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I’m writing to share J Street’s resources and news updates.
I hope you’ll check out, or continue making use of, our regularly updated dossier on the Netanyahu government. As always, you can find our Congressional briefing book, background information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recordings of previous briefings and more at J Street’s Congressional Resource Page.
Feel free to reach out with any questions.
All the best,
Debra
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Debra Shushan, PhD
Director of Policy, J Street
mobile: (757) 746-0366 | [email protected] | @DrShushan
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This week on j street
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| SHUSHAN STREET |
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THE NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT’S DANGEROUSLY UNREASONABLE AMENDMENT
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| ISSUE BRIEF |
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RESOURCES ON “EXTREME UNREASONABLENESS” & ISRAEL’S JUDICIARY
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What we’re reading
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In Israel, High Stakes for High Court: Democracy’s Fate
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| When the Israeli Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it would review a new law designed to curb its power, it set up a complicated choice for itself. Will it directly confront the elected branches of government by overturning the law? Or will it instead rule in such a way that sidesteps a constitutional crisis? Over the last few decades, attempts to weaken the courts around the world have become recurring signals that a democracy is in trouble. Attacks on judicial independence were early steps toward one-party dominance in Russia, Turkey and Venezuela, for example. But a move to limit the authority of the courts — like the new law adopted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition barring judges from using the longstanding legal principle of “reasonableness” to overrule government decisions — does not make democratic collapse inevitable. It’s more like a flashing red light, and how the judiciary responds can begin to decide how much damage is done… In October, though, two liberal judges are scheduled to retire from the 15-member court. If the government goes ahead with its plans to exert more control over judicial appointments, as well as to strip the court of the power to hear some cases, Professor Dixon argued, the calculation changes. “Then,” she said, “the only options for the court will be confrontation or acquiescence.” |
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Thousands in Tel Aviv as overhaul demos show no sign of fatigue after 1st bill passed
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| Thousands of protesters waving Israeli flags rallied against the judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the protest movement offering no indication that it plans to fold after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed the first piece of legislation from its judicial overhaul last week… Wednesday’s demonstration followed even larger ones that took place across the country on Saturday night, kicking off the 30th week of protests and amassing over 200,000 Israelis… Leading the march were former justice ministers Tzipi Livni and Avi Nissenkorn along with former Supreme Court justice Yoram Danziger and several other former judges… The next proposal from the overhaul that Netanyahu intends to pass is one allowing the government a greater say in the appointment of judges. Critics accuse Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, of trying to use the reforms to quash possible judgments against him. He rejects the accusation as well as the legitimacy of the charges against him… “There’s no such thing as democracy without the Supreme Court,” chanted the protesters on Wednesday evening. |
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Education Ministry Bans Israeli–Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum From Schools
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| The Parents Circle – a nonprofit organization with both Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families – will no longer be allowed to operate activities in Israeli schools. The Education Ministry made the announcement following pressure from right-wing groups… Explaining the decision to exclude it from the list, the external programs manager Lilah Aplaton said the Forum’s goals “are in contradiction to the values of the Education Ministry.” Typically, the Parents Circle – Families Forum arranges meetings between students and Palestinians and Israelis who have lost a loved one. It also operates an annual summer camp, as well as a joint memorial ceremony for victims of the conflict… Appleton added that she doubts it will be possible in the future to even include other programs offered by the Forum in the ministry’s approved list… Roughly 20,000 external programs by 8,000 providers are on the ministry’s approved list, leaving it up to each school to choose which they’d like to include. Over the last year, however, the ministry has tightened its oversight on the monitoring of such programs… In January, the Education Ministry required external program operators to pledge that their activities will not involve the “degradation and humiliation of IDF fallen soldiers or victims of terror.” Among the thousands of organizations in the ministry’s list, the Forum is the only one that deals directly with content pertaining to those killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. |
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Far-right MKs Call for Israeli Annexation of West Bank, Rail Against Top Army Officers
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| Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called on the government to annex the West Bank on Wednesday, as far-right lawmakers continued their attacks on the leaders of Israel’s security services. Israel should begin annexation of the West Bank “as soon as possible,” Eliyahu, a member of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party, told Army Radio, declaring that “sovereignty should also be applied in the areas of Judea and Samaria” – the Biblical names for the area now known as the West Bank – and that the border between Israel and the territories, known as the Green Line, is “fictitious.” His comments came as his party colleague, lawmaker Limor Son Har-Melech attacked Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, accusing the pair of placing Palestinian interests above those of Israelis. “He takes care of the Arabs and on the other hand he abuses the residents of Judea and Samaria,” the far-right lawmaker told ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama regarding Fuchs, whose recent moves to take down illegally built homes in the West Bank have angered settlers, who erected protest billboards with his face along Route 60 – a main West Bank road – earlier this summer… Later on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Har-Melech’s comments regarding Fuchs, saying that they were “unacceptable and inappropriate”… Netanyahu, who was one of the leaders of the discourse on the annexation of the settlements to Israel and even announced the move in 2020, has since stopped speaking publicly on the issue as part of the Israeli commitment that enabled the signing of the Abraham Accords that year. Since he returned to office late last year, the West Bank has seen a surge of violence, including escalating attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers. |
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ANALYSIS | Potential Saudi-Israel normalization could see Palestinians thrown under the bus
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| By all indications, the tectonic plates in the Middle East are shifting. Representatives of the White House — National Security adviser Jake Sullivan and Mideast coordinator Brett McGurk — have been traveling back and forth between Washington and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on behalf of US President Joe Biden… But the reason is not necessarily Washington’s desire for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, or Riyadh’s hopes to save the dream of a two-state solution. What the US really wants is a complete severance of the growing ties between Saudi Arabia and China, and between the Saudis and the Iranians. Washington may need to pay a very high price for this… In one of his recent columns for The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who is known to have close ties to Biden, explained that steps required from Israel in return for normalized ties with the Saudis might include an official promise never to annex the West Bank… and a commitment not to establish any more settlements or expand the boundaries of existing ones, to leave the door open for a potential future Palestinian state… But beyond potential intransigence by some in Jerusalem, sources familiar with Israeli security issues in the region say that it is possible that the Saudis are not actually interested in helping the Palestinians, or conditioning a major agreement on Israel making a commitment to the Palestinians. A normalization document, they suggest, could merely contain a general statement about the continuation of the peace process… The Palestinian issue would then remain Israel’s to deal with on its own. |
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