Once again, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has crossed borders and defied a nationwide protest movement to reinstate the powers of the Israeli judiciary and put a stop to his far-right coalition government.
But after years of risk management and chaos management by the Israeli leader, that feels different. Such is the resentment and disruption provoked by this particular Netanyahu victory that many Israelis are wondering whether the damage to society might not be reversible – and whether Mr Netanyahu will be able to weather the aftermath of any showdown he instigated.
In the final moments before the vote, Mr Netanyahu sat passively between two cabinet mates as the two men argued with one another – apparently over whether to make a last-minute concession – and yelled over their party leader as if unaware of his presence.
All around them in the voting hall, angry opposition MPs shouted abuse at Mr Netanyahu and his allies, warning them that they were bankrupting Israel.
“You are the government of destruction!” shouted an opponent. “Enemies of Israel!” shouted another.
The adoption of the voteMinutes later, provided a rare moment of certainty after a seven-month period in which it was often unclear until Monday afternoon whether Mr Netanyahu would really dare to move forward with his unpopular proposal.
It also led Israel into the unknown.
At home, half of society wondered if their country – controlled by Netanyahu’s alliance of religious conservatives and ultranationalists – was now slowly slipping into religious autocracy.
“These could be the last days of Israeli democracy,” said Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli author and historian of humanity. “We could witness the rise of a Jewish supremacist dictatorship in Israel, which will not only be a terrible thing for Israeli citizens, but a terrible thing for the Palestinians, for Jewish traditions, and potentially for the entire Middle East.”
In a prime-time speech televised hours after the vote, Mr Netanyahu portrayed these fears as alarming.
“We all agree that we – Israel – must remain a strong democracy,” he said. “That it will continue to protect individual rights for all.” That it will not become a religious state. That the court remains independent.”
However, questions about the stability and effectiveness of the Israeli armed forces remain for critics and supporters alike a surge in protests by thousands of military reservists.
There is also the specter of social and economic unrest after major unrest erupted overnight in cities across the country, union leaders warned of a general strike, a doctors’ union announced an all-day cut in medical services and high-tech companies said they were considering moving to more stable economies, so a new survey.
Abroad, the vote found greater approval Uncertainty about the future of Israel’s alliance with the United States, after the Biden administration expressed growing concern. It increased unease among American Jews about the development of the Jewish state.
And among Palestinians, it raised fears of a brazen Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, a project that Israel’s Supreme Court had rejected in some cases, and greater restrictions on Israel’s Arab minority.
For years, Mr. Netanyahu has placed himself at the center of every political showdown, at times implying that he is the only one standing between Israel and the catastrophe. He seemed to have survived everything.
But now the 73-year-old’s health and stamina have become a national issue after months of bitter political fighting and a contentious vote that came just hours after he ended the 30-hour party stay in the hospital have a pacemaker implanted.
The spectacle of rival cabinet ministers arguing right beside him sparked debate about how much control this political veteran still maintains over his far-right alliance. Despite unusual pressure from President Biden and accusations from 15 former security chiefs that the law endangers Israel’s security, Mr Netanyahu went ahead with it at the behest of his more extreme coalition partners.
Then there is that of Mr. Netanyahu Corruption process ongoing: Critics fear Mr Netanyahu could try to thwart the matter now that the Supreme Court is less able to oppose him, a claim he has long denied.
Beneath all of this lurks the possibility of an imminent and existential crisis for the Israeli government. If the Supreme Court uses the remaining tools at its disposal to block implementation of the new law in the coming weeks, it could force the different parts of the Israeli state to choose which arm of government to obey.
“I think it’s going to be a Pyrrhic victory,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a biographer of Mr Netanyahu. “All the foundations of the Israeli establishment, including Netanyahu’s own government, have been weakened by what happened.”
Some Israelis see the court as a bulwark against a system that has relatively few other checks and balances — the country has no constitution and only one parliament.
But Mr Netanyahu and his supporters argue that the new law, which prevents the court from overriding the government by the subjective legal standard of “reasonableness,” strengthens democracy by giving elected lawmakers more autonomy over unelected judges.
Emmanuel Shilo, the editor of a right-wing news outlet, wrote of his “lucky that our votes weren’t thrown in the dustbin after all.” That our elected officials are finally doing something with the mandate we gave them.”
Others insisted no major transformation was forthcoming. “There is no such thing as a dictatorship and unfortunately the judicial system will not really change,” wrote Shimon Riklin, a right-wing TV host.
It was another blow to Israel’s secular protest movement, but many took it as a call to keep fighting. The movement’s seven-month struggle to delay reform through weekly marches and rallies has helped revitalize a privileged segment of society at times seen as apathetic or complacent about Israel’s political direction.
“It’s kind of a consolation,” said Mira Lapidot, a museum curator and regular protester. “You feel like you have to make a choice about what kind of life you want to lead.”
But underlying this renewal is also a sense of fear. Mr Netanyahu’s coalition includes a finance minister who describes himself as a proud homophobe, a security minister who has been convicted of racist hate speech, and an ultra-Orthodox party that has proposed punishing women for reading the Torah in Judaism’s holiest site.
For Israel’s Arab minority, who make up about a fifth of the country’s nine million people, the law feels like the harbinger of a dangerous new era.
Palestinian citizens of Israel played only a minor role in the anti-overhaul demonstrations and were suspicious of a protest movement generally focused on maintaining the status quo of the Jewish state rather than fighting for Palestinian equality.
“Part of our community believes that this government is the same as previous ones and that our situation is just as bad as it has always been,” said Mohammad Osman, a 26-year-old political and social activist from Nahf, an Arab city in southern Israel. But Mr. Osman saw the reform as a very real threat to the Arab minority. “We will be the first to be harmed,” he said.
The vote also leaves the future of Israel’s relationship with the United States looking more strained than usual. Washington provides nearly $4 billion in military aid to Israel annually and provides Israel with crucial diplomatic protection at the United Nations.
But the new law prompted multiple concerns from President Biden, and in the run-up to its passage, two former American ambassadors to Israel proposed something once unthinkable: an end to US military aid.
US leaders dating back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower have long had conflicts with Israeli prime ministers. But this particular crisis is different because it is not about foreign policy but about the character of Israel and is undermining the perception of an alliance between two like-minded democracies, said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat and mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The first task is to stop digging when you’re stuck in a hole,” Mr. Miller said. “Netanyahu’s rift with Joe Biden has now grown much deeper.”
He added: “Biden is not looking for a fight with Netanyahu. But it’s clear there will be no hugs, let alone visits to the White House.”
Hiba Yazbek and Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting.
