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Reply to Occasional Reader in 3: I don't know the details of the controversy, but I've heard for years that Israel's supreme court is a) extremely Leftist, and b) self-perpetuating, in that it chooses its own successors rather than the judges being chosen by the Knesset. There have been efforts for years---unsuccessful---to re-structure this, as the court has spent a great deal of time thwarting the efforts of the more-conservative governments that Israel has intermittently elected. According to the New York Sun, from which I get a sometimes-readable-without-paywall feed, the Biden administration is attempting to foment/underwrite a "color revolution" against the Netanyahu government to thwart his efforts to change this and, if possible, unseat him. It is my understanding that Biden recently announced that he would not meet with Netanyahu or receive him at the White House (so much for Netanyahu's effort to make nice with Biden by congratulating him on his election early on). The following Sun editorial, which I was able to copy from the email feed, might possibly shed some light on the situation: The most shocking thing about the crisis in Israel is the role of President Biden and his allies in the derailment of the court reform that Prime Minister Netanyahu just postponed. All like to boast of Israel being the Middle East’s only real democracy. No sooner does it finally give a full term to Mr. Netanyahu — partly for his promise to reform Israel’s high court — than Mr. Biden objects because he despises Mr. Netanyahu politically. Not, just to mark the point, because Mr. Biden opposes the court reform. No one would accept in America a judiciary or attorney general with the powers usurped by those institutions in Israel. The Jewish state’s high court has accrued a veto on who is named to it. Imagine how Mr. Biden would react were we to give, say, Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas the power to pick the next Supreme Court justices. The conservative Knesset, as we’ve noted, wants to strip the attorney general and courts of the power to remove the Prime Minister. Yet neither America’s attorney general nor its courts have the power to remove the head of our government. No, the only way to do that, absent a medical crisis, is impeachment. If the attorney general could remove a president, the Democrats would come down with an epic case of the fantods. The New York Sun supports the reforms Mr. Netanyahu is pursuing in respect of the courts. If Mr. Biden doesn’t support them, the question is why not? And why, in any event, does Mr. Biden insist on interfering in Israel’s internal politics? Mr. Biden certainly gets upset when Mr. Netanyahu interferes in our politics. When the premier spoke in 2015 to a joint meeting of Congress, Mr. Biden actually boycotted it. As Israel’s internal debate spilled into the streets, Mr. Biden did the political equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire — declaring himself “deeply concerned” and siding with opponents of legislation designed to make Israel’s attorney general’s office and its judiciary more like America’s. That, in our view, is a matter to be decided by not American politicians and op-ed writers but by citizens of Israel. President Biden’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. On the one hand, he puts out a statement in the middle of this crisis “to strongly urge Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible.” This from the president who is refusing to compromise on, say, America’s legislated debt ceiling and who, having pledged a return to normalcy, has delivered the most bitterly divided electorate since the Civil War. Which brings us back to Mr. Netanyahu. The striking thing about his performance in this crisis is the very thing that may account for his being elected Prime Minister an astonishing six times. It is his ability to compromise. The only other such figure prepared to adjust his position seems to be the opposition’s Benny Gantz. Mr. Netanyahu cited him before the Knesset today. In this sense, Mr. Netanyahu reminds us of Churchill. It was Churchill who said this is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. What lies ahead is a test of whether those who are behind the anti-government protests — and the threats not to show up even for military obligations — are themselves prepared to compromise. That will be the true test of Israel’s democracy, which faces so many challenges. The last thing it needs is President Biden’s meddling.
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JCM
3/25/2023 7:33:57 PM
Kosh's Shadow
3/29/2023 4:38:22 PM