Because Israel’s news cycle often mimics the lifespan of a mayfly (which lives for about one day, though some females apparently sometimes last only five minutes after reaching maturity and reproducing—at least so Chat GPT tells me), the changing-the-Attorney-General’s-locks stunt pulled by Justice Minister Yariv Levin last week now seems ancient history.
But we overlook it—or chuckle at it—at our own peril. Keep your ear to the ground around here for even a little bit, and there are signs everywhere that the rule of law in this country is on much thinner ice than we might imagine.
For complicated reasons (and no, it’s not as cut and dry as either side claims), PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin—cheered from the sidelines by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir among others—have been trying to get Israel’s Attorney General Gali Barahav-Miara fired for a very long time. The government finally did vote to fire her on August 4, but the Supreme Court issued a stay—meaning that for now, she’s the Attorney General.
But Levin, the Justice Minister ostensibly responsible for rule of law in this country, has run out of patience as he’s wanted her gone even since Judicial Reform Days, so he had the locks on her office changed.
When the High Court expressed displeasure, he responded that her office belongs to him.
The United States has a minimum age for serving as President: 35 (Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 on the Constitution). In Israel, where there is no Constitution, adolescents can apparently occupy the highest positions in the land. (That’s not to take a side on the AG’s being fired—it’s actually more complex than many wish to admit. But it IS to say that changing locks when one objects to the Court’s stay is outrageous.)
Benny Gantz thought that “adolescent” was too kind. After the lock-changing stunt, he asked, “Who said that kindergartens aren’t open in August?”
Of course, even as things get ominous on the rule of law front, the government’s opponents never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, as Abba Eban famously said of the Arabs after the Geneva Peace Conference in December 1973. When protests about the war eventually subside and judicial reform / rule of law return to the spotlight, this week’s “end the war and bring back the hostages strike” protesters will likely regret scenes like this:
If you’re a pregnant woman in labor on that highway on the way to the hospital, you might feel a bit dubious about the protesters’ devotion to civil rights.
Which brings us to the video above, the mainstay of today’s post. The clip has gotten a lot of play and has made its way around Israeli social media—we just added the subtitles for our readers.
If you watch the video carefully, you can see why it’s gone viral in some sectors of Israeli social media. Note:
Israel’s a democracy, but Netanyahu doesn’t actually say anything positive about being a democracy. What he does praise is the UAE’s lack of bureaucracy.
Note the seemingly parenthetical comment about needing to “restore” the balance between the branches of government. There is a good deal of truth to that, of course, but the critical question is how. That was the essence of the judicial reform debate-which-became-a-crisis. Is he laying the groundwork (i.e., raking the infield) for something?
Change is afoot in the Middle East, he says, and Israel is no longer at the cutting edge. We simply need to become more like the UAE, he intimates. In what ways?
Is the comment about ending hyper-legalization his answer to how we stay ahead of the curve? What if democracy invariably means bureaucracy? Bibi has for sure read Max Weber. Probably even Woodrow Wilson, who advocated for governmental bureaucracy. His thoughts on them?
Would Levin say that the Supreme Court’s stay was simply bureaucracy, so he could change the AG’s locks? Is ignoring the court what Bibi means by realigning the powers of the three branches? Some Israelis are worried, some look forward to those changes.
Bibi’s comments to i24 could, of course, be just a “clip.” But Netanyahu rarely speaks to the Israeli press, so when he does, he chooses his words wisely.
There’s a famous discussion in the Talmud (B.T. Tamid 32a) of what makes a person wise.
the Gemara relates that Alexander of Macedon [DG - Alexander the Great] asked the Elders of the Negev about ten matters. … Alexander said to the Elders: Who is truly worthy of being called wise? They said to him, Who is the wise person? The one who sees and anticipates the consequences of his behavior.
Benjamin Netanyahu calibrates what he says to the Israeli public very carefully. It might just be, therefore, that as we recall the Elders’ answer to Alexander the Great we would do well to add:
Who is wise? The one who hears and anticipates the possible consequences of what those around them are saying.
