It's All Over But the Shouting
The title refers both to our time here, which is coming to an end, and the vote today by the Israeli Knesset.
A Worrisome Day for the Future of Israeli Democracy. Today was a very sad day for much of Israel. After months of protests, intensifying greatly over the last few days with thousands camped in tents in the park that lies between our apartment and the Knesset, Israel's parliament passed the first part of a Judicial Reform package. An excellent editorial by David Horowitz of the Times of Israel expresses a lot of both what happened and how I feel about it quite well.
The specifics of this piece are that the courts can no longer overturn a law that the Knesset passes based on it being what the court considers "unreasonable." This has the potential to give the Knesset unlimited power, without the check and balance of the court. This is especially concerning for several reasons: (1) there is no third branch of government to constrain it, since the Executive branch, Netanyahu, in this case, is simply the head of the majority coalition, (2) Israel doesn't have an actual constitution to fall back upon but uses the British parliamentary system without a second legislative body, and (3) the particular makeup of the current coalition contains a lot of right wing extremists whose views on minority rights are disconcerting, and (4) it opens up an easy path for autocracy, if not outright dictatorship.
It is important to point out that there were two compromises floated even at the last minute, one buy the President (not the same as the Prime Minister) Herzog and the other by one of the largest labor unions in Israel. Both were rejected by the more liberal opposition from what I am hearing, though it's somewhat hard to verify if they were viable at all to begin with.
What I do know is that many of my friend in Israel are absolutely devastated. That this is also occurring as we approach Tisha b'Av, the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, which is a day of great tragedy in Jewish history, including the destruction of both the 1st and 2nd Temples. The first one was said to have been destroyed by idolatry, the second by "sinat chinam," intra Jewish hatred. If the modern State of Israel continues on a path of destruction (anti-democratic, pariah state, an increasingly divided citizenry), there seems to be a little bit of both this time.
On the other hand, there were a couple of moments of hope. The first was demonstrators from each side going opposite directions on the escalator in the Jerusalem train station (anti-Reform/leftish wing folks going upwards to Jerusalem and pro-Reform/rightist folks heading down to the trains on their way to Tel Aviv) waving to each other and wishing each other success. The second was a service of unity at the Western Wall, which included many different segments of Israeli society, including right wing settlers, left wing protest leaders, and everything in between. According to the Times of Israel: "The event is one of several organized and promoted in recent months for people with opposing views of the overhaul, in attempts to encourage unity amid polarization around the government’s plan to dramatically weaken the judiciary." More details can be found here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/activists-on-both-sides-of-overhaul-debate-hold-mass-western-wall-prayer-for-unity/.
A Great Visit with Micah. It was wonderful to have Micah join us for our penultimate week in Israel. Mostly, we visited his favorite haunts, ate multiple meat meals at his request, visited a museum I'd never seen before at Ammunition Hill (where the battle for the Old City of Jerusalem in the Six Day War began), and he got to hang out with good friends in Tel Aviv. We also had a great visit in Beit Shemesh with distant cousins from my maternal Grandmother's family, the Kushner clan, though their names are Bonner and Lazarus.
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| Kosher pepperoni pizza from restaurant Mojo's with beef pepperoni and non dairy cheese. It was amazing. |
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