Sunday's Supreme Court ruling, which was decided by a single vote, restored the adjective "democratic" to the description of the State of Israel. It removed from above the heads of the Israeli service members who risk their lives in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank the threat of arrest and prosecution in Europe. It also put in their rightful place the leaders of the government coup, who dealt a mortal blow to the economy, security, international standing and social solidarity of the state on October 7.
The war that the last January 4 on the judiciary, on Zionism and on the norms and values of the state has ended, for now, with a clear victor.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin's reaction to the ruling shows that he has not surrendered. The dangerous extremist who is identified with the damage wreaked by the "reform" more than any other individual is not satisfied with the disaster he has already caused. He has vowed to try again. If he and his fellow members of the terrible coalition of 64 lawmakers are not ousted after the war, there is a chance that they will succeed next time: The Supreme Court currently has a conservative majority regarding relations among the branches of government.
As with every significant junction in our lives, the publication of the verdict was preceded by a dirty, hasty trick concocted by the eternal mischief-maker Arye Dery: a fast-track bill to delay its publication by a few months – "for the sake of national unity," he gave as the pretext for his idea (or perhaps it was conceived by his superior, and the Shas party chair was only the shill).
No ruling can ever strike down the doctrine of deceit that Dery has employed throughout his long political career. He strives to delay for as long as possible the ruling that came about mainly because of him and because of the dirty legal tricks associated with him. Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, publicly championed the idea of postponement at a news conference Saturday evening but in fact the verdict he seeks to delay is the next in line – on disqualification from office.
The prime minister doesn't care about the reasonableness doctrine. He and his wife and their eldest son care only about the threat posed by the incapacitation law, whose application is to be postponed until after the next general election, if the leaks are correct.
This is the only "unity" in this deal, unity among thieves. Soon after Dery's bill was reported, Minister Gideon Sa'ar tweeted fierce opposition, saying the proposal will only increase the division in the nation by a few factors. Senior jurists echoed his judgment. Minister Benny Gantz agonized for nearly a day until issuing a statement rejecting the idea completely. The court decided not to delay, but rather to push up publication of its verdict.
If Dery and his partners in the Prime Minister's Office thought they would get the wheels of legislation rolling and the High Court of Justice would lie quietly and let them bully the Knesset and its committees while the court wait until the January 12 deadline, they don't understand the world they live in. This is a war for Israel's character, and the Supreme Court is the final fortress.
It was the end of another corrupt personal bill, born to great drama on the (Channel 12) evening news and given a dishonorable burial on the afternoon current events show the next day. Dery is said to be wise, and he generally is. What wisdom was there in the silly panic to postpone the publication of something Amit Segal already reported last week?
Justice Minister Yariv Levin.Credit: Sariya Diamant
The right rampaged repulsively last night, as is its wont, about former Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, who led the majority opinion. But the right bears full responsibility for the result: Levin and Simcha Rothman and Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who opposed any compromise in the language of the law. (Netanyahu apparently supported a compromise but capitulated to the others' threats.) If the law had been softened, the bottom line in the Supreme Court might have been different.
The messianic amok that in late July pushed the government to pass the law before the Knesset recess and its stubborn refusal to compromise even in the face of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's pleas took its revenge Monday.
The vote – 8-7 in favor of disqualification – shows the extent to which Levin and Rothman's evil and criminal incitement against the Supreme Court and its justices (according to which they are all "leftists" and "liberals" and none of them deserves to be on the bench) was, well, evil and criminal.
Israel's Supreme Court today is diverse and heterogeneous. Ironically, the right's incitement against it peaked last year, a year of a "fully full" right-wing government, precisely when the composition of the court became more conservative than ever.