Avi Mayer
Unpacking the Recent Political Developments in Israel
Avi Mayer - Unpacking the Recent Political Developments in Israel
- Hi Avi, hi Carly. Good evening everyone, and welcome back. We’ve got a very special presentation this evening. Avi, thank you very much for joining us. Tonight, Avi and Carly will be unpacking the recent political events and developments in Israel. For those of you who don’t know Avi, I’m just going to give you a brief introduction. Avi Mayer is the chief editor, sorry, the Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post, the most read English language newspaper in Israel and the leading news outlet in the Jewish world. He previously had leadership roles in some of the world’s leading Jewish organisations including the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel. With a Twitter following of over 140,000 and a monthly audience in the millions, Avi is considered one of the most prominent millennial voices in Israel and the Jewish world. In 2013, he was named by The Algemeiner as one of the Jewish Top 100 positively influencing Jewish life, along with the then US President Barack Obama, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, and other leading figures. Born in New York and raised in Jerusalem in Maryland, Avi served in the Israeli Defence Force as a spokesperson to the international media. He lives in Jerusalem and really, it’s such a privilege to have you back with us. Thank you very, very much. I’m going to hand over to you.
Thank you very much, Wendy. So Avi, this is a real pleasure for me, and whenever Wendy asks me to do Lockdown on a topical issue, I’m in a privileged position ‘cause I get to pick who I’d like to talk to and have an hour to hear their impression. So thank you very much for joining us. We’ve obviously got a huge amount to cover in the hour and a lot of complexity to unpack. But I want to try and start, I guess, at the beginning as it was. So there’s a lot of different answers to this question, but where do you think the protest movement is today and what do you think has got us here?
First of all, thank you. Thank you Carly, thank you Wendy, and thank you to everyone who joined this conversation. Thank you for spending a little bit of your day exploring the issues that are currently vexing Israeli society. We got here after quite a lengthy process over the past half year or more in which the government has been trying to promote a reform of Israel’s judiciary. The sense on the part of many members of Israel’s governments is that the judiciary is unduly powerful, that it has arrogated to itself certain authority that it does not have under law and that the time has come to reign it in. And so immediately upon the government’s formation at the end of the last year, the Prime Minister and the Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced that they would be proceeding with a comprehensive reform of the judicial system. And that is what we have seen taking place over the past few months, preparations for the passage of different pieces of legislation that altogether would constitute a significant overhaul of the judicial system in Israel. That has provoked a rather fierce response on the part of those who are concerned about the freedom and independence of the judiciary in Israel, who believe that this will unduly weaken the judiciary and will thus have a negative effect on individual rights, minority rights, civil rights more broadly in Israel. And so we have now seen 30 weeks of street protests every Saturday night and at other times as well that have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. This is crescendoed at several points right before Passover. The Defence Minister Yoav Gallant expressed the view that the legislative process should be paused during Passover to allow for a negotiated compromise to take place. The Prime Minister immediately followed him and that provoked a wave of spontaneous protests that flooded the streets of Israel, a mass closure of businesses, a strike.
The airport was shut down for a moment, and that essentially forced the Prime Minister to recant. He agreed to pause legislation for a certain period of time to allow for negotiations to take place under the auspices of Israel’s President Isaac Herzog. He reinstated Defence Minister Gallant about a week later. And things were relatively calm until recent weeks where it became very clear that the government was going to push forward the legislation once again. And particularly, one clause, which it in fact did passed last week regarding the standard of reasonableness or reasonability that is utilised by the Supreme Court to strike down certain executive decisions, this was viewed, and is in fact the first part of the legislative process to bring about this judicial reform. It is, by the way, a relatively minor part of the reform. There are much more significant parts coming down the pike if indeed we get there. And that, of course, did provoke a tremendous groundswell of protests, hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets of Israel, which of course culminated last week in the day of the vote itself. The legislation did pass by majority of 64 versus zero it opposed. The entire opposition walked out in protest of the vote. They knew that they weren’t going to win and they didn’t want to be present in the room when it happened. And so now we find ourselves in a bit of a tense calm. The Knesset is recessing this week until after the Jewish holiday is in the fall. The Prime Minister has said that he will allow for negotiations to take place during this time in the hopes of reaching a consensus. There are those who question his sincerity in actually wanting a consensus and wanting to reach a negotiated compromise. But that is the period that we’re currently in. And many observers, myself included, are hopeful that this will indeed be an opportunity for the coalition and the opposition to come together and try to come to some negotiated agreement.
Thank you, and you know, obviously there’s the concerns around the legislation that you’ve just touched on, but there’s also broader concerns in Israel in general around what’s kind of being described as the future of liberal democracy, of the rights of minorities. Can you just touch a little on why people may be concerned outside of just the specific legislation we might be seeing?
So as I said, the reform is a package of legislation. The piece that was advanced that was actually adopted last week was only one small part of what we could see coming down the pike. More significant pieces of legislation have to do with essentially reformatting the Judicial selection committee, which is the body that selects all of Israel’s judges from Supreme Court on down. Significantly shifting the makeup of that committee could indeed have far reaching implications for who are the judges in Israel, what their perspectives are, what their ideologies are, and therefore what judgments they put down. So that could, of course, be very significant in a variety of ways, as you said, with regard to individual rights, minority rights, civil rights in Israel. Another significant element of legislation that has been spoken about that could indeed be advanced after the recess is concluded if there is no compromise reach beforehand is what’s called an override clause, which basically give the Knesset the ability to strike down any court ruling by a slim majority of one. 61 members of Knesset would suffice to strike down or essentially override a judicial decision, which would basically render the Supreme Court powerless in many respects. And so there are tremendous concerns about that as well. Even some of the most avid proponents of judicial reform have said that that goes too far. They’ve said that a slim majority of one is simply unreasonable and have advocated for expanding that. If you’re going to have an override clause, it should at least require a vote of 70 or 75 members of Knesset, which would require at least some degree of consensus 'cause it’s unlikely for any coalition to get that number of seats in the Knesset. They would have to work with the opposition, which would allow for a more integrated process. But that’s what people are concerned about. They’re concerned about far reaching changes to the judiciary that will have significant implications for Israel’s democracy going forward.
And you know, if we look back on the last 30 weeks of protests, there’s been been lots of clear headlines about what the disagreement is over. But this problem didn’t start 30 weeks ago. You know, arguably we’ve been on a slippery slope in Israel for a while now. What do you think were the kind of key moments over the last few years that’s got us to this point?
Well, look, I think one of the things about this entire conversation is that while it has indeed centred on the judicial reform and on the legislative process and the way the legislative process has been advanced, which is viewed by many as unduly aggressive, there are many other issues that have risen to the surface, that have bubbled the surface, that I think had been latent for many years but had been sort of wrapped up with this debate. So some of the most avid proponents of the legislation are members of Israel’s right wing, including those who identified with the plight of the Israeli residents of settlements in the West Bank Group hold from their homes during the disengagement from Gaza and who felt at the time that the courts were insufficiently supportive of their rights, that they didn’t stand up for their ability to hold onto their homes in the face of the government’s desire to pull them out. And now that they’re in power, they feel that they are essentially sticking it to the courts by weakening its authority. They’re members of various groups in Israel who are not a part of what is regarded as the secular Ashkenazi Elite, quote, unquote, who they believe dominates the courts. If you look at the makeup of the court, they’re largely made up of secular Ashkenazi Israeli Jews. And those who do not fit into those categories feel that they have gotten short shrift over the years. They have been underrepresented in the courts, that the courts have not been sufficiently supportive of their rights and of their arguments and of their claims. And so, again, now that they are in power or that their representatives are in power, they feel that it’s an opportunity to rebalance the court and make it more representative of what they view as the real Israel. So what we see is a lot of issues that had been sort of latent within Israeli society, a lot of grievances that had not been perhaps properly addressed over the years now bubbling to the surface of being lumped in this very legalistic question of what should the balance of powers be in Israel, making it a much broader conversation about the makeup of Israeli society, the nature of Israeli democracy, and the representativeness of it all.
And the general atmosphere in Israel, particularly in the last few weeks around what has become acceptable rhetoric and conversation, most people will have seen the clip from Channel 14 on the weekend where one of the commentators is suggesting that the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin be released to audience applause. A member of the Likud party talking about that 6 million Ashkenazi Jews was not enough, these kind of sentiments appearing in Israeli society, obviously this has been building but particularly notable in the last few months. How do you view the kind of civil discourse in Israel at the moment?
Look, I think that the rhetoric has gotten quite extreme and very dangerous. You gave two examples. There are many others in which either side has demonised the other, has labelled one side or the other undemocratic, anarchists, traitors, people who what not what’s best reasonable, what’s worst for Israel, that has been, I think, a significant escalation in rhetoric in this country. And we’re used to very fiery debates, and that is certainly not something that is new to us, but I think that the way that this has been pushed through has been so aggressive in the perception of many that any breaks that had been put on rhetoric, any restrictions that had been put on what is acceptable speech have essentially flown out the door. And this has happened on both sides. And I think it ultimately, it serves only to obfuscate what the real issues are. This is a serious debate about the balance of powers in Israel. By the way, leaders of the opposition in Israel, including Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid have in the past expressed support for reforming Israel’s judiciary and rebalancing the balance of powers between the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. But the feeling is that the way it’s been advanced, which has been aggressive, which has been accelerated in many ways, has been one that has basically generated such antagonism that it’s made it virtually impossible to reach any kind of a consensus up until this point.
And you know, let’s continue that. Many people will tell you that there is reform needed, not least because there isn’t a constitution for Israel to rely on. You can probably thank the British for that. But in terms of perhaps potential reform or kind of considerable alternatives on the table, what are some of the suggestions you’ve heard that you think could at this stage be agreed on by the opposition and the government?
Look, honestly, it comes down to a matter of degree. There is general agreement that the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee is less than ideal. It includes justices of Supreme Court, which is unusual. There aren’t many places in the world where judges get to choose their own replacements. That is viewed as something that needs to change. Includes members of the Israel Bar Association who are there as quote, unquote, representatives of the public. And they’re those who ask why necessarily them, why couldn’t there be others who are representative of the public and a part of that process. And so it’s really a matter of what the balance is between coalition and opposition members, where the power lies. Prime Minister did say last week in the immediate aftermath of the vote on the reasonableness clause that any outcome that has either the coalition or the opposition in full control of the Judicial Selection Committee would be unacceptable suggesting that he would be open to some kind of a compromise that would enable some kind of power sharing and reasonable representation of both the coalition and the opposition. That is one area in which compromise might be possible. The possibility of an override clause that I said earlier is one that is of tremendous concern to many people that the Knesset would be able to so easily overturn court decisions. But if you adjusted that from a majority of 61 to say a majority of 75 or 90, that may be something on which there could be room for compromise. So again, the principle of judicial reform is not really what’s at the centre of this debate. It’s a question of how extreme that reform is, and the degree to which the overall balance of power and the ability for different parts of government to have checks and balances on one another is maintained. I think that is ultimately what will be at the core of any negotiated process and hopefully at the end, a negotiated solution.
Now, obviously, one of the queries that comes up is whether or not there is really an opportunity for the opposition and the government to agree. You know, there are now figures inside the government that some in the opposition feel they cannot sit alongside or they cannot be in the same room as. Do you see that there is potential, you know, even just between the opposition and the government to engage?
Yeah, I think that there are many reasonable figures on both sides of this debate who are actually quite interested in reaching a negotiated compromise. They look at the events of the past few weeks and months and they are horrified at what has happened with the tenor of this debate and the way the country has been torn apart from within. There have been several members of the Likud who just in recent days, including senior ministers by the way, who’ve said that they will not agree to any continuation of the process, but for through compromise and through a consensus. And there are members of the opposition who have essentially said the same, that we have to reach a compromise. At least rhetorically, by the way, the prime minister and the leaders of the opposition have also said that, have also expressed a desire for there to be a negotiated compromise. And each side has sent, for the most part, reasonable members, reasonable representative to the negotiations that have been taking place under the auspices of President Herzog. I imagine that that will continue. There are many reasonable people in government who are genuinely interested in reaching compromise and generally interested in achieving consensus. I think those are the people who are most likely to be the representatives of either side to a negotiated process, and hopefully that will indeed bear fruit.
We’ve got the summer months to think about how an alternative solution could be reached. The Supreme Court has said that it will not review the reasonableness clause until the Knesset sits again. What happens if the Supreme Court views that the reasonableness clause is in fact unreasonable? What does that look like next?
Well, so the court announced today that it will sit and review certain petitions that had been presented to it in the immediate aftermath of the vote, essentially arguing that the reasonableness law, the law limiting the reasonableness clause that was passed last week was unconstitutional or that was in fact unlawful. It said that it will convene in a month and a half in a full compliment of 15 justices, which is rather unusual just because of the gravity of the situation that it would do so in a way that reflect that, that it is viewed as so serious. But we don’t know what would happen. If indeed it renders it unlawful or says that the law is unconstitutional, that would present a quote, unquote, constitutional crisis. As you noted, Israel doesn’t have a written constitution, but it would create a crisis between the different branches of government who would be very clearly at loggerheads with one another. In recent days, journalists have asked the Prime Minister and the Justice Minister Yariv Levin what would happen if that were to come to pass. And they’ve given sort of mealy mouth answers about acting in accordance with the law. Now, one could say, or they could argue we just created the law. So we’re acting in accordance with what we just legislated. We don’t know what would happen. I’m hopeful that we won’t reach that point. I think it would be quite dangerous for the state of Israel, for the court and the legislature to be so clearly and openly in opposition to one another. We don’t know what decision would be upheld. You know, would the police have to uphold a court decision when the police is actually controlled by members of the government? We don’t know exactly what would happen. And there are many legal scholars who are pouring over this exact question, but with the hopes that we will not get there and that we’ll actually haven’t compromise, reach at some point in the next few months.
So if we look at the situation more broadly, for the last, I guess 10, 15 years in Israel, there’s often been this debate around Jewish and Democratic and how those two ideals line up. In the week that has followed since the unreasonableness bill, there has been other bills put on the table. The one that grabbed the headlines was around equating Torah study to serving in the IDF. From the debates you’ve seen, how much of this do you think is this Jewish and Democratic kind of clash now starting to demonstrate across the Knesset?
Look, I don’t think that the two are in conflict. I think the state can be robustly democratic and powerfully Jewish, as I believe it generally is. But there are those who are unhappy with the current that that balance is it is currently struck. And so there are voices who believe that Israel is insufficiently democratic and there are others who believe that it’s insufficiently Jewish. And so the legislation that you just alluded to, which is presented by one of the religious parties as part of the coalition, trying to equate Torah study to military service as a means of granting Yeshiva students exemptions from military service is one expression of that. But there are others as well. And I think what’s important to note about this debate is that there are people who fall into either camp and are parts of either side of this debate. And so if you look at the protests that are taking place in the streets of Jerusalem every Saturday night, they include a pretty broad cross section of Israel’s and of Jerusalem’s population, which includes secular and religious Jews, Jews and non-Jews, including members of the National-Religious Community, which is generally aligned with Israel’s right. And the same is true in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Consequently, you can also see people on the other side of the debate who are representative of Israel’s population and its general makeup. You see secular and religious people who are avid supporters of the legislation who believe that this is a proper recalibration of the balance of powers in Israel. And so I wouldn’t say that it falls along the traditional fault lines of Jewish versus Democratic, but I do think that there are certain members of the government and quite frankly, of the opposition, who are utilising that kind of rhetoric in order to inflame tensions and create more of an us versus them dynamic, which ultimately, I think, is unhelpful to those of us who do believe in the need to reach a negotiated consensus.
And you touched during that on the IDF and service. And Israel’s relied on what’s often referred to as a People’s Army. You know, reservists are a fundamental part of the security establishment. In addition to everything else that’s been going on on the streets in Israel, there has also been concerns on Israel’s borders, whether it’s Hezbollah, whether it’s on the border with Syria. Even today, Hezbollah has been continuing to show its teeth. How concerned are you about the IDF reservists not showing up to train and the kind of fractures that that may put on on Israeli society?
So the defence minister was asked that exact question today in a session with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. And he said that the IDF’s readiness remains robust, that Israel is prepared to handle any challenge that goes its way. At the same time, he expressed concern that the impact of this debate may have on the cohesion of the IDF on the sense of mission and the sense of unity that is engendered by IDF, as you said, as the People’s Army. There have, of course, been waves of reservists in recent weeks who’ve said they will refuse to serve or will refuse to volunteer for voluntary reserve duty should this legislation come to pass. There are many who say that this is a powerful statement, but ultimately if push came to shove and Israel were indeed in mortal danger that they would go to their fighter jets or their tanks or whatever it might be and fight for Israel’s survival, we, of course, hope that we won’t get there. I do think that this is a significant escalation, unlike that which we’ve seen in the past where this was sort of viewed as something that was beyond the pale. The notion that IDF reservists would refuse to serve because of a domestic political issue was something that we really had not seen before. And the fact that we have gotten to that point just illustrates the seriousness with which so many people view this debate and the threat that they perceive their being to Israeli democracy. So again, hopefully we won’t get to that point. According to our defence establishment, we’re not there at this point, but I fear that if this conversation becomes even more fraught and if the debate becomes, or arises anew after the recess, should there not be a consensus or a compromised reach that we could head in that direction.
And when you are covering this in the Jerusalem Post, when your journalists are reporting back to you, what are they seeing on the streets each week? I’ve been at three protests only in Tel Aviv. You know, it’s often a predominantly Tel Avivian type crowd. I understand that Jerusalem or elsewhere may feel different. What do you actually see in the streets in terms of those who are protesting?
Look, I think as I said earlier, the groups that are protesting tend to be fairly diverse. They tend to represent a cross section of Israeli society with the exception of certain groups that don’t generally protest on these sorts of issues and have been largely absent from these protests. So I would include in those the Haredi community, the Arab community has largely been absent from these protests for whatever reasons, but many of the other segments of Israeli society have indeed been represented on both sides of this debate. One thing though that I think is notable is that we, at the Jerusalem Post, our office is in central Jerusalem, and we, from our windows, have a pretty panoramic view of the areas in which many of these protests have been taking place. And watching the waves of protestors going through the streets in recent weeks, I have to say it’s been very difficult to be able to tell which side is which. They look kind of alike and they’re all waving Israeli flags and they’re all out there fighting for what they believe to be their vision of a better Israel and a better future for the country. And I have to say I find that rather encouraging. This is not an easy debate. It’s a very painful debate and it has been extremely fraught, and I think there are many outside of Israel who view Israel as though it’s been torn apart from within. But the fact that you have hundreds of thousands of people who every week are flooding the streets of this country and fighting for their vision of a better, more complete, more equitable Israel is, I think, a tremendous source of pride. Its democracy at its best. And we don’t know how this is going to end up. We hope that it’s going to have some kind of a consensus that emerges from this, that ultimately the rhetoric and the anger and the passions of recent months will subside. But I look at the events of the past few months and I emerged with a tremendous sense of pride at what I’m seeing in the streets of this country and the passion that I’ve seen aroused in people that I really haven’t seen at any point in the past. If we had heard arguments that, you know, residents of Tel Aviv want nothing more than to take out second passports and move to Berlin, here we see them coming into the streets every Saturday night and fighting for the future of this country. And that, to me, is tremendously inspiring.
So as someone who travels quite a lot back and forth between the US and Israel, one of the things that has grabbed headlines in the last two weeks is that the US president has been particularly outspoken on his opinions. He hasn’t yet, depending on exactly how you read the coverage, invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House, and obviously, he has briefed Tom Friedman and others very directly on his opinion. How is that being received in Israel?
Well, the US-Israel relationship, the alliance between the two countries is viewed as a core Israeli strategic interest. And anything that undermines that relationship is viewed as endangering Israel. And so there are many observers who’ve looked at what they perceived as a strained relationship between the president and the prime minister, the non-invitation to the White House, which again, depending on how you interpret the comments of recent days, may indeed becoming to pass. They see these things as deeply troubling. And quite frankly, to the prime minister who has prided himself on understanding America and sounding American and speaking American ease, this, I think, poses a significant threat to his ability to portray himself as a statesman, as someone who can manoeuvre in diplomatic circles, who can drive the international community to, for example, combat the threat of a nuclear Iran. This is a problem for him. And so that’s why I think you’ve seen him in recent days and weeks trying to underplay any kind of disagreement that he might have with the president, touting this conversation that he had with the president last week in which there was some talk of a meeting taking place by the end of the year. I think that is important for him. It’s important for the state of Israel for there to be a strong relationship between the two. But the notion that that could somehow be undermined by this process that the United States could somehow question its support for Israel, as some observers have been suggesting mostly in the States, is something that I think should be of tremendous concern to many Israelis. I don’t think we’re there yet. I think more responsible members of both the administration and Congress have said that we see a democratic process taking place in Israel and we are hopeful that it will end in a positive way. That is the official line of both the White House and the State Department have put out. It’s also the line that many Democratic and Republican members of Congress have been utilising, which I think ultimately is helpful. Let the situation play out as it does. We certainly hope that Israel will emerge the strong and robust democracy that it has always been. But I think that behind the scenes, there may be dynamics at play that should give us all pause and should cause us to think about what the implications might be of moving forward too aggressively with this legislation.
So one of the debates following on from that that has cropped up again in the last two weeks, ironically this time in a Jewish publication initially is around the US support for Israeli defence and the amount of funding that Israel gets a year. It’s not a new debate. It surfaces every couple of years, but in the last two weeks with particular further. How do you reflect on that and do you think that’s just a reaction to what’s going on or is perhaps this time, there are more substance to that debate?
Well, as you said, this is a debate that crops up every few years. It does feel different this time in that, as you said, it has been coming out of a Jewish publication, which has spawned other sort of counter, not counter, but accompanying articles and other publications that have voiced support for the notion of a rollback of US military support for Israel. It’s important to note that several of those articles are actually coming from a pro-Israel perspective, that they view the US military support for Israel as being harmful to the relationship. It’s creating an unhealthy sense of dependence by Israel on the United States, that for there to be a more equitable and a healthier relationship between the two, that that support should be scaled back and Israel should basically stand on its own two feet and provide for its own defence as a wealthy developed country that is capable of doing that. The counter argument has been that this is a relationship that works, that ultimately this is an investment that the United States makes in Israel that read downs tremendously for the United States. That the United States benefits a great deal from the defence aid. It gives Israel the US defence industries benefit because they are the direct beneficiaries of almost all of those funds, at this point, all of those funds. And that it is a tangible representation of the US’ steadfast support and commitment to Israel’s survival and defence. And so scaling it back would be viewed as a scaling back of that support and of that commitment. So it has been, I think, a very interesting debate. We’ve wade into it to some degree on the pages of Jerusalem Post. Some of our writers have explored this debate from a journalistic perspective. I think it’s a healthy debate. I don’t think it’s bad to talk about these things. I don’t think that there are any sacred cows in that respect. But I think that for the most part, those who wield power in both sides of the Atlantic and leaders of both Democratic and Republican set factions in Congress believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it is likely that we will see that aid continue for the foreseeable future.
So you touched before on the role of Netanyahu often positioning himself as a statesman, as one who could conduct himself on the international stage, and that perhaps in the last few months that has taken a beating. The photos, the day of the vote itself, you know, him head in hands fresh from the hospital. And a pacemaker didn’t position him as a man of strength, which really has been how his previous prime ministerships have positioned him. How much of a change have you seen in his role in how people view him and in his ability to powerfully operate at the moment?
Well, to be perfectly frank, I think that in his heart of hearts, whether he says this or not, I think he views this entire thing as an unnecessary and quite unwelcome distraction. He was not the driving force behind this legislative process. That was the Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who’s a very influential member of his party, as well as Simcha Rothman, who’s a member of Knesset and Likud and heads the committee that’s been overseeing the legislative process. It has not been the prime minister. Now, of course, he has been talking about how it is a needed process, a necessary process. He said that in an interview that my colleague, Lahav Harkov, and I did with him just a few weeks ago. But ultimately, this was not, and is not quite frankly, the policy agenda that he had hoped to advance during this term. There are two main things that he wants to achieve during his premiership. The first is preventing the spectre of a nuclear Iran from coming to pass and the second is achieving normalisation with Saudi Arabia. Those are his two main policy priorities. And at the moment, he’s seeing both those things be hindered by this contentious domestic debate that is sucking all the oxygen out of any sort of public debate that he could have on the other issues. And so I think that this is something that he would like to resolve sooner rather than later. I think he feels that he’s being handcuffed by members of his coalition who are very enthusiastic supporters of this legislation and who have threatened to either withdraw from the coalition or not to support him should he agree to any kind of meaningful compromise. I don’t know, by the way, whether they will follow through with those threats. I don’t know what alternative coalition they imagine would be more amenable to their demands than the current one. So I’m not sure. I would take those thoughts with a significant dose of salt. But I think ultimately that those are his concerns, domestic political concerns, his own political survival versus the actual policy agenda that he wants to be advancing, which is being hindered by his current, the current makeup of his coalition.
And in terms of Netanyahu’s personal legal situation that has obviously been rumbling on for some years now and will continue to rumble on, what role do you see that, if any, is playing in his current approach?
Look, I think it’s natural that someone who’s embroiled in several legal cases would have that at the back of his mind regardless of what he was doing at the time. I think that those who argue that he is embarking on this dramatic refashioning of the balance of powers in Israel, he’s doing that simply in order to address his own particular legal concerns. I think that’s a particularly cynical view that I don’t share. There are other avenues that are available to him to avoid going to prison, which I think is a concern that people have voiced on his behalf. There are various plea bargains that have been proposed at various times. There are other ways that he can address his legal concerns that don’t involve tearing down the judicial system as has been proposed by some of his political allies. So I wouldn’t say that it’s not a factor at all. I don’t think it’s the deciding factor in why this legislation has been advanced as it has. I think that’s largely been a result of the powerfully ideological views that are held by its most avid proponents, which again are Yariv Levin, Simcha Rothman, and many of their close allies who wield significant power within both the governments and Likud and who could pose a threat to the prime minister should they want to do so. And I think that’s ultimately the primary reason that he’s been pushing for this legislation simply for political considerations. Internally, he does probably agree with them to some degree that there needs to be a refashioning of that balance of powers. By the way, the leaders of the opposition have also expressed that view that there needs to be some kind of reform that takes place in Israel. It’s just really a matter of degree or extent. But I don’t think that his personal political woes are what are motivating him at this time.
In terms of the sentiment on the street in the last week, a lot of the opinion polling I’m seeing suggests that actually even those who may have been in support of the changes up until now are really decrying the way that the changes have happened and that the continuing of the process as we are is dropped into the kind of low twenties positive sentiment feeling and over 60% of the population feel that the current process is a problem and needs to be reformed. What are you seeing at the Jerusalem Post in terms of the polling that you are looking at?
Yeah, I think that’s right. I think the segment of the population that is fully in favour of a full court press not changing an iota of the legislation, making sure it goes through in the most powerful way possible is fairly small and quite frankly, shrinking. I think you have a growing segment of the population that believes that this needs to be done, if it’s going to be done at all through consensus, including by the way members of Likud who, in recent days, have been raising their voices and saying that they will not support a legislative process that is not done via consensus. And so several senior ministers and influential members of the Likud Party in the Knesset have said that that is what they will insist on, that they will not support a continuation of the legislative process as it has been up until this point. Whether they follow through with that, whether they really do hold the prime minister to account remains to be seen. There were hopes that certain members of Knesset, including those that we’re currently talking about, would vote against legislation last week that did not pan out. All 64 members of the coalition voted in favour, including those who have been critical of the process as it’s been pursued. And there are those who suggested that they have been holding their firepower for a more consequential moment, which may be coming down the pike when some more significant piece of legislation do come to the Knesset floor. But I think the hope is that we don’t even get to that point that the voices calling for consensus and compromise will be sufficiently powerful as to compel both sides to come to the president’s residence in Jerusalem and not leave until they come out with a consensus of some kind.
Over the last 10 to 15 years or so, the left in Israel has struggled to find its feet. You know, if you look at the last few elections and the constantly shrinking labour party and other parties who formed on that side of the aisle, how much do you see as the sentiments in the street representing an awakening of the Israeli centre or center-left? And do you see that as a change as and when there is a new election?
It’s an interesting question. You know, the public opinion polls that have been conducted in recent months have shown that the center-left parties are gaining ground. And several of them have shown that if an election were to take place today, that Benny Gantz and his National Unity Party would actually gain the most seats in the Knesset, largely the expense of Likud. And so we may be seeing some shift in political realities in Israel. It’s unclear whether that is momentary or something that will be sustained in the long term. It has been interesting to note though that there’s been a very careful effort to leave sort of traditional, quote, unquote, left positions out of the debate. So initially, there were instances in which people were coming to these rallies and waving Palestinian flags. That was very quickly denounced by some of the leaders of the protest movement as being unnecessarily divisive. And you haven’t seen that since. The reason being that they want to create as much of a, as you said, centre, moderate feel to the protests, one to which even Likud members could potentially relate, members of the traditional right could potentially find themselves there because they’re concerned about the future of Israeli democracy and Israeli liberalism. And so there’s been a pretty clear effort to make this as broad a movement as possible, whether that’s something that will then be translatable into the polls remains to be seen. It’s perhaps not a surprise that Benny Gantz who has positioned himself as a moderate, as a centrist, who has not stake the sort of hard line left-wing positions that other leaders of the opposition have in the past is benefiting most directly from this public sentiment. Again, it remains to be seen what’ll happen when it comes to polling day.
Now, there are some of those from the left of days gone by who have come out very forcefully speaking at the protests or going on international news to talk about what they view as, you know, a real threat to the future of Israel, whether that’s Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak and some of the language and the rhetoric that has been used has been considered by someone in support of the legislation as, you know, almost a calling for a kind of civil action. How has that commentary been viewed in Israel by former leadership?
I mean, look, the two individuals you remember, you mentioned two former prime ministers have been very vocal on this. Ehud Olmert, of course, is no friend of the prime ministers, has made his views very well known. Ehud Barak, the same. Ehud Olmert said the other day that we are in fact at the beginning of an Israeli civil war, which is quite extreme rhetoric. And even if there are others who say that we might get to that point or that we’re heading in that direction, very few have said that we’re actually there. I don’t know how seriously that rhetoric is taken by the Israeli public. I think many of them, many members of the public see that these are people who have longstanding grievances against the prime minister who have no fans of his or of his policy positions. And I think they see them in that vein. So I don’t know how many minds are being changed by the fact that two of the prime minister’s most passionate opponents are opposing him once again. I think it’s much more significant, for example, that Reuven Rivlin, the former president of Israel, who is himself a member of the Likud Party, has spoken very powerfully against this legislation in a rally last week. The fact that you have notable rabbis from within the National Religious Community, which is traditionally aligned with the right who have spoken out against this legislative process, I think that is likely to have much more of an effect on broad Israeli support for compromise and broad Israeli opposition to the legislative process as it’s been pursued up until this point, then the voices of those are going to be dead set against the prime minister again regardless of pretty much anything he does.
So one of the groups in Israeli society that we haven’t touched on but are playing a powerful role within the coalition and behind the scenes is the Haredi community. In the last few rallies that I attended a few weeks ago, there did seem to be anger-building towards elements of the Haredi community. For the first few weeks of the protest, that didn’t feel to be the case, but whether it’s some of the laws that have been put forwards now that that is building, how are you seeing the relations between the secular parts of Israeli society and the Haredi? And do you see the Haredi politicians hearing any of those challenges?
Look, there have been some fairly ugly moments during the 30 weeks of protests in which I think the Haredi community has been demonised, has been blamed for all of Israel’s woes. You saw some of the protests provocatively marching through the streets of Bnei Brak for no apparent reason other than to show their presence and their defiance of what they regard as already hegemony or whatever. That, I think, is deeply unhelpful and ultimately does not steer us in a positive direction. That said, there are arguments to be made that there needs to be a more equitable distribution of the military burden in Israel. That the fact that the Haredi parties now wield significant power and the government should not grant them the licence to push forward legislation that would create a state of inequality or would enshrine an inequality between Haredi and non-Haredi young people into law. That there needs to be more participation on the part of Haredi Israelis in the workforce, that they need to be acquiring certain basic elements of a secular education. These are legitimate policy perspectives and these are the policy propositions that have been put forward by members of the opposition. In the face of, as you said, legislative action that’s been undertaken on the behalf of the Haredi parties to advance certain things that would limit their incentives to join the workforce that would in fact enshrine large scale exemptions from military service in law, that, by the way, has provoked a backlash not only from the non-Haredi public, but even within the Haredi public. Where just last week, the Shah’s party spoke out against the legislation that was being promoted to equate military service and Torah study saying that it ultimately harms the cause of Torah study and that that’s not the way to go about it. And this is a party that of course does support at least some form of exemption for Haredi young people from military service. And so there’s no monolith here. Even the community itself is diverse and there are many conflicting views within it. One hopes that if what we’re seeing now is a broad Israeli conversation about all the issues that have been plaguing Israeli society for decades, this is one of them that perhaps could be resolved in a positive way should we see a movement towards consensus and dialogue in the months ahead.
And then the other subsection of Israeli society that has generally kept its head down during the last 30 weeks has been the Arab communities of Israel. Mansour Abbas is one of the more visible figures, was spotted at the odd protest on the side in the early weeks. But since then, there’s been not much from the Arab community. Has there been any assessment by yourself or the Jerusalem Post on the Arab community’s sentiments and how they maybe reacting from their concerns around civil rights and the minority rights they may have?
I mean, look, for the moment, the Haredi, sorry, the Arab parties are part of the opposition as opposed to under the Israeli, the former government where one Arab party was in fact a part of the governing coalition, currently there are no Arab parties that are in the coalition. They’re all in the opposition and they all joined the opposition and walking out on the vote last week and they weren’t even present in the room at the time. And I think that that’s their sort of way of expressing their support for that side of the debate. But you’re right, they have been largely muted on the events of recent months. One can ask why that is. One can also wonder whether that is a calculated decision in order to prevent certain members, certain proponents of legislation from pointing to the community and saying, “Ah, this is actually an effort by those who don’t want the best for the state of Israel to undermine the true will of the people.” So it’s possible that there’s actually been a calculated effort to stay in sort of the back of this debate and not be at the forefront of the fight. But I think it is certainly true that there are members of the Arab community, just as there’re members of other minority communities, the LGBT community and others as well, who have expressed significant concern about what might happen to their individual and collective rights should this legislation be pushed forward that would essentially give the legislature a veto over pretty much anything that happens in Israel. And if you look at the makeup of the current coalition or coalitions that are likely to be formed in the future that are fashioned in its image, that raises significant concerns for what the status of non-Jews in Israel might be, what the status of non-orthodox Jews in Israel might be, what the status might be of members of the LGBT community who have fought for rights for so many years that may be rolled back should certain members of the coalition have their way. And so I think it’s not unique to the Arab community. I think the Arab community does share many of the same concerns that others Israelis share at the time. But you are right in saying that they have been rather muted for whatever reasons over the past few months.
So I’m not going to ask you to consult a crystal ball, but you have shared that you feel actually somewhat positive about the outpouring of expression of democratic rights over the last few months. What do you see is the potential road ahead or maybe even some of the low-hanging fruit that could show us a compromise is on the horizon?
Look, I think ultimately, I speak to folks on all sides of this debate, including some of the most senior leaders of these political parties. And I don’t think anyone seriously believes that the legislation as it had originally been proposed is what the legislation will eventually look like if and when it’s passed. I think everyone acknowledges that there will have to be some sort of compromise. Whether that is a consequence of the mass protests, whether they never really intended for it to go forward in the way that had been proposed and that was all just a negotiating tactic, that’s really anyone’s guess. But if I were a betting man, and I’m not, I would say that we are going to see some form of a compromise in the future. Whether that is a softening of the current legislation and its passage with the current majority, whether that is a negotiated compromise that will take place under the auspices of Israel’s president, whether some other eventuality comes to pass, I can’t say, but I don’t think it is likely that we will see the full range of legislative measures that had originally been proposed, including a very slim override clause, including a total reshaping of the judicial selection committee and so on and so forth. I don’t think we’re likely to see that in the way that it had been proposed. I think we are likely to see some changes, which again, the opposition agrees are necessary. But I don’t think they’re going to look like what had been proposed. And I am hopeful that whatever does come about will be as a result of compromise and negotiation and not strong arming on one hand or the other.
So we’ve got a lot of Jews from the diaspora on who, over the last few weeks, few months, have been watching the situation in Israel with much concern and consternation, and the last week particularly, certainly has filled the pages of the newspapers with whether you take Olmert’s line of, are we at the beginning of Civil War or you dial down the rhetoric. You can’t help but be concerned, especially actually since the first few months of protests were peaceful and then there was some very difficult images in the 24 hours after the vote. So to the diaspora community that’s listening tonight, what would you say to them as a way to support Israel coming through this and coming through this in the best way possible for the country?
So I would say one thing before I answer your question, which is that I think it’s important for educated and informed consumers of news and supporters of Israel to realise that a lot of the rhetoric that they’re hearing on the part of Israeli political leaders is meant for domestic consumption. So when you hear people say that, if this or that piece of legislation is advanced, it’s the end of Israeli democracy, or on the other hand, that Israel was never a real democracy to begin with because legislation hadn’t been advanced up until this point, I would take that with a grain of salt. Because ultimately, they’re mostly talking to domestic audiences, to potential voters, to those they believe they can be drawing into this or that camp because they view this as a politically sensitive or advantageous moment. So I would take all of that rhetoric with a dose of salt. I don’t think that we are likely to see the end of Israeli democracy if it is passed. I don’t think we’re likely to see the end of the democracy if it’s not passed. I think that we may be challenged in a variety of ways, but that does not necessarily lead to the dismantlement of Israel’s democracy or the end of its system of government. I would say that we can look at the events of the past few months as a source of inspiration and quite frankly behold it with awe. If we look at the number of Israelis who are becoming engaged in the future, of shaping the future of their country in ways that they hadn’t previously, if we look at the number of people flooding the streets of Israel waving Israeli flag, if we look at the broad nationwide conversation that’s now taking place on a whole host of issues that we probably should have been talking about all along but never really had the impetus to do so, I think we can emerge quite hopeful that regardless of what happens with this legislation, regardless of whether it comes through a negotiated compromise or a softening of the legislation for whatever internal reasons that what we see is the beginning of a pan-Israeli conversation that hopefully will form a constitutional moment, a moment to refashion the social contract between the different parts of Israeli society. And ultimately, this is something that is healthy for Israel and something that we can draw inspiration from as an expression of Israeli democracy at its best. So I would encourage you to remain informed to make sure that you are hearing perspectives of everyone on the different sides of this debate. You can find many of those perspectives right at the Jerusalem Post at jpost.com. We certainly welcome all of you to do so. Make sure that you are speaking about this from position of information, that you are understanding the real pain that’s coming from both sides of this, and there is real pain. It’s not invented. People are genuinely concerned, genuinely feeling that they could be disenfranchised or that their rights could be impinged upon on one side or the other. That’s important to hear. And don’t close off your minds. Make sure that you’re hearing those perspectives, that they’re informing the way you talk about this. And the last thing I would say is when you’re approached by people who may not be following this issue as closely as you, who may not know as much about Israel as you do, I think it’s important to say that, yes, this is a contentious debate that is taking place at a sensitive moment in Israeli history, but it’s not the only thing that’s taking place in Israel. I walk through the streets of the city, there are tourists all over the place, the economy remains robust, the system of government is still functioning, the sky has not fallen. Israel is a multifaceted, rich tapestry of a democracy. And that is something that we should all be proud of and something we should be talking about every single day.
Avi, thank you very much and thank you for helping inform our audience. We’ve had a lot of people very active on the questions, and I would also recommend that you follow Avi on X, formerly known as Twitter, whatever we’re supposed to call it now, where he is often first for news that’s relevant for the diaspora and Israel for an English speaking audience. So Avi, thank you very much for joining us and we’ll see you all again soon.
Thank you all very much. Have a wonderful evening.