January 15, 2023
THE ONLY EXISTENTIAL THREAT IS INTERNAL:
Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to protest plans by the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to overhaul the legal system."We are in the grip of a profound division that is tearing our nation apart. This conflict worries me deeply, as it worries many across Israel and the Diaspora," Herzog said in a statement on Twitter."The foundations of Israeli democracy, including the justice system, are sacred and we must strictly safeguard them, even at a time of fundamental arguments and debates about the relationship between the different branches of government," he added.The president has come under fire for avoiding clarifying his position on the proposed judicial reforms."I respect the criticism towards me, but I am now focused on two critical roles that I believe I bear as president at this hour: averting a historic constitutional crisis and stopping the continued rift within our nation," Herzog said.
Israelis deeply split on courts and rights, but united in gloom, distrust -- poll (Times of Israel, 1/15/23)
The study -- which surveyed 1,092 Jewish Israelis, mostly online, and 219 Arab Israelis by telephone, in May and June (with some elements also collected in October) -- showed that 49% of Jewish Israelis agree with the idea that Jews should have more rights in Israel than non-Jews do.The figure ties the record 49% who expressed the same sentiment in 2013, and continues a steady rise in the percentage of Jewish Israelis agreeing with the idea, which fell as low as 27% in 2018. High levels of support were seen among right-wingers and the ultra-Orthodox, while the lowest levels were among the left-wing and secular.The percentage of Jewish Israelis who said a Jewish majority should be needed to make "fateful decisions" on foreign and domestic affairs remained mostly steady at 80% and 60%, respectively."It is apparent from the 2022 Index that the increased fragmentation of the public's positions on policy has reached a point where it is no longer clear whether there remains a shared Israeli base on questions of principle, or even on practical questions regarding the country's day-to-day conduct," said Tamar Herman, director of the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute. "Over the past two decades, there has also been an erosion of public attitudes regarding basic principles of democracy, especially among Jewish Israelis, regarding civil equality."Compared with results from 2019 (28%), fewer Jewish Israelis (18%) last year believed that there is a good balance between the Jewish and democratic elements of the state.
On the march to destroy Israel as we know it (Alon Ben-Meir, 16 January 2023, Online Opinion)
Israel's founding fathers could have never envisioned the country becoming an occupying power, subjugating millions of indigenous Palestinians, robbing them of their land, stifling their freedom, destroying their farms and evicting them from their homes, and treating them with disdain and brazen inequality. All while, nearly every day another young Palestinian is killed. The Palestinians are not innocent by any measure, but what would Israeli Jews have done under such a ruthless occupation when, as the Palestinians live with today, only hopelessness and despair remain the order of the day?To think that the historically oppressed and persecuted Jews have become the oppressor defies every Jewish value and every human right and moral tenet that the Jews themselves have championed so assiduously over the centuries. To be sure, the occupation is a curse from which Israel will suffer in the future just as much if not more than the Palestinians.Israel's founders would have never imagined that the country would one day be governed by a thoroughly corrupt prime minister who is on trial in three separate cases on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. He put his personal interest above the country's and shamelessly pushed to realize his long-held dream of making Israel authoritarian with him at the helm, where Jewish supremacy reigns.Netanyahu formed the most racist, homophobic, and far-right government in Israel's history. He divided and subdivided the ministries to appoint cronies and criminals like Shas' Aryeh Deri, Otzma Yehudit's Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Religious Zionist's Bezalel Smotrich to posts of which they have little or no knowledge at all only to satisfy their inflated egos and blind ambition. Millions are appropriated for these newly established ministries which are bound to clash with one another as their functions and responsibilities either overlap or are loosely defined, which is a recipe for chaos.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2023 11:15 AM