The upcoming election will be a fateful one. This election will determine whether we go on living in a liberal democracy or slide toward an authoritarian regime that falls somewhere between a democracy and a dictatorship, with an all-powerful leader unrestrained by a system of checks and balances.
The Likud-settler-Haredi bloc is planning an assassination attempt on democracy. These politicians seek to totally change the face of our system of government. Instead of three independent branches – executive, legislative and judiciary – the executive branch (the prime minister and cabinet) will dominate the two, deprive them of their independence and turn them into rubber stamps. In other words, this election is not about a change of government, but a change of regime.
In order to seize control of the Knesset (the legislative branch), the coalition will have to deprive the opposition of the opportunity to perform its main role – criticizing the government. It will have no shortage of hatred to draw upon for this purpose.
Demolishing the judiciary will be accomplished via Bezalel Smotrich’s “Law and Justice” plan, which promises neither law nor justice. The sole reason this plan came into existence was to save Benjamin Netanyahu from his criminal trial. But it has a broader aim as well – quashing the State Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court, which are the only remaining link yet to be conquered by the right. Smotrich will crush the attorney general’s independence by splitting the role and making it a personal position of trust for the prime minister. The present attorney general will be ousted, and the personal adviser will pull the Netanyahu indictments.
And in order to ensure conservative right-wing court rulings, the judicial selection method will be changed so that politicians make up the majority of the committee, unlike the situation today. Instead of professional and independent justices, will get political justices who are only there to fulfill the wishes of those who sent them, and that will be the end of any judicial oversight of the government’s actions. And should the justices somehow still dare to strike down a piece of Knesset legislation on the grounds that it violates a Basic Law or human rights, or in order to protect minorities, their objections will amount to nothing in the face of an override clause that will enable the Knesset to simply re-legislate the same law. The seniority system would also be abolished, and the justice minister (Smotrich?) would decide who will be president of the Supreme Court. The incremental and relatively modest changes introduced by Gideon Sa’ar and Ayelet Shaked to the composition of the judicial selection committee now look like a joke compared to the complete erosion of the Supreme Court being proposed by Smotrich at Netanyahu’s urging.
The second part of Smotrich’s plan is to remove the offense of “fraud and breach of trust” from books. Contrary to popular thinking, this idea is not designed solely for Netanyahu. Others stand to profit from it, too – such as lawmaker David Bitan, who is also accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The removal of this offense would hand a big prize to the corrupt. As soon as it happens, any lawmaker or minister could accept kickbacks, appoint relatives and cronies, ignore conflicts of interest and receive bribes. The Knesset will become a welcoming refuge for all types of corrupt players.
Arye Dery said recently that he would cancel the legal standard that allows courts to overrule public decisions if they are deemed unreasonable, so that the Supreme Court cannot block his appointment as a minister on those grounds. He sees no problem whatsoever with a person who was convicted twice – once for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and once for tax evasion – serving as a minister. Smotrich, meanwhile, is a religious extremist and messianic nationalist who won’t stop at pushing Israel into authoritarian rule. In June 2019, he said: “Israel should be run according to Torah law.” Indeed, his real dream is for Israel to become an Iran-style theocratic state. And we are seeing right now just what a joy it is to live in Iran.