the "silent prayer" issue,
      What is this supposed to mean?

      Are you saying that the arrest of people for silent prayer (which you denied for 100 pages of the other thread) is a "shifting towards the Right"? Or are you saying that people pushing against it and in favor of basic thought freedom are "shifting towards the right"?

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
        Given the concerns many have expressed about the UK shifting towards the Right with the "silent prayer" issue,
        Uh banning silent prayer to protect abortion clinics wouldn't be a "sliding to the right" but to the left. The left has embraced fascism with open arms (and empty heads).


        Comment


        • #5
          The world is swinging towards having more authoritarian governments and less democratic governments. The previous period for comparison would be the 1920's and 1930's with the rise of dictatorships in Europe and Asia. Does this mean were heading for another world war?
          "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

          "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
            The world is swinging towards having more authoritarian governments and less democratic governments.
            Which has to be a cause for concern.

            Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
            The previous period for comparison would be the 1920's and 1930's with the rise of dictatorships in Europe and Asia. Does this mean were heading for another world war?
            To extend your comparison there is also the issue of a pandemic [Spanish Flu] and an economic disaster [1929]. And we have again experienced an economic crash and the later additional economic impact of a pandemic; with concerns for further economic/financial crises in the near future. And of course we have the added impact of climate change to consider which was not an issue [at least politically or economically] in the 1920s and 1930s.

            Whether our present problems will lead to any form of global conflict remains to be seen.
            "It ain't necessarily so
            The things that you're liable
            To read in the Bible
            It ain't necessarily so
            ."

            Sportin' Life
            Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Sparko View Post

              Uh banning silent prayer to protect abortion clinics wouldn't be a "sliding to the right" but to the left. The left has embraced fascism with open arms (and empty heads).
              She must be using Starlight's scale that defines Stalin as right wing.
              Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
              But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
              Than a fool in the eyes of God


              From "Fools Gold" by Petra

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
                The world is swinging towards having more authoritarian governments and less democratic governments. The previous period for comparison would be the 1920's and 1930's with the rise of dictatorships in Europe and Asia. Does this mean were heading for another world war?
                If Joe and the Democrats have their way in the Russia/Ukraine border dispute, yes.
                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                  Which has to be a cause for concern.

                  To extend your comparison there is also the issue of a pandemic [Spanish Flu] and an economic disaster [1929]. And we have again experienced an economic crash and the later additional economic impact of a pandemic; with concerns for further economic/financial crises in the near future. And of course we have the added impact of climate change to consider which was not an issue [at least politically or economically] in the 1920s and 1930s.

                  Whether our present problems will lead to any form of global conflict remains to be seen.
                  I think it can be argued that democracy is not what it should be either. We seem to have moved into a Grand Duchy of Fenwick mode where we have to have a majority to impose its will on the minority. Our democratic processes have become power games where power is the end and not the good of the people. Authoritarian imposition of will is now how countries run whether or not they are democracies.

                  Those are some good additions (Spanish Flu, 1929) to what I was thinking. I think there is an argument out there that we are already in WW3 (US-NATO versus China-Russia-Iran) and we just don't know it. I just don't have time to develop it right now.
                  "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

                  "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
                    The world is swinging towards having more authoritarian governments and less democratic governments. The previous period for comparison would be the 1920's and 1930's with the rise of dictatorships in Europe and Asia. Does this mean were heading for another world war?
                    can'tdisagree.gif

                    Umm... I think I'll go with, Jesus come soon.

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

                      can'tdisagree.gif

                      Umm... I think I'll go with, Jesus come soon.
                      While I agree with the sentiment, I'll go with WW3 will come first.
                      "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

                      "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                        Given the concerns many have expressed about the UK shifting towards the Right with the "silent prayer" issue, there also appear to be serious concerns over the Israeli government's attempts to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, thereby giving the Knesset the authority to over-ride any decisions made by that Court.

                        Israel has always been hailed as a bastion of democracy in a region of totalitarian and/or authoritarian regimes and therefore this attempt is a matter of grave concern considering Israel's [hitherto] democratic values.

                        As the article notes, even a Times correspondent normally sympathetic to Netanyahu has criticised this "threat to Israel's moral standing".

                        The article also makes reference to Orbán's authoritarian government in Hungary, an EU member state. Nor is Hungary an isolated incident as other EU member states are shifting to the Right. It therefore seems that these attempts by the Israeli government appear to be yet further evidence of a move within an existing democracy to authoritarianism with all the attendant risks.

                        The penultimate paragraph and the appointment of Ben-Gvir as the national security minister [given his threats to and comments about the assassination of Rabin] appears to be [to use an idiom] putting the fox in charge of the hen-house.

                        https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/b...netanyahu.html

                        Political leaders who have already been in office for more than 15 years — which is how long Benjamin Netanyahu has been Israel’s prime minister — do not typically upend their country’s politics. Yet that’s what Netanyahu has done in recent weeks.

                        His government’s proposal to reduce the power of Israel’s Supreme Court has created what our Opinion colleague Thomas Friedman calls the nation’s “biggest internal clash since its founding.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis — approaching 5 percent of the population — participated in protests last weekend. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, has encouraged Israelis to engage in civil disobedience if the proposal becomes law. And many military officers have said they would refuse to report for duty.

                        Bret Stephens, another Times Opinion columnist — who has often been sympathetic to Netanyahu’s policies — has criticized the judicial plan as a threat to Israel’s moral standing. “Hyper-personalized, populist rule achieved by gutting institutional checks and balances is how democracies devolve into mobocracies,” Bret wrote.

                        In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain why the later stages of Netanyahu’s political career are turning out to be more chaotic than anything that came before.

                        What changed?


                        Netanyahu has always been on Israel’s political right, but he was long able to build alliances with the center. The Israeli left, by contrast, has been marginalized and has not led the government since 2001.

                        One important cause was the breakdown of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the early 2000s. The failure of those talks — including the Palestinian leadership’s walking away from the Camp David negotiations in 2000 — led many Israeli voters to give up on the idea of peace and support conservative parties. Netanyahu often led the coalitions that spanned the center and right.

                        But in 2019, while he was prime minister, Netanyahu was indicted on corruption and bribery charges. Many politicians who agree with his Likud party on substantive issues decided that he needed to resign. “Israel’s centrist parties are willing to serve in a coalition with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud in charge,” Matti Friedman, a journalist who lives in Israel, wrote for The Free Press. “But they will no longer serve under Netanyahu himself: The prime minister, a master of the political maneuver, has simply lied to too many people too many times.”

                        This refusal, combined with the continued popularity of the political right, has thrown Israeli politics into turmoil. The country has held five elections since 2019. Likud received the largest share of votes — 23 percent — in the most recent election. Even so, Netanyahu was able to put together a governing coalition only by allying with far-right and religious parties.

                        The current government, as a result, is more radical than the previous governments Netanyahu led.

                        Why the Supreme Court?


                        Israel’s Supreme Court has something in common with the U.S. version: Both are among the most powerful courts in the world. In many other countries, the top court does not overturn major laws and instead tends to make modest, technocratic changes. In Israel and the U.S., the court often has the last word. (In Israel, the underlying reason is the lack of a constitution.)

                        The proposed changes by Netanyahu’s government would strengthen the authority of the legislature, which in Israel is known as the Knesset. It is already more powerful than the U.S. Congress, because there is no independently elected president; a majority of legislators choose the prime minister. If the judicial changes go through, the Knesset would also gain the power to override Supreme Court decisions and would have few checks on its power.

                        Yesterday, the Knesset passed an initial version of some of the changes. Lawmakers will have to vote twice more before the policies becomes law.

                        Some political commentators argue that the changes themselves are reasonable. “What’s at stake here isn’t the death of the nation’s democracy, but straightforward party politics,” Lahav Harkov of The Jerusalem Post wrote. “The discussion is, in fact, about the proper balance between different elements of a democracy.”

                        Many other analysts disagree, arguing that the reforms would allow a prime minister to dismantle democracy, much as Viktor Orban has done in Hungary. “Theoretically, you could end up with a government that decides that elections are going to take place once every 20 years,” our colleague Isabel Kershner said.

                        Either way, the changes have inspired intense anger because they would give Netanyahu’s government sweeping power to implement its preferred policies.

                        “Underlying this technical debate about the judiciary is a much broader conflict about what kind of society Israel should be,” Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, told us. “Ultra-Orthodox Jews and settler activists are taking advantage of the fact that they wield unprecedented power in Israeli society and government to try to unravel the influence of the court.”

                        The stakes

                        Netanyahu and his far-right allies have different incentives to neutralize the court.

                        For Netanyahu, a court that was subservient to Israeli’s legislature would allow him to end his own corruption trial, which is still taking place. Netanyahu has denied he would do so.

                        For far-right parties, a neutered court would help the Knesset to enact major policy priorities — such as making it easier for settlers to seize land in the West Bank; protecting government subsidies for religious schools; and helping ultra-Orthodox Israelis avoid mandatory military service.

                        One reason for the intensity of the debate is the polarization between Israelis who are part of Netanyahu’s coalition and who are outside of it. He has appointed ultranationalist figures to major posts, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, who threatened Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin weeks before his 1995 assassination and publicly thanked a rabbi who justified Rabin’s murder. Ben-Gvir is now the national security minister.

                        “Israeli society is at fever pitch,” Patrick said
                        concern troll


                        In an argument (usually a political debate), a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with "concerns". The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally. Concern trolls who use fake identities are sometimes known as sockpuppets.


                        Somehow, I doubt that our German poster, who frequently targets Israel for derision is really all that concerned about this topic, other than as yet another chance to attack a Jewish state.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          From todays' The Times of Israel

                          Blinken urges consensus while Herzog warns of possible civil war.


                          https://www.timesofisrael.com/blinke...t-way-forward/

                          Netanyahu’s new right-religious government has proposed major reforms that include allowing lawmakers to shield legislation from being reviewed by the High Court and giving the ruling majority control over judicial picks.

                          A number of polls have indicated the legislation is broadly unpopular with the public.

                          Tens of thousands have taken to the streets and President Isaac Herzog has warned that the proposals could ignite a civil war. In a bid to bridge the divides, Herzog on Wednesday presented an alternate reform proposal, which was swiftly rejected by Netanyahu and his allies.

                          Some critics allege that Netanyahu is pushing through the radical changes to protect himself as he fights corruption charges, which he denies.

                          Blinken’s latest comments came as a top White House spokesman said the administration backs Herzog’s effort to broker an alternative.

                          “The genius of our democracy — and frankly Israel’s democracy — is that they’re built on strong institutions, that they include checks and balances that foster an independent judiciary,” the National Security Council’s John Kirby said Thursday during a press briefing. “We support President Herzog’s ongoing effort to seek a solution that is consistent with those same democratic principles.”


                          I do wonder if the allegation in this article has some merit. Namely that Netanyahu is determined to force the legislation in order to protect himself
                          "It ain't necessarily so
                          The things that you're liable
                          To read in the Bible
                          It ain't necessarily so
                          ."

                          Sportin' Life
                          Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            I watched Stephen Sackur interview Simcha Rothman on the BBC's Hardtalk in this regard. What an impressive man Simcha Rothman is. He makes it very clear what it is all about.

                            https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct32h9

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              After President Macron pushed through retirement reform without a vote by the National Assembly, I'll stick by my comment that democracies are becoming less democratic.

                              Generally speaking, I think the more a president rules by executive order (even those I might agree with), the less democratic the government.
                              "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

                              "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

                              Comment

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