Opinion – Thomas L. Friedman: How Biden Could Prevent Netanyahu From Turning Israel Into Hungary Or Turkey

If I could get a memo about the new Israeli government to President Joe Biden’s desk, I know exactly how it would start:

Dear President, I don’t know if you are interested in Jewish history, but Jewish history is certainly interested in you today. Israel is about to undergo a historic transformation: converting from a full democracy into something less and from a stabilizing force in the region into a destabilizing one. You are perhaps the only one in a position to stop Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition from turning Israel into a stronghold of illiberal fanaticism.

I would also say that I fear that Israel is approaching a serious internal civil conflict. Civil conflicts rarely occur because of only one public policy. They tend to be about power. For years, the heated discussions held over the Oslo Accords involved politics, but today the latent confrontation concerns power: who can tell whom how to live in a highly diverse society.

The short story is this: an ultra-nationalist and ultra-orthodox government formed after Netanyahu’s group won the election by a minuscule majority (30,000 votes out of 4.7 million) is conducting a power grab that the other half of voters see it as not only corrupt, but a threat to their civil rights. That’s why an anti-government protest of 5,000 people over the weekend grew to draw 80,000.

The country Biden knew is disappearing, and a new one is emerging. Many ministers are hostile to American values ​​and nearly all are hostile to the Democratic Party.

Netanyahu and the head of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, conspired with Republicans to have the prime minister give a speech in parliament in 2015 contrary to the will and policies of Biden and then-President Barack Obama. They would like a Republican in the White House and would prefer support from evangelical Christians to liberal Jews. Prefer MbS support [o príncipe saudita Mohammed bin Salman] to that of AOC [a deputada americana Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez].

Let there be no doubt about it. The President must not be fooled by their trite talk about “our old friend Joe.”

The current crisis in Israel can be presented to Biden as an internal constitutional issue on which he should not have a say. On the contrary. Biden should intervene directly (as did Netanyahu), because the outcome has direct consequences for US national security interests.

I don’t harbor the illusion that the American will be able to reverse the more extremist trends that are emerging in Israel, but he can give a little push to lead things to a healthier path and possibly prevent the worst from happening. He is able to apply a bit of well-meaning discipline in a way that no other external actor could.

The most pressing crisis is this: Israeli courts, led by the Supreme Court, have largely acted as staunch defenders of human rights, especially those of minorities —which include Arab citizens, LGBTQIA+ and even reformist and conservative Jews who aspire to the same freedom and the same rights of religious practice enjoyed by Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox.

Furthermore, because the Israeli Supreme Court oversees the actions of all branches of the executive, including the Armed Forces, it has frequently upheld the rights of Palestinians, including protection from abuse by residents of Israeli settlements and illegal expropriation. privately owned by Palestinians.

But this Netanyahu government wants to radically change the situation in the West Bank, in order to annex it concretely, without declaring the fact officially. And there is only one major obstacle standing in the way of the plan: the Supreme Court and Israel’s legal institutions.

As the Times of Israel summarized, the judicial reform that Netanyahu intends to have approved at all costs by the Knesset “would give the government complete control over the appointment of judges”, replacing the much more professional and less partisan appointment process. It would also severely limit “the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down legislation” — especially one that might reduce minority rights — and would enable the Knesset, now controlled by Netanyahu, to “re-legislate” what the court has rejected.

The reform also aims to reduce the independence of supervisory bodies in each ministry. Instead of reporting to the attorney general, they would be appointed by ministers.

In short, the Executive would assume control of the Judiciary. It’s something that’s directly modeled on Turkey and Hungary, especially when you consider one more thing: it’s all being done at a time when Netanyahu himself is on trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, in three lawsuits filed by the attorney general that he himself appointed.

Earlier this month a right-wing former defense minister and former army chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, wrote on Twitter that Netanyahu’s judicial reforms had brought to light “the true intentions of a criminal defendant” who ” is willing to set fire to the country and its values […] to escape the dock”.

“Who would have believed that less than 80 years after the Holocaust struck our people a criminal, messianic, fascist and corrupt government would be established in Israel whose purpose is to rescue an accused criminal?”

Of course, Netanyahu says his intentions couldn’t be more different. God forbid.

Because it does not have a formal constitution, Israel is governed by a very complex set of legal checks and balances that have evolved over the decades. Experts tell me there are arguments in favor of some changes in the judiciary, but doing it as Netanyahu is doing — not through a non-partisan national convention, but with the Supreme Court being stripped of powers by the most radical government in the country’s history, knowing that the criminal case against him may end up being decided by the Supreme Court… That stinks.

In American terms, it would be like if Richard Nixon tried to enlarge the Supreme Court, inserting judges favorable to him during the investigation of the Watergate scandal.

The current Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, declared last week that the proposed reform “will break the judicial system and is in practice an unqualified attack”. Groups of retired Air Force pilots, technology executives, lawyers and retired judges — left and right — including some on the Supreme Court, all signed letters saying basically the same thing.

The US has over the years given Israel extraordinary amounts of economic assistance, sensitive intelligence, the most advanced weaponry and virtually automatic support against biased UN resolutions. I’m in favor of that. Furthermore, the country has for years opposed any legal action by international institutions, based on the argument that Israel has an independent judicial system that —not always, but often— has credibly imposed the norms of international law on the government and the army, even if it meant protecting the rights of Palestinians.

Before Netanyahu can bring Israel’s Supreme Court under his control, Biden needs to tell him, leaving no room for doubt:

Bibi, you are completely ignoring American interests and values. I need you to tell me some things now—and you need to hear some things from me. I need to know: Is Israel’s control of the West Bank a matter of temporary occupation or an emerging annexation, as members of its coalition maintain? Because I won’t be the scapegoat if that’s what it is. I need to know if you’re really going to bring Israeli courts under your political authority in a way that brings Israel closer to Turkey and Hungary, because I’m not going to be the scapegoat for that. I need to know if your extremist ministers are going to change the current situation on the Temple Mount, because that could destabilize Jordan, Palestine and agreements between Israel, UAE and Bahrain — and that would really harm US interests. I won’t be the scapegoat for that.

Here’s how I imagine Netanyahu would respond:

Joe, Joey, my old friend, don’t press me on all this now. I’m the one holding these freaks back. You and I, Joe, we can make history together. Let’s join forces not only to stop Iran’s nuclear capability but to help — however we can — the protesters who are trying to overthrow the Ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran. And let’s, you and I, close a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. MbS is up for it, as long as I can convince him to give security guarantees and advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia. Let’s do this and then I’ll get rid of these freaks.

I applaud both foreign policy goals, but I wouldn’t want the US to turn a blind eye to Netanyahu’s judicial putsch to pay for them. If we do this, we will sow wind and reap storm.

Israel and the US are friends. But today one of the parties to that friendship—Israel—is changing its fundamental character. In the most affectionate but clearest of terms, Biden needs to declare that these changes violate US interests and values ​​and that we will not be Netanyahu’s useful idiots. We will not just sit in silence.