The Josh Hammer Report

Josh Hammer

Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large And Host,
"The Josh Hammer Show"

My most recent column analyzed the situation over in Israel, which yet again has been afflicted by raucous left-wing anarchists rioting on the highways, attempts to prevent lawmakers from entering the Knesset (Israel's parliament), and all other sorts of disreputable shenanigans. The purported reason for this widescale meltdown is—just like it was when the same thing transpired earlier this year—the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led government's advancement (successfully, this time around, as it turned out) of a measure to reform the Jewish state's out-of-control Supreme Court. But the Left's behavior in recent weeks, when the actual bill being advanced was a very narrow jurisdiction-stripping provision, compared with its identical behavior when a much broader judicial reform measure was (unsuccessfully) advanced earlier this year, gives away the game. None of this outrageous behavior is actually about separation-of-powers concerns or the finer details of constitutional theory. Instead, the behavior of the Israeli Left—and the global Left that passionately supports it—is explained by a deeply misguided personal revulsion of Netanyahu, on the one hand, and a deep-set cultural anxiety/concern about Israel becoming a much more religious and nationalist country, on the other hand.

My most recent podcast episode covered a range of topics. I condemned the American Right and Republican Party's recent descent into toxic and profoundly counterproductive victimhood/martyrdom mentality, analyzed the latest news this week pertaining to Biden family corruption (including the much-discussed closed-door testimony earlier this week of ex-Hunter Biden comrade Devon Archer), discussed the end of globalization and the resurgence of nationalism, began to dissect Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' new national economic recovery plan he unveiled Monday in New Hampshire, and concluded with our second rapid-fire "Hammertime" segment. (You can listen to that episode on Apple, Spotify, or here.)

In terms of other media hits and appearances since our last newsletter: I recorded a couple of CenterClip audio op-eds about how former President Donald Trump does not represent the GOP's best opportunity to recapture the White House next fall and about how DOJ special counsel Jack Smith's latest sham indictment reveals the Biden Regime clearly wants to face Trump next fall, joined "Jenna Ellis in the Morning" on American Family Radio to discuss Devon Archer's closed-door testimony earlier this week about Biden family venality and overseas corruption, joined "Always Right Radio with Bob Frantz" on 1420 WHK (Cleveland) to discuss the latest sham indictment against former President Trump, and (as always) co-hosted the Edmund Burke Foundation's weekly "NatCon Squad" podcast.

Our additional highlighted right-leaning Newsweek op-eds from the past two weeks include selections from former President Donald Trump, Max Eden and Jason Bedrick, David P. Goldman, Kevin Roberts, and Nicole Russell.

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What Israel's Protests Are Really About

Many Israelis have once again taken to mass protests in the streets, both in the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government's successful passing on Monday of one tiny sliver of the broader judicial reforms that it had previously floated earlier this year. But any sober analysis of the perhaps-unprecedented civil strife now afflicting the Jewish state leads to one conclusion: The vitriolic pushback has nothing to do with substantive separation-of-powers concerns or the particulars of constitutional theory, and everything to do with the Left's insatiable personal loathing of Prime Minister Netanyahu and its deep-set cultural anxiety over the more nationalist and religious direction Israel is now heading.

For the first four and a half decades after modern Israel's founding in 1948, the Jewish state operated according to the British model of governance: no written constitution, parliamentary supremacy, and a subordinate, common law-based judiciary. Israel lacks a written constitution to this day, but things began to change in the early 1990s, when former Supreme Court of Israel President Aharon Barak self-pronounced a so-called "constitutional revolution."

By snapping his fingers, Barak—absent any statutory basis for doing so—arrogated to the Supreme Court of Israel powers that no other judicial tribunal in the world possesses. Those powers include, among other things, the power to hear any issue—no matter how transparently political, and regardless of a plaintiff's legal "standing" to bring the suit—at any time, for any reason; the ability to overturn any law, policy, or even cabinet/ministerial appointment for effectively any reason, from judicial review grounded in Israel's 13 quasi-constitutional "Basic Laws" to judicial nullification based on an ultra-subjective finding of "unreasonableness"; and the nepotistic power to veto the justices' own successors, due to the idiosyncratic makeup of Israel's Judicial Selection Committee.

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