opinion
A ‘Resistance’ Coup Just Defeated
Israeli Democracy
Jonathan Tobin
A fter months of increasingly strident mass
protests against his government’s plans to
reform Israel’s out-of-control and highly parti-
san judicial system, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
appears to have given in to the pressure.

He said he was going to be “delaying judicial reform
to give real dialogue a chance.” But it’s highly doubt-
ful that this will merely be a timeout that will help his
supporters regroup and enable opponents to calm
down and accept a compromise on the issue.

On the contrary, Netanyahu is waving the white flag
on judicial reform — and everyone knows it. And since
the ultimate goal of the protests was not just preventing
legislation from being passed but to topple the govern-
ment, it’s far from clear whether the prime minister can
long stay in power after this humiliation since his allies
are shaken and his opponents won’t be satisfied until
he’s ejected from office.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen. But the
consequences of the events of the last months go far
beyond the future of the Israeli legal system.

Netanyahu’s announcement is leading to celebra-
tions on the Israeli left as well as among their foreign
supporters, especially in the Biden administration and
liberal Jewish groups. And they have good reason to
celebrate. The anti-Bibi resistance was able to sell the
world a false narrative about their efforts being nothing
more than a successful effort to defend democracy
against the efforts of would-be authoritarians who
wanted to create a fascist theocratic state.

But the notion that an uprising of the “people” has
stopped a “coup” by Netanyahu and his allies is pure
projection. What the world has just witnessed was itself
a soft coup. Fueled by contempt for the nationalist and
religious voters whose ballots gave Netanyahu’s coali-
tion a clear Knesset majority in November and imputing
to them their desire for crushing political opponents,
the cultural left has shown that it has an effective veto
over the results of a democratic election.

In exercising that veto, they have given Israel’s
enemies, who don’t care how much power the courts
have or who the prime minister of the Jewish state is,
ammunition that will make their international campaign
to isolate their country more effective.

More importantly, they’ve broken rules and set
precedents that will impact future Israeli governments
no matter who is leading them. They’ve shown that
not even an election can be allowed to break the
left’s stranglehold on effective power via a system of
16 MARCH 30, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
courts and legal advisers that have effectively made
Israel a juristocracy rather than a country ruled by the
representatives of the people. That sends a dangerous
message to the people whose votes determined the
outcome of the election — that their views don’t matter.

The opposition didn’t play by the rules
Netanyahu and his fellow coalition members made a lot
of mistakes in the last few months. The prime minister
was inhibited by an outrageous ruling from the attor-
ney general that effectively silenced him on the most
important issue facing his country.

He had been criticized for trying to force fundamen-
tal change to the justice system via a narrow partisan
majority without a consensus. But those who say this
are hypocrites. A left-wing Israeli government forced the
disastrous Oslo Accords with an even narrower major-
ity. Democrats like President Joe Biden, who make the
same claim, also seem to forget that the Obama admin-
istration he served did the same thing with health care.

Given the way his opponents have been willing to go
to any length to defame or delegitimize him and even
to drag him into court on trumped-up flimsy charges of
corruption, Netanyahu underestimating his opponents
is hard to fathom. Having broken a three-year-long
political stalemate by gaining 64 seats in the Knesset
to form the first clear majority since he won in 2015, the
prime minister somehow thought his foes would play
by the rules and let him govern.

He failed to understand that his opponents were
prepared to set the country on fire, destabilize its
economy and even weaken its national defense to throw
him out. The notion that restraining the power of the
court — something that opposition leader Yair Lapid
used to support before he realized that latching on to the
resistance would give him a chance to erase his defeat
last year — was the point of the protests was always false.

The same could be said of the claim that preventing the
courts from selectively exercising unaccountable power
without any basis in law was the end of democracy.

With the chaos in the streets, the prime minister
already had his back to the wall. But the widespread
refusal of many reservists, especially among those
with skilled positions such as pilots, to refuse to report
for reserve duty threatened the country’s national
security. Along with general strikes that forced closures
at airports and shutdowns of medical services, that
proved to be the last straw and led already shaky
members of the coalition to lose heart.

The coalition was slow to mobilize its voters, who,
after all, did outnumber the opposition in the recent
election. The government’s supporters were forced
to watch impotently as their leaders faltered, feuded
among themselves and failed to act decisively to fight
the battle for public opinion.

Going forward in the face of a resistance that was
ready to trash even the most sacred of Israeli civic
traditions involving national defense to gain a political
victory became impossible. And with his party losing
discipline, and the U.S. government and many leading
institutions of American Jewish life similarly backing
the opposition, Netanyahu had no choice but to try and
prevent any further damage.

Implications for the future
Will that happen every time the right wins an election
from now on? Probably. That means not only will the
juristocracy defend its power, but its supporters are
permanently committed to thwarting the will of voters
who may continue to outnumber them in the future.

And how will a theoretical government of the left
react if large numbers of right-wing opponents try to
play the same game? If the debates over the disastrous
Oslo Accords and the 2005 Gaza withdrawal are any
gauge of their behavior, they will crack down on their
opponents in ways that Netanyahu hesitated to do this
year with widespread jailing of dissidents.

While the left threatened violence against their
opponents and even civil war if they didn’t get their
way about judicial reform, who really believes they will
hesitate to initiate one if they are in power and the right
rises up in the streets the way we’ve just witnessed?
What’s more, Netanyahu’s opponents have (whether
they realize it or not) also legitimized arguments aimed
at denying that Israel is a democracy. While his foes
think that this will only apply to times when the right
wins elections, they may come to realize that to the
antisemites who assail the Jewish state in international
forums and in American politics where the intersec-
tional left is increasingly influential, that will also apply
to governments led by parties not named Likud.

Ultimately, Israel’s citizens — whether through
democratic elections or mob actions that break govern-
ments and Knesset majorities — will determine their
fate. And those who look on from abroad must accept
the outcome of these struggles.

Yet far from defending Israel from authoritarian
forces, the protesters have established a precedent
that will haunt future governments of all kinds and
shake the foundation of its democracy. Whether that
damage can be undone remains an open question. ■
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish
News Syndicate).




opinion
How Once-cautious Benjamin Netanyahu
Came to Lead Israel’s Most Radical Coalition
Ofer Kenig
T wenty-seven years have passed since
Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected as
Israel’s prime minister. Since 1996, he has
headed six governments over more than 15 years,
more than any other prime minister. Unfortunately, his
current coalition is one of the most radical-populist
governments in Israel’s history. This government
seeks to rapidly undermine Israel’s democracy by
granting unlimited political power to the executive
branch of government at the expense of the judiciary.

How can Netanyahu — a U.S.-educated and
respected world leader who was cautious in his
approach to building previous coalitions, and was
once respectful of Israeli democratic institutions —
support such a dangerous plan? Was the “writing on
the wall” earlier on in his lengthy tenure?
A glimpse into Netanyahu’s years in office reveals
that, indeed, signs of his being a populist leader —
specializing in attacks against the so-called elite —
could be detected long ago. As Likud leader in 1993,
Netanyahu was blamed for ignoring the incitement
by extremists that preceded the assassination of
Yitzhak Rabin (a charge he vociferously denies). As
early as 1997, during his first term as prime minister,
he said that “the left has forgotten what it means to be
Jewish.” Two years later, during an election campaign,
he mocked the “leftist” press by saying “they are
scared” (by the possibility of a right-wing victory). On
Election Day in 2015, he posted a video urging Likud
supporters to go out and vote by warning, “the Arabs
are heading in droves to the polls.” That message led
to accusations that the candidate was using racial dog
whistles to motivate his followers.

However, Netanyahu’s populist discourse and his
natural divide-and-conquer leadership style were
balanced out, at least until 2015, by several factors.

First, Netanyahu always sought to include centrist
and even left-of-center parties in his coalition
governments. Even when he could build a “pure”
right-wing coalition (following the 2009 elections,
for example), he preferred to invite partners from the
opposing political side. His intention, he once said,
was to provide a “wide and stable government that
unites the people.”
Second, despite his hawkish image and his
hardline discourse on security issues, Netanyahu was
considered to be an exceedingly cautious leader in
that arena. Risk-averse, he tended to avoid involving
Israel in major wars and was wary of acting in
ways that would spark violence between Israelis and
Palestinians. Third, over his many years in office, he had
demonstrated respect for the rules of the game —
and towards Israel’s Supreme Court. He even blocked
earlier initiatives that sought to undermine the power
of the judicial branch. “I believe that in a democracy,
a strong and independent Court is what enables the
existence of all other democratic institutions,” he said
in 2012. “Every time a law comes across my desk that
threatens to impair the independence of the courts,
we will take it down.”
The 2015 elections should probably be regarded
as the turning point, after which these balancing
factors quickly gave way to unabashed populism.

The unexpected resounding victory in that year’s
elections brought out the hubris in Netanyahu. He
formed a right-wing coalition government (only slightly
moderated by Moshe Kahlon’s centrist Kulanu party),
personally held four ministerial positions in addition
to the prime ministership, and gave his blessing to the
hugely controversial Nation-State Bill. This legislation,
which anchored in law Israel’s status as the “national
home of the Jewish people,” strengthened the Jewish
component of Israel’s dual “Jewish and democratic”
identity without in turn strengthening its democratic
component — explicitly and implicitly downgrading
minority rights.

Furthermore, Netanyahu’s longtime obsession with
controlling press coverage reached a new level.

His insistence on personally heading the Ministry
of Communications and his excessive involvement
in media — for example, installing a close ally as
director-general of the ministry, and targeting and
strong-arming ostensibly “unfriendly” newspapers
and broadcasters — served as the background for
two of the three indictments for which he is currently
on trial.

The investigations on corruption charges, and his
subsequent trial, further pushed Netanyahu toward
populist extremes. Following three rounds of elections
between 2019 and 2020, which threw Israel into an
unprecedented political crisis, Netanyahu was forced
to form a unity government with former Gen. Benny
Gantz’s centrist Blue & White party. Coincidentally,
just a few hours after the government’s first meeting,
Netanyahu’s trial began in the Jerusalem District
Court. The prime minister arrived at the court on May
24, 2020, accompanied by several Likud Knesset
members, and launched a fierce attack:
“What is on trial today is an effort to frustrate the will
of the people — the attempt to bring down me and
the right-wing camp. For more than a decade, the left
has failed to do this at the ballot box. So over the last
few years, they have discovered a new method: some
segments of the police and the prosecution have
joined forces with the leftist media … to manufacture
baseless and absurd charges against me.”
These statements made it clear that Netanyahu had
crossed the Rubicon, setting the tone for his behavior
ever since. He dispensed with the partnership with
Gantz, sacrificing Israel’s economic and political
interests along with it. In the build-up to the next
elections, he legitimized extremist, racist politicians
such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are
today members of his governing coalition. After failing
to form a government in 2021 (having been ousted
from power after more than 12 consecutive years), he
violated fundamental parliamentary conventions and
norms. For instance, he instructed his right-wing allies
to boycott Knesset committees and refused to attend
the customary “update meeting” the parliamentary
opposition leader holds with the prime minister.

His previous respect for the rules of the game and
democratic institutions was a thing of the past.

In that sense, it is no wonder that the current
government he has formed, following his victory in the
2022 elections, is relentlessly pushing the overhaul
of the judicial system, with little regard to the dangers
the legislation poses to Israel’s democracy. This is
due to a combination of Netanyahu’s self-interest
regarding his trial and the interests and worldviews of
his political partners — politicians who hold extreme
views (Ben-Gvir, Smotrich) as well as those who have
previous corruption charges hanging over their heads
(Aryeh Deri, leader of the haredi Orthodox Shas
party). The “old Bibi” would have never coalesced with
such radical forces and would have never so bluntly
disregarded democratic norms. But hubris, an instinct
for self-preservation and his high self-regard as the
“indispensable man” of Israeli politics created a new
Bibi – and a crisis unlike anything Israel has ever seen.

Ironically, Netanyahu finds himself in an unexpected
position — as the moderating force in the most radical
coalition in Israel’s history. He could tap the instincts
that he once had and be the voice of reason, the one
who plugs the dike with his finger. He has the chance
to lead Israel to a major constitutional moment. Will he
rise to this historical challenge? ■
Ofer Kenig is a research fellow at the Israel
Democracy Institute and an associate professor at
the Ashkelon Academic College.

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