Anyone who watched the Knesset plenum vote on Thursday would have experienced a sense of déjà vu, recalling a Monday in July 2023, when the bill to cancel the reasonableness standard passed 64-0 in the same hall.
This was before the war – as unimaginable as that seems today – but after the judicial reform legislation goals were already introduced by the government as a primary goal, led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman. Public backlash swelled.
What was marked already at the beginning as the heart of the legislation is what passed in the Knesset on Thursday: a bill that dramatically amends the committee responsible for electing judges by increasing political involvement in judicial appointments.
In other words, none of the public’s concerns, of the social divide that the judicial reform sowed in Israeli society, or of any of our current threats – 59 hostages still in Gaza, the war, the rising cost of living, and a lack of a diplomatic resolution for the day after. Not only are these not priorities, but when they compete for attention with judicial reform, they lose.
Refusing to learn from the mistakes of past
Instead of using the October 7 massacre to instigate a true process of reevaluation, of looking inward into what went wrong and what needs amending on the inside, our leaders simply dug their heels in the sand they were standing in.
This is all while serving the voter base of the one particular party they represent – as opposed to understanding that the October 7 massacre bound us all together and thrust us into a leadership crisis. So far, no one has been able to raise their head above the sand enough to see what the nation’s real needs are. The few who have done so have been silenced.
One poignant example is the haredi draft exemption. Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) has taken the issue of equal conscription – which has been the legal requirement since June, when the previous draft law expired in the Knesset – deeply to heart. But so far, there is no movement to lessen the burden. There are several other parliamentarians who remain stalwart to their values, but they are few and far between.
This coalition prioritized the legislation despite all of the backlash and all of the ripple effects it already had and will continue to have. As many hostage families, bereaved families, and their supporters pointed out on Thursday and over this past week, if we’re going back to October 6, 2023, can we get our loved ones back, too?
This legislation, as well as other actions by individuals and groups, split our society to concerning degrees. This is all during an unfinished war and a yet unfulfilled duty to return 59 people, mostly civilians, who are being held hostage by a terrorist organization in an area that Israel shares a border with.
Regarding judicial reform, there are issues with the judicial system that are clear as day, and these issues require discussions and resolutions.
But the objection to the reform legislation was always more about the method than the content: that it was pushed too fast, too aggressively, led by figures who were too divisive and didn’t represent, or talk to, the entire nation.
Problems lie with the opposition figures as well, who struggle for cohesion and have not brought forward a significant contra to the coalition. Opposition leader Yair Lapid this week said if the government were to refuse to follow a High Court of Justice order as it is obligated to do, “it would transform, in that very moment, into a criminal government. If we can organize a tax revolt, we will.”
But the coalition is the group that pushed the judicial reform legislation forward, which divided the country. Hatred from across the political spectrum has not stopped.
This behavior is unbecoming of worthy public leaders; we deserve better and can demand as such. This is probably the most sensitive spot that Israeli society has ever been in, and the leaders in this coalition and opposition continue to pander only to their base.
This is a lesson that should have been learned from the October 7 massacre – but it wasn’t.
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