Israel's Proposed Reforms

 Martin Luther King Junior said “Israel must exist and has the right to exist, it is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.” Certainly it is hopeful that it stays that way, but it might not. The topic I decided to inform you about on this particularly fine, cold, and damp morning is on democracy. And Israel. The question is one I've come across quite a bit really, but it is probably best phrased by 4x time high school and collegiate extemp finalist and academic all-american Logan Scisco. Are Israel's proposed legal reforms a significant threat to the nation’s democracy? The answer to this is quite simply yes, because of the power shifted away from the supreme court and to the Knesset, essentially the Israeli senate.  

To fully understand this answer I’ll break it down to three points for you today: First; Israeli legislations both current and proposed, Second the concerns for democracy, and finally the impact that this will bring.


Well start out by exploring the proposed Israeli legislation. This portion mainly deals with Israeli politics and government bodies, so before we begin examining the legislature, we should first examine the functioning of the legislative branch. There are two parts to this branch: TISC, The Israeli Supreme Court and the Knesset, essentially the senate made up of 120 seats. However there is no equivalent to the house in the Israeli government system making this a single body congress rather than a dual-body like in the US. The main political drivers behind both the legislation and the legislative branch are the party of the current president, a far right leaning political group, and the ultra-orthodox jewish parties according to Aljazeer. The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in the coalition currently want to pass a law exempting their community from conscription in the military, which will probably get passed because of their control of the knesset. However they worry it may be struck down by the supreme court if the Israeli supreme court’s powers are not cut back. For those reasons they proposed the following three part legislations. 

  1. The first part would allow the Knesset to overrule any decision made by the supreme court if it came into a conflict with a law. Essentially the vast majority of decisions made by Supreme Court. The Knesset could overrule by a simple majority vote. 61-59 would pass if the new legislation were to be pushed through. 

  2. The second is removing power from the Israeli supreme court. On Israel's basic laws the supreme court would lose all ability to rule. The Basic Laws of Israel are thirteen quasi-constitutional laws of the State of Israel, and some of them can only be changed by a supermajority vote in the Knesset. Israel's equivalent of a constitution. Removing SCOTUS’s ability to rule on the constitution would mean there is no point to it. The same would be true for the Israeli Supreme Court . 

  3. The third reforms would deal with who was inducted or elected into the Supreme Court. As it stands right now it is a consensus between multiple powerful political positions and the preexisting judges on the supreme court. This series of legislation would shift appointments to the Supreme Court from muti-consensual to just the president and other politicians.  


Now that we have seen the proposed legislation let's examine the impacts of this on Israeli democracy. 


Obviously the impacts of this would severely limit Israeli democracy. The new set of 

Legislation will shift power away from the supreme court until it is essentially an honorary position appointed by the most bureaucratic politicians. The new supreme court would lose all ability to rule on constitutionality its main purpose and would also would be easily overridden on all decisions it could make. This decision costs Israel their democracy. Hamilton once rejected the idea that the Supreme Court was inherently anti-democratic: when it struck down federal and state laws in the name of the fundamental constitutional principles, he explained, the Court would serve democracy rather than thwart it, because the Constitution represented the will of the people, while federal and state laws merely represented the will of the people's temporary and fallible representatives. Much like this idea Israel’s temporary governing body is trying to change something with a 62% approval rating as well. However, limiting the Supreme Court will just create limited democracy. Not only will the democracy be limited but the ripples will come right back to the United States.


 Which will be examined in my third point the impact this decision will bring. 


Israel is the main ally of the United States in a middle east and Iran influenced area and more indirectly Russia. The United States is committed to promoting industry with its allies. If Israel were to violate its own democracy with the new set of laws he is passing we would be forced to wean and phase out some relations with our main ally is this region. This would impact our political influence in that geography. An area where we need our influence to increase, it will decrease.


The new proposed legislation will not only threaten the democracy of Israel but it will hurt the geopolitics of the United states.   

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