Isaac Herzog (official PR pic)
The President of Israel Isaac Herzog released a statement on Sunday in which he expressed concern over the current matrimonial political divisions in his country. His words came a day after an estimated 80,000 people crammed Tel Aviv’s Habimah Square to protest the planned judicial reforms proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government that would curtail the authority of Israel’s Supreme Court.
The opposition in Israel’s Knesset calls the reform plan a “threat” to Israel’s democracy. The government, in turn, maintains that its program is intended to “restore” democracy in Israel as Israel’s Supreme Court, it maintains, has appropriated too many powers for itself over the years and is not elected by the public as the Knesset is.
President Isaac Herzog said, “We are in the grips of a profound disagreement that is tearing our nation apart. This conflict worries me deeply, as it worries many across Israel and the Diaspora.”
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“The foundations of Israeli democracy, including the justice system, are sacred,” he added “and we must strictly safeguard them, even at a time of fundamental arguments and debates about the relationship between the different branches of government.”
Isaac Herzog once served as the leader of Israel’s left-wing Labor Party. But the Presidency in Israel is a ceremonial post and the President is expected to stay out of political debates. But he does, at times, speak out on major issues if he feels that there is a danger to the nation. And he can also mediate political disputes.
And so, President Herzog was careful in how he worded his remarks saying, “The Office of the President is perhaps the only place today that enjoys the confidence of all parties and is capable of hosting discussions on the subject in a manner accepted by all—behind closed doors and in open doors.”
Isaac Herzog added that over the past week, he has worked “full time, by every means, making nonstop efforts with the relevant parties, with the aim of creating wide-reaching, attentive, and respectful discussion and dialogue, which I hope will yield results.”
He went on to pledge to continue to try and work towards a compromise and that the principles of the Declaration of Independence of Israel and the “Jewish and democratic contours of our state are my guiding lights and I will not allow them to be harmed.”
The part of the proposed reforms that caused the greatest controversy is the proposal for a new law that would allow the Knesset to override Supreme Court rulings that nullified laws or prohibited certain actions made by the government. This, detractors say, would make the court meaningless and allow whoever has a majority in the Knesset to basically do whatever they want with no one empowered to stop them from suspending democracy as has happened in countries like Hungary.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also responded to the protests against his government’s judicial reform plan.
At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday he spoke somewhat sarcastically stating, “Several months ago there was a huge demonstration, the mother of all demonstrations. Millions of people went into the streets in order to vote in the elections. One of the main topics that they voted on was reforming the judicial system.”
Netanyahu went on to say that he has heard about “an attempt to claim that the public did not know what it was voting for,” in the elections last November.
However, he said, his party made it clear that this judicial reform plan was central to its campaign platform. Netanyahu declared that the public knew about his intention to enact a comprehensive reform of the judicial system.
Netanyahu’s comments came after President of Israel’s Supreme Court Esther Hayut Thursday took the unprecedented step of publicly rebuking the government and condemning the reforms. She did so while addressing the annual convention of The Israel Association of Public Law held in Haifa.
In her speech, Hayut rebuked the government for its planned reforms and claims that it won the election and so it can do this because they have the support of the majority of the nation.
“Democracy is not just the rule of the majority,” she said, and “anyone who says that the majority of voters gave their Knesset representatives a blank check to do whatever they want uses the word democracy falsely.”
“The meaning of this reform is a change to the democratic identity of the State (in such a way) that it will be unrecognizable,” declared Hayut.
