For once, it would be nice to have one of these articles just explain the facts without the editorialization. It makes it very difficult to actually understand what's going on vs. the writer's agenda.
> Government members openly brag about their intentions. They explain that since they won Israel’s last elections, it means they can now do anything they want. Like other authoritarian forces, the Israeli government doesn’t understand what democracy means. It thinks it is a dictatorship of the majority, and that those who win democratic elections are thereby granted unlimited power.
What kind of writing is this? I'd expect better journalism from a high school newspaper... and this is from a journalism outfit that charges $70 monthly!
The way the article is written, it reads like a tantrum from someone not getting what they want.
The nuance is entirely lost, and the entire article is designed to have the reader come away with exactly one set of thoughts.
Current ruling coalition after establishing government all of sudden decided to do wide reaching reform of supreme court even though that they were running on platform of security and lowering cost of life.
Reform will prevent supreme court from overruling unlawful laws and government actions. It will also give to government ability to pretty much appoint it's own judges to supreme court (currently there is a rather complicated scheme that requires a discussions and compromises). (this is very simplistic overview)(in last 30 years supreme court overruled 22 laws or so).
Big part of population not happy with those changes and been protesting for past 7 months. A good chunk of people (30%-40% or so) who actually voted in current coalition are also against those changes.
Ruling coalition has opinion that because they got majority that can do anything they want because this is democracy. Or something like this.
There was long negotiations between coalition and opposition but they failed.
In reality prime minister probably would have liked to cancel/soften reforms, but it will mean that his coalition will fall apart and current polls predict for them minority after elections
PS. Today passed first law of the reform, which severely limits how supreme court can use "reasonableness" in making it's decisions with regards to government actions
You shouldn't be able to pass reforms that change how the government is supposed to work without a 60% referendum imho. (or at most, you pass/activate the law but it must be confirmed within a year by referendum, and only in emergency settings).
The problem is the lack of nuance, or anything from the other perspective.
There's zero chance the "other side" woke up one day and decided to be evil. But that's how this article frames the situation, which does it far more disservice than the writer realizes.
How about the article sharing why the "other side" views things they way they do? Share some polling on the subject, educate readers on both perspectives and possible goals and outcomes.
Instead, it's all doomsday talk and how democracy is hanging on by a tired thread...
Currently this just reads like the low/zero effort posts all to common in the US which essentially devolve into a tantrum when someone didn't get their way.
I think you are still not understanding what an opinion piece is?
It’s fine that you weren’t persuaded by it - maybe it was a poor argument, or maybe you weren’t the target audience, or maybe you’re totally hidebound in your thinking and perfect rhetoric wouldn’t have moved your opinion in the slightest. Could be any or none of the above, and again, that’s OK!
But at the end of the day, the author is under no obligation to state his opponents’ points for them.
An opinion piece is a persuasive piece, as you've already noted.
In persuasive writing, you are supposed to... persuade the audience to share your conclusion.
This piece does no persuading. It's written for a certain subset of readers that already think poorly of the current Israeli government, and stops just short of shouting a token "Hitler!". Which leaves one to wonder - who's this piece really for then? It's not persuading anyone.
We learn in grade school that persuasive pieces must address opposing viewpoints. It's not enough to just state your opinion within a vacuum. There's two sides to a disagreement, and making zero attempt to cross that threshold and provide context or discussion fails to bring anyone closer to the writer's viewpoint.
Overall it's a very poorly written opinion, devoid of any facts or reality. It doesn't even present one "side" of the issue, it only shares the writer's naïve and poorly articulated viewpoint. In essence, this piece doesn't even need to exist... anyone who's going to agree with it already does, and no one else will take it seriously.
Investors, for one. Sovereign parliaments are risky structures. Particularly when underpinned by a majoritarian and religious-fundamentalist base.
Israel's Supreme Court has issues. The FT has covered them well. (Imagine if SCOTUS justices chose not only their replacements, but staffed the federal courts.) But this--ramming through a neutering of the court--is obviously a crap solution, one that's been derided by powerful voices within Israel and without.
Within Israel, the issue is hopelessly polarized. Outside, opinions are still being formed. Having an honest if biased opinion adds information to that discussion, even if it won't change minds domestically.
Note that the FT does this frequently. It's how they keep their articles short. You're expected to click through to prior articles that flesh out the context from a neutral position if you're coming to the field anew.
> zero chance the "other side" woke up one day and decided to be evil. But that's how this article frames the situation
I don't think it does.
The majority have priorities, which they doubtless see as morally-upstanding ones, that they want to pursue unchecked. They are giving themselves that liberty. Majoritarianism is a known failure mode of democracy; Israel appears to have a majority that believes their winning elections lets them overrule checks and balances.
The suspicion, reasonable enough, given the majority's fundamentalist voter bloc, is this unchecked power will be used to overrule minority rights.
This is opinion by Yuval Harari, who has become a public intellectual worldwide and maybe something of a leading figure in the current protests in Israel. Most FT readers will already be somewhat familiar with the situation in Israel so it's not written as a backgrounder. For that you might try: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65086871
Fair enough; it may just be how it looks from my vantage point as a non-Israeli. I should also have said "major voice" instead of "leading figure" but that might also be wrong. That said I watched him (on YouTube) give what looked like a major address to an enormous group of demonstrators. So, who would you say are the major voices of the protests?
Opposition parties (with their structures) stay aside, in order to avoid accusations that that protests are simply a way to bring coalition down, etc.
During protests there is a bunch of people who make speeches, including current opposition leaders, ex supreme court judges, ex president, ex leaders/ministers from right parties, etc. Pretty much everybody fairly known in Israel.
Didn’t the leader of the “other side” recently get convicted of bribery relating to his government position?
I don’t follow Israeli politics very closely, but judging by the company kept when campaigning and raising money in America, “evil” doesn’t may not be a recently developed attribute.
The facts are hard to explain without context. It's an obscure legal ruling that's at the center, the idea that a judge can make a decision based on common sense. They outlawed common sense for judges.
This is a part of a much greater movement with multiple forces in play trying to turn Israel into an autocracy. (Israeli, from Liberal side).
Note that abolishing the common law reasonableness standard isn't the only change Netanjahu had planned originally. He's been forced to backtrack a lot.
The original proposals intended to allow the government to override supreme court decisions generally (not just ones based on the reasonableness doctrine). I dont see how this wouldn't have eliminated all legal limits to government power in Israel.
In a sense there already aren't any limits: 50% of parliament is enough to change the basic laws.
It is not possible for an apartheid system to be a democracy. It can't be a democracy when three quarters of Palestinians living under Israeli rule are not permitted to vote.
I've been following the situation in Israel, and I don't understand why the reasonability clause is something good to have in the first place. If a law is being passed, the SC could overrule it by simply saying that it is unreasonable. That sounds like an awful reason. Now the SC has to actually show which of the basic laws the proposed law contradicts. This is how it works in the US, and that makes sense to me.
What am I missing?
It's been used to prevent corruption in appointments. Or people with multiple criminal convictions from assuming ministerial posts (after those people as part of plea agreements promised to stay out of politics, as example). Or all kinds of stupid or dangerous things that government tries to pull off.
Essentially parties that are part of current coalition tend to be regarded as "job factories" and supreme court interferes with it. So they are not happy.
Also they want to fire attorney general (also judicial advisor to government ) which manages criminal case against prime minister and in general tries to prevent unlawful laws from passing. Firing her given conflict of interest is currently "unreasonable"
Using a bad tool for a good cause is still bad. Let's say that the Knesset wants to lower the SC salary, but the SC thinks that that salary is "unreasonably" low for the lifestyle that they deserve. Then they can simply cancel that law. And unlike with politicians, if the people think that that is a bad decision, they can't impeach any of them, nor can they have any influence into who the new justices will be.
Everybody agrees that there should be reform. One that is done in consensus. But they went and did the most extreme version of reform. And they did it because if they don't do it - coalition will fall and they will loose next election. This is reform is so bad, that leaders of ultra-right party that run on platform of supreme court reform for a decade said that it bad and shouldn't be done
And if we are talking about new justices. One of the next planned laws is the one that gives to government ability to pick justices of their choosing
> Now the SC has to actually show which of the basic laws the proposed law contradicts
There is no transition period. I agree that the clause is too subjective. But there is a lot of law resting on it, law regarding matters like corruption and the rights of minorities that are about to be swept away by this unilateral change. That's de-stabilising in a self-reinforcing way.
How else could it have been done? If the knesset passed a law saying that in 1 year the reasonability clause would be removed, would you be perfectly okay with that?
> If the knesset passed a law saying that in 1 year the reasonability clause would be removed, would you be perfectly okay with that?
You'd look at the rulings the Court has made on the basis of reasonability that deserve codification.
What the Knesset is doing now is a constitutional overhaul. Unfortunately, Israel lacks a written constitution, so the mechanism for amendment is unclear. That said, if you consider this as a razor-thin majority making major constitutional changes, the instability and de-legitimisation that causes makes sense. (Constitutional systems require supermajorities for amendments for a reason.)
We have no other oversight otherwise. We don't have senate vs. congress. The court is supposed to oversee the government and our current prime minister is on trial for corruption.
For him this is about destroying any oversight which might put him in jail. His "partners" from the extreme right want to use it to annex the occupied territories without giving citizenship to 3M Palestinians.
> It makes it very difficult to actually understand what's going on vs. the writer's agenda.
Speaking broadly, you can't have democracy without a balance of powers between the government and the judicial system. Therefore any emerging dictatorship must first limit the powers of the judicial system and/or undermine its independence by appointing their own corrupt puppets in place. When a clash happens between any government and its nation's courts, you can bet all horses that they're after taking absolute power.
Putin did it, Erdogan did it, Lukashenko did it, Orban did it, and at least in the EU other countries are working on it (Italy, Poland).
Translation to US terms: current supreme court should have a veto on next candidates to supreme court. It should be able to cancel any law or government decision, even constitutional amendments. Anything but that is not a democracy.
(Yes, Yuval thinks you’re stupid.)
41 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 96.5 ms ] thread> Government members openly brag about their intentions. They explain that since they won Israel’s last elections, it means they can now do anything they want. Like other authoritarian forces, the Israeli government doesn’t understand what democracy means. It thinks it is a dictatorship of the majority, and that those who win democratic elections are thereby granted unlimited power.
What kind of writing is this? I'd expect better journalism from a high school newspaper... and this is from a journalism outfit that charges $70 monthly!
The way the article is written, it reads like a tantrum from someone not getting what they want.
The nuance is entirely lost, and the entire article is designed to have the reader come away with exactly one set of thoughts.
Reform will prevent supreme court from overruling unlawful laws and government actions. It will also give to government ability to pretty much appoint it's own judges to supreme court (currently there is a rather complicated scheme that requires a discussions and compromises). (this is very simplistic overview)(in last 30 years supreme court overruled 22 laws or so).
Big part of population not happy with those changes and been protesting for past 7 months. A good chunk of people (30%-40% or so) who actually voted in current coalition are also against those changes.
Ruling coalition has opinion that because they got majority that can do anything they want because this is democracy. Or something like this.
There was long negotiations between coalition and opposition but they failed.
In reality prime minister probably would have liked to cancel/soften reforms, but it will mean that his coalition will fall apart and current polls predict for them minority after elections
PS. Today passed first law of the reform, which severely limits how supreme court can use "reasonableness" in making it's decisions with regards to government actions
It's an opinion piece (and is labelled as such).
it reads like a tantrum from someone not getting what they want.
Or like a patriotic cri de coeur from someone gravely concerned about decisions the government of his country is taking.
There's zero chance the "other side" woke up one day and decided to be evil. But that's how this article frames the situation, which does it far more disservice than the writer realizes.
How about the article sharing why the "other side" views things they way they do? Share some polling on the subject, educate readers on both perspectives and possible goals and outcomes.
Instead, it's all doomsday talk and how democracy is hanging on by a tired thread...
Currently this just reads like the low/zero effort posts all to common in the US which essentially devolve into a tantrum when someone didn't get their way.
It’s fine that you weren’t persuaded by it - maybe it was a poor argument, or maybe you weren’t the target audience, or maybe you’re totally hidebound in your thinking and perfect rhetoric wouldn’t have moved your opinion in the slightest. Could be any or none of the above, and again, that’s OK!
But at the end of the day, the author is under no obligation to state his opponents’ points for them.
In persuasive writing, you are supposed to... persuade the audience to share your conclusion.
This piece does no persuading. It's written for a certain subset of readers that already think poorly of the current Israeli government, and stops just short of shouting a token "Hitler!". Which leaves one to wonder - who's this piece really for then? It's not persuading anyone.
We learn in grade school that persuasive pieces must address opposing viewpoints. It's not enough to just state your opinion within a vacuum. There's two sides to a disagreement, and making zero attempt to cross that threshold and provide context or discussion fails to bring anyone closer to the writer's viewpoint.
Overall it's a very poorly written opinion, devoid of any facts or reality. It doesn't even present one "side" of the issue, it only shares the writer's naïve and poorly articulated viewpoint. In essence, this piece doesn't even need to exist... anyone who's going to agree with it already does, and no one else will take it seriously.
Investors, for one. Sovereign parliaments are risky structures. Particularly when underpinned by a majoritarian and religious-fundamentalist base.
Israel's Supreme Court has issues. The FT has covered them well. (Imagine if SCOTUS justices chose not only their replacements, but staffed the federal courts.) But this--ramming through a neutering of the court--is obviously a crap solution, one that's been derided by powerful voices within Israel and without.
Within Israel, the issue is hopelessly polarized. Outside, opinions are still being formed. Having an honest if biased opinion adds information to that discussion, even if it won't change minds domestically.
Note that the FT does this frequently. It's how they keep their articles short. You're expected to click through to prior articles that flesh out the context from a neutral position if you're coming to the field anew.
I don't think it does.
The majority have priorities, which they doubtless see as morally-upstanding ones, that they want to pursue unchecked. They are giving themselves that liberty. Majoritarianism is a known failure mode of democracy; Israel appears to have a majority that believes their winning elections lets them overrule checks and balances.
The suspicion, reasonable enough, given the majority's fundamentalist voter bloc, is this unchecked power will be used to overrule minority rights.
Edit: Another decent backgrounder is https://apnews.com/article/netanyahu-israel-hospital-judicia...
Protests are managed and organized by people who are listed on this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform_p.... kiYou can say that they are the voices of protests.
Opposition parties (with their structures) stay aside, in order to avoid accusations that that protests are simply a way to bring coalition down, etc.
During protests there is a bunch of people who make speeches, including current opposition leaders, ex supreme court judges, ex president, ex leaders/ministers from right parties, etc. Pretty much everybody fairly known in Israel.
I don’t follow Israeli politics very closely, but judging by the company kept when campaigning and raising money in America, “evil” doesn’t may not be a recently developed attribute.
This is a part of a much greater movement with multiple forces in play trying to turn Israel into an autocracy. (Israeli, from Liberal side).
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-20/ty-article/wh...
Note that abolishing the common law reasonableness standard isn't the only change Netanjahu had planned originally. He's been forced to backtrack a lot.
The original proposals intended to allow the government to override supreme court decisions generally (not just ones based on the reasonableness doctrine). I dont see how this wouldn't have eliminated all legal limits to government power in Israel.
In a sense there already aren't any limits: 50% of parliament is enough to change the basic laws.
Israeli parliament passes law to limit judicial power (nytimes.com) | 43 points | by asimpletune 11 hours ago | 60 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36847600
(as an antidote to the sadly expected downvoting you're getting)
Essentially parties that are part of current coalition tend to be regarded as "job factories" and supreme court interferes with it. So they are not happy.
Also they want to fire attorney general (also judicial advisor to government ) which manages criminal case against prime minister and in general tries to prevent unlawful laws from passing. Firing her given conflict of interest is currently "unreasonable"
And if we are talking about new justices. One of the next planned laws is the one that gives to government ability to pick justices of their choosing
There is no transition period. I agree that the clause is too subjective. But there is a lot of law resting on it, law regarding matters like corruption and the rights of minorities that are about to be swept away by this unilateral change. That's de-stabilising in a self-reinforcing way.
For one, with something resembling consensus.
> If the knesset passed a law saying that in 1 year the reasonability clause would be removed, would you be perfectly okay with that?
You'd look at the rulings the Court has made on the basis of reasonability that deserve codification.
What the Knesset is doing now is a constitutional overhaul. Unfortunately, Israel lacks a written constitution, so the mechanism for amendment is unclear. That said, if you consider this as a razor-thin majority making major constitutional changes, the instability and de-legitimisation that causes makes sense. (Constitutional systems require supermajorities for amendments for a reason.)
For him this is about destroying any oversight which might put him in jail. His "partners" from the extreme right want to use it to annex the occupied territories without giving citizenship to 3M Palestinians.
Speaking broadly, you can't have democracy without a balance of powers between the government and the judicial system. Therefore any emerging dictatorship must first limit the powers of the judicial system and/or undermine its independence by appointing their own corrupt puppets in place. When a clash happens between any government and its nation's courts, you can bet all horses that they're after taking absolute power.
Putin did it, Erdogan did it, Lukashenko did it, Orban did it, and at least in the EU other countries are working on it (Italy, Poland).