Look at your children. What country will they inherit?
A year ago, Israel dropped in the world's preeminent democracy index, the . After half a century of being classified as a "liberal democracy", Israel's been downgraded to an "electoral democracy". And that is just the beginning.
to the Basic Law on the Judiciary changes the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee, giving politicians sole power to appoint Supreme Court justices. Judges will remain on the committee, but they will no longer have the power to prevent the appointment of unprofessional, unfit, or blatantly political candidates.
To understand the true magnitude of the disaster that the coalition is inflicting on Israel, it's necessary to view it within the broader context of the judicial overhaul. Led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the change to the committee's composition is part of a bigger plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in the Knesset on Thursday.Credit: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Additional legislation to cement the change is already underway – and the coalition can easily pass it.
For example, a bill has been put forward that would prevent the High Court of Justice from reviewing or overturning Basic Laws. Such a law would bar the High Court from overturning coup legislation, including the changes to the Judicial Appointments Committee, because it was an amendment to a Basic Law.
Supporters of the change are trying to portray it as a legitimate amendment, because it will only take effect in the next Knesset. This is misleading.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog.Credit: Maayan Toaf/GPO
The High Court already leans conservative. After the next elections and the retirement of Justice Yosef Elron later this year, four of the court's fifteen seats will be vacant. Under the new law, if coalition and opposition committee members fail to reach consensus on the appointment of judges within a year, each side will submit a list of three candidates, from which the other side will choose one.
This method all but guarantees extreme political appointments, especially in a deeply polarized Knesset. Levin will not seek middle-ground candidates. Rather, he will propose appointing Kohelet Policy Forum's entire legal department to the Supreme Court.
The judicial coup's instigators have no interest in compromise. This is the most polarized Knesset in Israel's history, and the current coalition is the most right-wing, extremist and autocratic to date. Even President Isaac Herzog, perhaps the loudest voice for compromise, warned last summer that "Kahanism" should be removed from the government.
This is not a coalition built for compromise. When Levin and Rothman advanced the law abolishing the reasonableness standard, they rejected every compromise proposal. The final version they passed, which the High Court ultimately overturned, was even more extreme than their original proposal.
Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem at the Knesset.Credit: Danny Shem-Tov/Knesset
Make no mistake: Levin and Rothman aren't fringe extremists working in isolation – they accurately reflect the government and coalition. In an interview on Reshet Bet, a major radio station, Minister David Amsalem said that the Supreme Court "is not acting for the good of the country."
As for compromise? As far as the government and coalition are concerned, jurists are traitors, and civil servants are part of the "deep state". Just last week, Netanyahu remarked, "These guys are mostly leftists," and in his narrative, the left is the enemy of the state.
After the elections, those opposing Levin and his allies on the Judicial Appointments Committee are unlikely to meet any willingness to compromise. Faced with the extreme positions of the right-wing bloc, they will be pushed to submit their own equally extreme candidates from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum.
This means that jurists and judges aspiring to reach the Supreme Court will now have to compete for the favor of politicians, tailoring their judgments to political opinion. Attorneys general may feel pressure to align their professional opinion with the government's convenience, while state prosecutors and the military advocate general would be pressured to decide cases based on the political agenda of politicians who control their prospects for promotion.
The coup also includes changes designed to consolidate autocracy in the long term. One example is the amendment to the Basic Law on the Government, which limits the ability to compel a prime minister to take a leave of absence. The High Court did not strike it down but delayed its application until after the next election. Thus, if Netanyahu remains prime minister, he will no longer be constrained by any conflict of interest arrangement.
The Israeli High Court of Justice in Jerusalem.Credit: Emil Salman
From the perspective of the judicial coup, changing the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee achieves two key goals. First, it politicizes the appointment process, thereby greatly weakening the High Court, the final and most important check in the series of checks and balances limiting executive power. Second, it transforms the High Court itself into a polarized, political, and contentious institution.
The flood of government legislation and appointments suddenly reaching the High Court isn't because the court has become "leftist" or that the jurists are part of some "deep state". The High Court hasn't shifted leftward in decades – if anything, it's moved to the right. So why have so many issues reached the High Court since the coalition took power?
Because Israel has never had a government that so openly and aggressively ignores legal boundaries.
If, after the elections, a future central-left government gains power, it will most likely face fewer confrontations with the High Court, even if the bench is conservative and politically skewed. But if an extreme right-wing populist coalition with autocratic characteristics takes hold, a weakened High Court that won't restrain its conduct is exactly what it needs to consolidate its rule for generations.
In other words, the changes to the Judicial Appointments Committee are designed to secure the long-term success of the coup.
Changing the committee's composition is not the end of democracy as we know it – it's far worse. It's a tool intended to guarantee autocracy for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The fight over how we select judges is, at its core, a fight for their sake.