Another nail in the coffin of Israeli democracy

On Monday, the cabinet of the government of Israel made a unanimous decision that drove yet another nail into the corpus of Israeli freedom and democracy.

For the first time since Israel’s founding, the government has rejected a binding ruling of the Supreme Court. It was the kind of thing one sees in autocracies where the executive branch of government arrogates unto itself the sole right to determine the law of the land. For this act by the cabinet, all of us here should decide internally that none of the people who sat around that table and acquiesced to this travesty of responsible governance are any longer qualified to hold elective office in this country.

It is simply inconceivable that there was not even one person in that room with sufficient respect for the mechanics of democracy to have been able to rise and tell the prime minister that he is way off base in even suggesting that the cabinet vote in this manner.

Frankly, had it not been for the decision of the cabinet not to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court in this matter, the issue would have been buried in the back pages of today’s paper, if it was covered at all. My guess is if you walked up to any random Israeli on the street here and said there was an issue involving the operation of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, you would get a quizzical look followed by that person saying he or she had never heard of such a group.

However, the people here are not stupid. We all know exactly what game is being played.  According to the latest information circulated earlier this week, the Knesset will most probably disband on July 17^th and national elections will be held on October 27^th. Those dates could shift a bit, but according to law, national elections must be held later this year when the current government will have completed its elected term.

The prime minister, who has served longer than any prior occupant of that position and yet, at 74 years of age, clearly would like to continue in power, is vulnerable. He is also a skilled politician who knows how to manipulate the system to his benefit and will undoubtedly try to do so this year as well.

For context, everyone here recalls how during most of 2023, until the massacre of October 7^th, the government was pushing a judicial overhaul that clearly sought to weaken the courts’ ability to review government action. For nine months, there were massive protests against what many of us viewed as a sharp turn toward authoritarianism. Since then, the attorney general, legal advisers, prosecutors, and senior civil servants have been attacked by the executive branch and often branded as unelected officials frustrating the will of the majority. The cabinet’s vote on Monday gives out the message that only the governing coalition can determine what laws actually mean.

With that message on the table, so to speak, should the prime minister, in an effort to stay in office, attempt to do anything to sabotage the upcoming election, it will create an unprecedented constitutional confrontation over the electoral process. And who will need to adjudicate the issue? The Supreme Court, in a country where the government in power has already stated what it feels is its right to declare that judicial rulings are not binding.

In a democracy, there can and should be disagreement about whether the courts have reached correct legal conclusions. Nobody is perfect, of course, and the courts sometimes err in how they see the law. But those disputes must occur within a constitutional framework or, in our case, with respect to our Basic Laws and related prior judgements. Until yesterday, that is how things worked in Israel as well.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was 100 percent correct when he said, in response, that the cabinet’s decision yesterday struck “at the heart of the nation’s unity.”

In a functioning democracy, every citizen, regardless of title or position, is obligated to operate under the law. A cabinet of the government of Israel that takes a unanimous position that it will not abide by the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court, entrusted with the responsibility to interpret the law, has prima facie given up its right to govern now or in the future.

It will be our obligation as citizens to make sure this is the outcome of what can only be called a dastardly irresponsible act by the governing coalition.