By DANIELLE ROTH-AVNERI
At a conservative estimate, around two-and-a-half months should suffice to douse the political flames engulfing Israel, which have left not a single person in Israeli society unaffected, be they on the Right or Left.
What we have witnessed over the past few months is a quiet civil war, one that is being fought not with arrows or physical blows, but rather on social media networks and within groups of friends and families.
Meanwhile, the Knesset has just begun a two-and-a-half-month-long recess, during which time, anything can happen in Israel’s political reality. August is a time for families to go on vacation, with kids off school. In September, the High Holy Days continue the vacation mode, with an added spiritual, national, and cognitive effect created by the powerful holiday of Yom Kippur.
The Knesset will reconvene in mid-October, and by then we will know whether the recess allowed enough time for heads to cool in the aftermath of the passing of the coalition's amendment to the Basic Law: The Judiciary, also known as the reasonableness standard bill, restricting the power of the Supreme Court to use the reasonableness doctrine to review government decisions.
Currently, the country is still at boiling point, and the gulf that separates the two sides is vast. One side believes that a very minor law was passed and that it had to be passed to demonstrate to conservative voters that the Right has not capitulated on issues pertaining to judicial reform and that the Left does not run the government.
On the other hand, for this law to pass, there needed to be a complete consensus among all members of the government because of the opposition to it within the military. The uprising within the ranks, which included threats by reservist pilots and elite reserve combat unit members not to show up for service, ended up being the driving force behind the passage of this law.
This is something the government could not have given in to: The refusal card puts the safety of the State of Israel in jeopardy. When it comes to military no-shows, the government correctly felt that if it gave in, the no-show card would be pulled out of the deck in other scenarios in the future.
Two camps have formed within the coalition. One faction within the Likud and other coalition parties believes the legislative process should be carried out in its entirety right now. This group is led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and his confidants. After getting the law passed, some members of this hawkish and ultra-rightist group took a selfie in the Knesset that was highly insensitive; there was no need for them to rub salt in the opposition’s wound. After winning, they ought to have shown some modesty.
A second group within the Likud believes that now is the time to calm the situation before making any further moves. This group believes that it is necessary to arrive at a broad consensus on the future of judicial reform, most critically on the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee. Deciding the future of this committee, which appoints justices to the Supreme Court, is the next major milestone of the judicial reform drama. It is already clear that at this stage in the proceedings whatever happens on this count, the proposal will fall short of the coalition’s original plans.
Meanwhile, the demonstrations on Israeli streets warning of dictatorship spread all manner of libel against Israel. The claims of a dictatorship are simply baseless. Former senior politicians promoted this narrative within the protest movement, but anyone familiar with politics, strategy, and political campaigns is aware that the objective of the protest movement is to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.
The protest campaigns began a long time before judicial reform did. Notably, politicians from the opposition are being completely excluded from the movement. This means that the movement itself is a political development in the making, which could result in the formation of a new party.
All in all, the heads of the protest movement are exploiting circumstances to promote their agenda, and many of them have fallen in love with protests for protest’s sake.
Despite their rhetoric, Israel will not transition into a dictatorship. The amendment to the reasonableness standard does not spell the end of democracy.
The State of Israel is not a perfect country, and many things need to be fixed. It is not sustainable to have a situation in which the government will conclude that it is powerless to make changes. On the other hand, with all due respect to Justice Minister Levin, the government needs to realize that there are more pressing things for it to deal with right now.
We have an education system that is slowly disintegrating, a health system that requires an emergency transfusion, and security challenges on all fronts.
It is time to end the control over the political situation by extreme elements on the Right as well as the Left. This means moderating future government steps and ending anarchy on the streets, where, during a protest, a mother was attacked in her vehicle while children were inside, or where a driver drove into protesters.
How did we stoop to this new low? Many of Israel’s adversaries are clasping their hands with excitement at these scenes.
Regardless, in the end, it is Netanyahu who will decide what the next move is. He is watching the polls carefully and sees that his situation has deteriorated very significantly since the judicial reform began. Given the damage done so far, it is fair to assume that his motivation to continue with judicial reform is extremely low.
Netanyahu will continue his wait-and-see approach before deciding what to do vis-à-vis the Judicial Selection Committee. He will wait to see what new developments surface before taking his next step.
In late July, Netanyahu was taken to hospital by ambulance. He claimed to be suffering from dehydration. When the most qualified cardiologists in the State of Israel were rushed to his side, everybody understood that there had been some kind of cardiac event, and he later received a pacemaker. The flames burning in Israel affect the entire country, including the heart of the prime minister.
Danielle Roth-Avneri is a political commentator & panelist on Morning World and various current affairs news programs on television. She is a former Knesset reporter, news editor and columnist for the newspaper Israel Hayom. Read full bio here.
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