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For 12 weeks Israelis have taken to the streets to protest what their government is calling "judicial review," but the people refer to as "judicial revolution." Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have participated in the protests, including former prime ministers and military leaders, business executives, artists and academics. By percentage of population, it's as if 45 to 50 million Americans came out in protest of the government's actions.
And the efforts have not been limited to marching and shouting. Israeli high-tech companies, the engine of the famed "startup nation" have been withdrawing funds from Israel's economy, fearful of the plummeting value of the shekel. Meanwhile, reserve soldiers from elite army units, pilots, navy seals, intelligence, and more, have announced that they will not serve what they see as an illegitimate regime.
This week saw an escalation as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, popularly known as the "Crime Minister" in honor of his being under indictment for breach of trust, bribery, and fraud, fired his Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. He did so after Gallant, a member of Netanyahu's own Likud party, publicly criticized the judicial revolution and called for Netanyahu to slow down the process. The firing of Gallant was met with instant outrage and led to hundreds of thousands of citizens spontaneously taking to the streets in the middle of the night. This is not because Gallant is beloved by the protesters (he is not) but because it was a clear sign that Netanyahu was willing to sacrifice anything, including Israel's security, to get what he wants.
But why? Even if his plan is now on pause, why is Netanyahu going down this path? Why has he given so much power and influence to ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich? These are two men who are so extreme that, as recently as last year, even the right wing considered them outside of the realm of respectable politics.
To answer this question requires peeling back the layers of meaning behind the assault on Israel's judiciary. Based on legislation already introduced, and the platforms of Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and other members of the government, we know that there are numerous proposals that they hope to enact that require the elimination or disempowerment of the Supreme Court.
These include imposing strict gender segregation on public transportation and in public places, and the outlawing of Pride Parades and the legalization of anti-LGBTQ discrimination on "religious grounds." These, and similar issues, have repeatedly been blocked by the courts.
And while these issues are extremely important, they are not the reason for this all-out assault on Israel's judiciary. At the core of this judicial coup is one and only one issue—Israel's 56-year-long occupation of the West Bank. Netanyahu and his extreme ultra-nationalist coalition partners are pursuing this initiative to perpetuate and deepen the occupation, and to finally achieve their long-held goal of annexation. They know that the Supreme Court is the only body that has sufficient power—and possibly the inclination—to block the implementation of their Greater Israel ideology.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have loudly and publicly called for annexation, for expulsion of the Palestinian population (a war crime), and for extending what they oh-so-casually refer to as "Jewish sovereignty" to the entirety of the land between the river and the sea. They are not subtle. They will tell you that they believe "there is no such thing as the Palestinian people." They will tell you that their goal is to put a permanent end to the idea of a two-state solution. Their plan, their platforms, call for extending Israeli sovereignty but without extending citizenship or voting rights to the Palestinians over whom they would rule. That of course has a name in international law, apartheid.
And they know that, to succeed in this plan, they need to end Israel's system of checks and balances, destroying the Supreme Court.
And as we've seen over the last 12 weeks, Netanyahu, for whoever he may have been and whatever he may have stood for in the past, is unwilling and unable to stop them. Instead, he has tarnished whatever credibility he may have once possessed in a sad effort to avoid his own legal struggles and retain power, even at the cost of fracturing Israeli society, as well as Israel's relationship with its most important partner, the United States.
As Israelis stand up and fight for their democracy, and Americans stand in solidarity, I urge all of us to remember that there can be no democracy with occupation.
Hadar Susskind is the president and CEO of Americans for Peace Now.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
