Haggai Matar & Gideon Levy: Israel's Fight over Judicial Changes Ignores Occupation & Apartheid

[Uncle Joe]

We speak with two Israeli journalists in Tel Aviv after lawmakers in Israel passed a highly contested bill Monday weakening the power of the Supreme Court by preventing it from blocking government decisions it deems unreasonable. The bill is part of a broader set of judicial reforms pushed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has sparked months of unprecedented protests, which continued last night. Journalist Haggai Matar says that while the Supreme Court "is not an ally to Palestinians," its rare rulings in favor of Palestinians are a driving factor in the right wing's overhaul, as well as decisions meant to curb public corruption. Palestinian leaders have criticized both Netanyahu's government for pushing the judicial reform, as well as the massive protest movement for not speaking up for Palestinian rights as Israel continues its deadly crackdown in the West Bank. It's time for the U.S. to show Israel there are consequences for apartheid and anti-democratic legislation, says Gideon Levy, columnist for Haaretz. "What kind of democracy can exist in an apartheid state?" he asks.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. What isn't being said out loud:

Israel is transforming from a democracy to a theocracy.

[Beastly Boy]

2. Here's the chance for the Palsetinians to speak up on their own behalf.

Of course, the Palestinians on the occupied territories have far less freedom to speak, and virtually no freedom to protest, and the Israelis of Palestinian discent are already protesting, but raising the issue of occupation in the context of a larger protest against judicial reform is an opportunity for the Palestinian people, not just their corrupt leadership, to be heard loud and clear. Sure takes emphasis off the right-wing narrative of sporadic cases of terrorism on the part of hateful fanatics being typical for the Palestinian people .

And of course, the left-wing expectations of addressing the dictionary definition of apartheid in the context of Israelis fight against judicial reform is as unrealistic as addressing the proper translation of "tooth fairy" into Afrikaans in the same context.

[Israeli]

3. They are both correct

Read :

Israel’s justice minister gives away the real aim of the judicial coup’s first law

In a Knesset speech, Yariv Levin listed five gov't decisions that were blocked for being ‘unreasonable.’ All were about Palestinians and the occupation.

However, Levin’s own speech ahead of the vote in the Knesset plenum on Monday told a rather different story — one that centers around entrenching Israel’s control over the Palestinians and eliminating resistance to it.

Halfway through his speech explaining the reasoning behind the bill, Levin presented his fellow lawmakers with five examples in which the High Court invoked the reasonableness standard to intervene in government decisions, asking: “Do you really want these judges to have the power to determine what is reasonable and what is the right thing to do, rather than [those entrusted by] the public?” Yet rather than expanding the concept of democracy, every one of the examples he gave concerned Palestinians or Israeli anti-occupation activists, thus starkly revealing the real driving force behind the government’s agenda.

Source : https://www.972mag.com/judicial-coup-reasonableness-yariv-levin/