Update from Israel
New Week Brings New Protests and Summer Break for the Knesset
I’ve just gotten off of a briefing for the leadership of the world-wide MERCAZ leadership. MERCAZ is the political arm of the movement for Masorti/Conservative Judaism. 150 people joined the call from all over the world. We heard a presentation from Asaf Zarif (image below), former Israeli Consul General in New York and former MK for the Blue and White party in the previous two Israeli governments.
The meeting was moderated by Yizhar Hess, who is the vice-chair of the World Zionist Organization and a past president of the Masorti Olami. Asaf Zarif resigned as Consul General in New York the day after PM Netanyahu tried to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the spring. He stated that he could no longer represent the state, after a minister of defense was fired for speaking about his concerns about consequences for Israel’s security arising from the actions of its own government.
He made a couple of interesting points. The first is that the measure passed by the Knesset last week is something that he opposes, but it’s something that is in the government’s power to do. The banning of the Reasonableness doctrine on its own is not a fatal blow to Israeli democracy or to the restraining power of the courts in his view. I thought this was an important point in light of some of the comments, proclaiming the death of Israeli democracy, by some pundits the morning after the law passed.
He said the protest movement would continue because nobody in the opposition believes that the government will stop. They will continue with other parts of the legal overhaul, which taken together will remove the effective check which the courts provide on the misuse of power by the majority which can threaten the rights of others.
He also indicated that in his view, the Israeli high court would not strike down the reasonableness law, because it does not by itself fundamentally change the nature of Israeli society and is therefore within the rightful purview of the legislature, which the courts should respect.
Asked if there is a possibility of a unity government, he said that this is unlikely because of what happened when Benny Gantz made a deal with Netanyahu. This deal was supposed to lead to a rotation in the leadership, but Netanyahu did not keep to the agreement. Therefore the opposition could not trust Netanyahu to keep his promises if such a government were to be formed. This is an obstacle to the formation of an alternative government.
Benny Gantz is now the alternative to Netanyahu and polls indicate that he would be the Prime Minister if new elections were held today. As a result we can expect the current government to cling to power as long as it can. This means that Netanyahu will remain a hostage to the extremists whose support is required to keep his government alive. These extremists are found in the right wing parties allied to Likud as well as within the Likud party itself.
Netanyahu himself is saying that he will take the summer to build a broader consensus on further measures and today he is trying to change the subject, announcing a new high speed rail project that will connect the country from north to south.
Meanwhile life goes on in Israel. The usual Saturday night protests attracted 200,000 people and went off peacefully. We in Canada still have the work of confronting the barrage of lying propaganda that is constantly appearing in the Canadian media and in the comments sections of every pro-Israel post on social media.
Whatever Israel’s internal struggles, the bizarre idea that Israel is the world’s number one human rights problem continues to be propagated and needs to be answered. The valedictorian of this year’s CUNY law school graduating class this week defended her comments to that effect. In her article, she stated that “supporting the Palestinians” (by which she means defaming Israel) is a litmus test for anyone who supports social justice anywhere.
On Facebook, I found myself debating with someone who said that the rockets from Gaza are “just fireworks” and ignored my response describing the many people killed by those fireworks. We all have a role to play in responding to lying propaganda whenever we come across it. By pushing back we can help to prevent the normalization of a hateful narrative of Israeli Apartheid and unprovoked malice.
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