On December 29 we will mark two years since the formation of this government – the third headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served in the position three times, since 1996. The current government is enormous: When it was formed it had 33 ministers, with a coalition of only 64 members. Half the coalition are members of the cabinet. This is an intolerable circumstance.
A majority of Israel's governments can be divided into four groupings: The Mapai (the forerunner of Labor) and Labor Party governments from 1948 to 1977; the various Likud governments between 1977 to 1996 and 2001 to 2009; and the Netanyahu-led governments in 1996 to 1999 and 2009 to 2021. Not to mention the present government, which has been dubbed "a fully right-wing government."
We can conduct a basic comparison between the present government and all the others, which served the State of Israel for over 70 years. Beginning in 1948, the other governments respected the rules of the democratic regime, the independence of the legal system and freedom of the press. All the governments accepted the status of the attorney general and honored their decisions.
The members of Yitzhak Rabin's first government didn't attack then-Attorney General Aharon Barak, whose decisions caused the downfall of the government in the 1977 election. When Barak filed an indictment against Rabin's wife Leah due to a foreign currency offense, Rabin decided in April 1977 to resign from the premiership.
"I committed a crime, even if only a technical one … According to my credo, the price must be paid," he wrote ("The Rabin Memoirs"). The ethical and psychological disparity between him and Netanyahu is more than unfathomable.
The present government on the other hand resembles the governments that served in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe. For example, the Mussolini government that ruled over Italy.
In October 1922, the former king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, appointed Mussolini prime minister after there were seven governments that served within five years starting in 1917. One month later, in November 1922, the Italian government decided, by a large majority, to grant Mussolini emergency powers for a year, without the approval of parliament.
In other words, a democratic institution approved a patently dictatorial regime. And now, in Israel's present government, a long series of decisions by its members demonstrates its relationship to the rule of law and proper administration.
One example is the decision to shorten the term of the legal advisers in the government ministries. The purpose of this decision is clear: to oust the legal adviser in the Finance Ministry, attorney Asi Messing, because he is the official who is capable of stopping the undisciplined and damaging behavior of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
For Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the goal is not to preserve the legal system, but rather to undermine it. One example is his decision to delay appointing new justices to the Supreme Court – today there are only 12 justices, instead of 15.
For over a year Levin hasn't allowed the appointment of the head of the legal system, the Supreme Court president. Justice Uzi Vogelman was previously the acting president, and now Justice Isaac Amit – whom Levin refused to appoint – is the acting president.
This is an absurd situation. Is it possible to appoint an acting president of the country, an acting prime minister, or an acting chief of staff? That's a symbol of the absurdity in Netanyahu's kingdom.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a criminal both formally and legally, is calling to oust Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, because according to him her investigation is political rather than legal. Ben-Gvir claims that the attorney general's goal is to undermine the right-wing regime and to bring down the elected government. Ben-Gvir doesn't respect the institution of attorney general.
It should be noted that in the past only one attorney general was ousted – Yitzhak Zamir was fired by Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Yitzhak Modai in 1986 in the wake of the "Bus 300 Affair." It is also worth mentioning that in Ben-Gvir's house there was a photo of the murderer [of Muslim worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994] Dr. Baruch Goldstein.
In comparison, during 1975 to 1976, there was close cooperation between Police Minister Shlomo Hillel and Attorney General Barak – both received the Israel Prize. The two did everything possible to battle corruption in the government. A prominent example of that is the Asher Yadlin affair, which shocked the political system and the entire public.
Today, the battle against corruption during those years sounds like fiction, because presently Supreme Court Justices decided to enable a criminal offender to serve as prime minister without incapacitation.
The fact that for years Netanyahu was serving as prime minister while at the same time his trial was taking place in the Jerusalem District Court is a mark of disgrace for the legal system. It creates instability in this country, which lacks a clean and proper democratic regime.