Anyone reading or watching most of the coverage of anti-government demonstrations in Israel in recent months could be forgiven for assuming the vast majority of Israelis were united in resisting a move towards some kind of dictatorship.
Even the Biden administration in Washington has contributed to this impression by its criticisms of the Israeli government. The reality, however, is rather different.
To begin with, those demonstrating are supporters of the parties that lost the last election in Israel. For many years Israeli politics has been subject to an almost equal division in the electorate and it is not surprising the side that lost on the last occasion is fiercely opposed to the policies of the existing government.
As to the particular policy that has provoked the constant demonstrations, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has now approved a proposal that would affect the current role of the country’s Supreme Court by removing some of its power over decisions made by the government.
How, it might be asked, could a proposal to transfer power from unelected judges to elected ministers be labelled anti-democratic and emblematic of a dictatorship? Unlike Australia and the US, Israel does not have a written constitution, so its Supreme Court cannot strike down laws passed by the Knesset on the basis that they are unconstitutional in the way Australia’s High Court or the US Supreme Court can, and regularly does.
Read the article by Michael Sexton in The Australian.