Israel is making headlines once again as the country comes to a halt over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned judicial overhaul that has prompted mass protests ranging from workers’ unions to more stunningly even reservists of the Israeli Defense Forces, forcing the government to put the brakes on the proposed reforms. While the situation had been simmering for weeks, the expulsion of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had called for the reforms to be halted, pushed the situation over the brink.
An Unwieldy Coalition
The crux of the matter is a planned pushed by Netanyahu’s coalition colleagues, belonging to the right and far-right ideologies, to overhaul the country’s judiciary. The planned changes would give the government overreaching powers in deciding the composition of judges, which critics say will compromise the judicial system in favor of the government. This also comes at a time when Netanyahu is facing corruption charges. “An independent judiciary does not mean an unbridled judiciary,” Netanyahu had said in an interview.
This crisis in Israel has many fronts to it, and the judiciary only happens to be the issue of the hour. Netanyahu’s return to power in November 2022 came on the back of an astounding fifth general election within four years in Israel, leaving behind a trail of both, political chaos within the system, and political fatigue within the population. This disarray in a challenging geopolitical geography gave Netanyahu another chance, but this time, he had only one option to get back into power, joining hands with the far-right.
Rise Of The Far-Right
Enter Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which has its roots in the outlawed Orthodox Jewish Kach party that operated from the early 1970s up until 1994 before it was banned and deemed as an illegal organization. Joining hands with Ben-Gvir gave Netanyahu the prime ministership of the country for a record sixth time, but also handed a significant chunk of power and mandate to the far-right only months after Arab Israeli factions were being deemed as the country’s political kingmakers, a narrative not acceptable in the conservative power corridors.
However, one of Netanyahu’s primary jobs quickly became pacifying his new coalition partners who took up important positions in the new government. Netanyahu is a political eternal, always lurking in the shadows looking for a chance to return to power, especially when deemed a spent force. In his previous stint, he managed to push through the Abraham Accords, a historic deal normalizing diplomatic relations between a group of Arab states led by the United Arab Emirates. The thirst for power is such, that Netanyahu even put his legacy on the line by giving Ben-Gvir the national security minister portfolio, which by association rattled the Accords as per some reports.
Netanyahu’s Limited Options
Today, the scene is different. Netanyahu’s immediate crisis is not Iran, or the terror threat posed by Hamas, but domestic policy and politics. Foreign policy or national security is not available as an alternate distraction this time. The mobilization against judicial reforms in Israel has been an amalgamation of discontent of not just the question of an independent judiciary, but an ideological push back against giving powers to the ultra-right-wing which has drawn criticism not only from key security partners such as the United States and members of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, but even from within Israel’s own powerful security establishment. Netanyahu in a televised speech said that Israel could not defend itself without an army, and that rejecting military service in itself was a big crime.
It was arguably the pushback from the security establishment that forced both Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir, who was threatening to pull support, to delay the reforms. A larger political and security crisis would have left Israel vulnerable to external forces. Political stability in Israel is the anchor behind the stability of its national security, and Netanyahu had to oblige to this via an almost unheard of and shocking situation where parts of the security and police establishment were prepared to disobey orders in apparent acts of insubordination in a state whose military establishment is famous globally for more than often going beyond the call of duty.
Whether or not Netanyahu went a step too far for his own good to keep his seat of power together is a question that will play out over the next few days. For now, the Israeli prime minister stands on a weak footing in front of almost all political classes of the country, including the far-right, which carried him back into the political limelight when most had written him off.
Kabir Taneja is Fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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