(CNN) — “Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a government plan to limit the powers of the judiciary, in an unprecedented move that could reignite fierce tensions in the country as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wages war against Hamas in Gaza.
The court ruled, by eight votes to seven, that a government amendment to the so-called reasonableness law should not stand. The bill had stripped the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable, and was the first major piece of a multipronged effort to weaken the judiciary to be passed by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, last year.
Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul had spurred months of furious protests in Israel as citizens accused his government of attempting to weaken Israel’s democracy.
The court ruled that a government amendment to the reasonableness law should not stand. The court said it rejected the amendment because it would deal a “severe and unprecedented blow to the core characteristics of the State of Israel as a democratic state.”
“This is not just a judicial overhaul. This is an attempt by the Israeli government to gain unlimited power – and they are saying so openly. You listen to the Netanyahu supporters and they basically say, ‘Hey, we won the elections, and that means we can do anything we want. Any restriction on our power is undemocratic.’ They don’t understand the meaning of democracy,” Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari said.”
Today’s ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court was a landmark victory for democracy and a major blow to Right-Wing power grabs for the U.S. ally. Israel does not have a Constitution, so the only check and balance on the Executive and Legislative Branches is the county’s Supreme Court. So the removal of that safeguard would have allowed the Ruling Party to make unilateral decisions without any Judicial oversight.
Such guardrails protect the fundamental integrity of democracy and have been under attack from Right-Wing politicians throughout the World. If a Trump second term were to happen, he would likely pull a similar stunt as the Netanyahu Administration did with the “reasonableness law”. Thankfully the Israeli citizens took to the streets and brought the country to a standstill over their objections to this undemocratic maneuver. Netanyahu’s campaign to impose such measures is what divided Israel to such an extent that they were militarily vulnerable to the attack on October 7th. The Israeli forces were more concerned with political upheaval than they were with an imminent Hamas invasion.
That’s what leaders like Netanyahu and Trump don’t get, they think that power comes from ruling with an iron fist and stripping away the rights of their political opponents. But all that leads to is further divisions within a country that allow foreign enemies to exploit the infighting for their own political or military advantage.
Unless of course, their ultimate goal is to have authoritarian governments replace the democratic systems. That historically made the United States and Israel the beacons of freedom that the World looks to for global protection and democratic values. Hopefully, Israel can be a warning to Republicans in America that choosing the Right-Wing agenda will at least cause a revolt from concerned citizens and at worst may allow Russia, China, and Iran the opportunity to take away our sovereignty. Israel found out the hard way, about divide and conquer, let’s not make the same mistakes here in the United States of America.
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