Israel’s decades-old claim of being the Middle East’s most robust democracy has always been circumscribed by its second-class treatment of citizens of Arab descent — and its inhumane conduct toward the
Palestinians. Now even this qualified assertion hangs by a thread as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proceeds with his ill-conceived plan to overhaul the nation’s judiciary.
On Monday, his right-wing coalition pushed through a law curbing the oversight powers of the courts, a measure that has split the country and prompted mass protests for months. With opposition lawmakers boycotting the vote, the bill passed with 64 votes to 0.
The measure will curtail the judiciary’s ability to overrule government decisions and appointments. The prime minister claims that judges have too much arbitrary authority. Critics of his proposed overhaul say the judiciary is the only check on the power of the government. Some contend that Netanyahu’s main objective is to prevent the courts from imprisoning him if he is found guilty on charges of bribery and fraud.
Netanyahu’s plan, popular with his right-wing base, has drawn strong and sustained condemnation from much of the Israeli establishment, including military reservists and business leaders. They fear that the enfeebling of the judiciary will compromise the rule of law and make the economy unattractive for investment. Reports of a possible compromise early Monday morning strengthened the shekel, but the currency fell sharply after the vote, making it one of the worst performers among a basket of major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
In Washington, the run-up to the vote brought much hand-wringing about the health of Israeli democracy. President Joe Biden twice sounded the White House alarm bells in less than a week. In a phone call with Netanyahu on July 17, he urged the prime minister to seek compromise with the opposition. In a statement to Axios on the eve of the vote, Biden again called on Netanyahu to desist. “Given the range of threats and challenges confronting Israel right now, it doesn’t make sense for Israeli leaders to rush this — the focus should be on pulling people together and finding
consensus,” he said.
It is rare for an American president to so openly involve himself in the internal affairs of a friendly state, never mind take a public position against the legislative agenda of its leader. His counsel scorned by the prime minister, the president will now feel compelled to respond.
It would be easy but entirely pointless for Biden to keep invoking democratic values in chiding Netanyahu. The Israeli leader has demonstrated an immunity to such finger-wagging. And in any case, Biden himself has a credibility problem on this score, having displayed leniency toward friendly foreign leaders who disdain those values — consider his lavish hospitality and gushing solicitude for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.
Nor can Biden realistically threaten punitive measures, such as withholding military assistance, as suggested by some in the Washington foreign-policy establishment. This would be bad politics, inviting broad, bipartisan disapproval in Congress, where unstinting support for Israel remains an article of faith to all but a small minority of Democratic lawmakers.
It would also be bad security strategy: American assistance to Israel has never been predicated on democratic values, but aimed initially to protect it from predatory neighbors, and latterly on protecting its neighborhood.
The Israeli military has become the most reliable line of defense against the ambitions of Iran, which is rapidly building up its armory of conventional and sophisticated weapons and is thought to be only weeks from amassing enough enriched uranium fuel for a nuclear bomb. Having just dispatched a detachment of Marines and additional warships to deal with the Iranian threat in the Persian Gulf, Biden will know that any weakening of the US-Israeli military alliance would strengthen the regime in Tehran.
The strength of the Israeli armed forces is vital to the protection of the entire Middle East and the shipping lanes of the Gulf. It is one of the main reasons the likes of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, their cities and oil installations within easy reach of Iranian missiles, signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. Biden’s foreign policy goal of getting more Arab states, and especially Saudi Arabia, to join the accords is predicated on a powerful Israel.
Besides, it’s not as if Israel is the only beneficiary of its defense relationship with the US. The Pentagon would be loath to lose access to cutting-edge Israeli military technology, especially in the theater of cyberwarfare.
But if holding back assistance is out of question, Biden should be able to use America’s manifest interest in maintaining Israeli military strength as the basis of an argument against Netanyahu’s legislative overreach. The decision by thousands of reservists to forswear voluntary duty in response to the judicial overhaul represents a danger to the security of Israel and the wider Middle East. General Herzl Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, has acknowledged that the cohesion of the country’s military has been endangered. This, more than weak shibboleths about democracy, should be the frame for Biden’s conversations with Netanyahu about the crisis Israel’s leader has created.
Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering foreign affairs. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Credit: Bloomberg
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