Israel is in the midst of unprecedented protests, the significance of which goes far beyond this state entity. The plans of the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to carry out judicial reforms in the country have become the cause of mass demonstrations, strikes, a series of resignations and dismissals of ministers and diplomats. It is important to understand what is being discussed and what the consequences might be.
Israel is a parliamentary republic in which those who win parliamentary elections generally hold power. It is rarely a single party that forms the government, but rather a coalition. However, the parliamentary majority and the government are forced to govern within certain legal frameworks established by the Supreme Court, which has the power to block the enactment or repeal of laws. The Supreme Court itself is not easily formed — the justices are appointed by the president after being nominated by a judicial appointments committee consisting of the minister of justice, government representatives, representatives of the ruling and opposition parties or parliamentary coalitions, representatives of the bar association, two sitting judges, and sometimes the attorney general and the dean of the Hebrew University law school.
Netanyahu, who formed a coalition of ultra-Zionist and religious-Zionist parties, wanted to reform this system so that the parliamentary majority could overcome the limitations of the Supreme Court and have more influence on its composition. Why does he need this? Israel’s legal and judicial system represents modern Western concepts of the rule of law and democracy, while Netanyahu is a leader of forces that want to turn Israel into a fundamentalist, autocratic Jewish state. Within Israeli society itself, supporters of both lines are roughly evenly divided, with the exception of Israeli Arabs, whose position in Israeli politics has become increasingly influential in determining who forms the ruling coalition. In addition, due to the high birth rate, the number of religious Jews is increasing, and they want to Judaize Israel, while another part of Jewish society, on the contrary, wants to liberalize it.
The Supreme Court, as an institution independent of the parliamentary majority, stands in the way of plans to Judaize Israel, which is why Netanyahu’s attempt to take away its powers and subject it to the parliamentary majority was perceived by his opponents as an attempt to seize control of the country. This raises several questions. How do Muslims view this? On the one hand, supporters of religious values, People of the Book, should be closer to us than those who promote feminism, LGBT, and other «progressive values». On the other hand, the problem is that it is precisely these supporters of religious values who want to ignore our co-religionists in Palestine and our religion in Jerusalem by advocating the construction of new Jewish settlements on Palestinian land and striving for the construction of a Jewish temple in Al-Quds.
This, of course, does not mean that we should support those who openly promote injustice, but it does mean that Muslims would benefit from a system in which neither side has absolute power and the political system is based on a balance of interests, allowing them to have their voice and influence as Arab-Muslim voters. Of course, as much as possible in a foreign state created on their land… At the same time, this situation can be extrapolated to Israel and other countries.
In particular, there are very important elections coming up in Turkey, and no matter who wins, it is clear that the advantage of the winner over the loser will be minimal, and Turkish society will continue to consist of two major camps — the supporters and the opponents of power, with different factions within each of them.
And in this sense, the history of the judicial reform shows us that in such complex societies, winning elections and coming to power is one thing, while reshaping the system for oneself and one’s project is quite another.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to use his electoral victory to reshape the country for himself has brought Israel to the brink of civil war, and he has already announced that he will suspend this reform. Nevertheless, this situation itself has demonstrated Israel’s vulnerability, which will strategically increase as the number of religious Jews grows on the one hand, and as supporters of «progressive ideas» become radicalized on the other.
It does not take a great analyst to understand that this could lead to a future crisis in this state, from which it will not be able to recover within its present borders and form. Whether the Muslims will be able to take advantage of this is the question.
And the second question, which to a large extent depends on the answer to the first question, is whether neighboring Muslim countries will also become hostages to similar processes by that time.