The Josh Hammer Report

Josh Hammer

Newsweek Opinion Editor And Host,
"The Josh Hammer Show"

Welcome back! Let's dive right into the week that was.

This week, my column looked at the debate now roiling Israel's politics pertaining to the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government's proposed judicial reform package. I wrote in favor of the judicial reform, which has two main (and allegedly "controversial") planks: (1) implement an "override clause," whereby the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) can "override" an Israeli Supreme Court decision by a certain threshold vote; and (2) alter the way in which new Supreme Court justices are selected to put more decision-making power in the hands of elected political officials and away from the sitting justices. I argued that Israel's current political system amounts to juristocracy and judicial supremacy, wherein the Court can overturn laws and even veto cabinet-level governmental appointments on such flimsy grounds as "extreme unreasonableness" or being "too political." This is utterly anathema to a system of parliamentary supremacy, which is the British model off of which Israel's system is purportedly based, let alone America's "We the People"-based conception of popular sovereignty. Prime Minister Netanyahu seemed to enjoy my column: He promoted it this past weekend on his personal Twitter and Instagram accounts.

On this week's podcast, I was joined by Mark Davis, a veteran Dallas/Fort Worth-based radio host and columnist (including Newsweek Opinion). Mark and I discussed the state of American conservatism in terms of both the substance of what conservatism stands for and the ability of its messengers/ambassadors to successfully sell it to an increasingly secular (and sometimes, it seems, left-leaning) America. We also discussed the influences of former President Trump's more populist-infused stances on various issues such as trade and immigration, and then broke down different current events and trends, from President Joe Biden's still-unfolding classified document retention scandal to the horror that is modern gender ideology. You can listen on Apple, Spotify or here.

In terms of media appearances over the past week, I joined Rob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax to discuss the Biden classified document retention scandal, and I also joined Mike Slater on The First TV to break down all the ways in which Biden's first term has been nothing other than disastrous. I also appeared on the Steak for Breakfast podcast, which is always one of my favorites, and (as usual) co-hosted the Edmund Burke Foundation's most recent episode of the NatCon Squad podcast.

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Spotlight

AMIR COHEN/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Israel's Judicial Reform 'Controversy' Is Much Ado About Nothing

Like a dog returning to its own vomit, the supercilious elites of our so-called international community maintain a rather curious fixation. Like clockwork, these elites always find a way of singling out for opprobrium one tiny nation-state, no bigger than New Jersey. That state, of course, is the Jewish state, the modern State of Israel. There is simply no other country on Earth that attracts such disproportionate, and often vehement, disparagement from our would-be moral superiors.

The current hullabaloo, merely the most recent manifestation of this inveterate Jew-bashing addiction, takes the form of the debate over the new Benjamin Netanyahu-led Israeli government's proposed judicial reform package. Tens of thousands of activists have taken to Israel's streets to protest the proposal, and newspaper editorial boards from Washington, D.C. to Brussels have condemned the reforms in no uncertain terms. If one were to believe the critics, the government's judicial reform, if successfully implemented, would make Israel more "authoritarian," undermine the country's "liberal democracy," result in "democratic backsliding," or—egad!—make Israel resemble Viktor Orban's Hungary.

As Proverbs 26:11 teaches: "As a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool repeat his folly." There is no substantive basis whatsoever for these performative shrieks of hysteria. The Netanyahu-led government's judicial reform package is just and proper, as a matter of both political theory and comparative constitutional law. Ironically, moreover, despite the reflexive condemnations of those purportedly concerned about the health of Israel's vibrant democracy, the judicial reform package would substantially bolster Israel's actual democracy by diminishing its juristocracy.

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