Rivlin warns politicians they are losing Israeli public’s trust

The institutions the public viewed more favorably were the IDF, the president, the courts and the police, whose support was found to be deteriorating.

By GIL HOFFMAN, YONAH JEREMY BOB
Israelis protest against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside Prime Minister Netanyahu's official residence in Jerusalem on August 01, 2020. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Israelis protest against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside Prime Minister Netanyahu's official residence in Jerusalem on August 01, 2020.
(photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
President Reuven Rivlin expressed concern about the state of Israeli democracy in a speech to high-school civics students on Monday. His remarks were part of the Israel Democracy Institute’s annual Democracy Index presentation.
Rivlin, who will decide who forms the next government, cited last week’s riots in Washington and said democracies around the world are suffering. But action must be taken immediately in Israel, long before the March 23 election of the next Knesset, he said.
In the IDI’s comprehensive poll, led by Prof. Tamar Hermann, the institutions the public views most favorably are the IDF, the president, the courts and the police, whose support was found to be deteriorating. The public expressed the least confidence in the political parties, followed by the Knesset, the government and the press.
“Over the past two years, in which there were endless elections, the trust of the citizens in the institutions of the rule of law eroded more and more,” Rivlin said. “There are those who choose to criticize the police or the legal system, or to be angry at me as president, but at the bottom of the list of the public’s trust in the institutions of the state is not the president or the IDF but the Knesset, which is supposed to be a fortress of democracy, and the parties.”
He called upon elected officials and candidates to work to rebuild the public’s trust, not just after the election, but now.
Rivlin said he was especially disturbed by data indicating that more than half of respondents said it did not matter who they voted for.
“The MKs must take seriously that the public is not putting trust in you,” he said. “This is the fourth time in two years that the government has fallen and the Knesset dispersed itself and made the people of Israel return to the polls. In the war of attrition that our elected officials have inflicted on the public, there are no winners. There is only erosion and desperation.”
The annual poll was purposely taken twice, in June and October, due to the impact of the coronavirus. The public became more unsettled from one poll to the next.
Among Jews, 76% of the public called Israel a good place to live in June and 69% did in October. Among Israeli Arabs, 78% said the Jewish state was a good place to live in June, but in October, the number fell to 46.5%.
In October, 57% of the Israeli public expressed the opinion that the democratic system in Israel is in grave danger – an increase relative to June (53%) and to previous years.
Similarly, a majority (60%) of Jewish respondents said the government is democratic toward Arab citizens as well as to Jews.
In contrast, a similar majority of Arab respondents (58%) said Israel is not democratic from their perspective.
There has been a significant decline in public trust in the Supreme Court, from 52% in June to 42% in October. Ranked next in the later poll are the police (41%) and the media (32%). At the bottom of the list are the government (25%) and the Knesset, in which public trust declined from 32% in June to 21% in October.
Trust in the Supreme Court, which was shared by 60% of Arab respondents in June, dropped to 40% in October.
Moreover, trust in political parties also took a severe blow.
After rising to 30% in June from 20% in 2019, it declined to 14% in October, which could impact voter turnout in the upcoming election.
The courts still had a higher approval rating than the executive and legislative branches, the Court Spokesperson’s Office said in a press release.
Regarding the lower-than-usual approval rating, it said courts worldwide have lost some of the public’s faith during the unusual coronavirus era, citing a low of 38% approval in the US for its Supreme Court.
At the same time, the statement said the key to maintaining the public’s faith was maintaining the court’s independence and objectivity and not giving in to populist forces that would undermine those central pillars.
The public’s trust in the police was harmed by the lack of a police inspector-general, IDI president Yohanan Plesner said.
“Among the most urgent tasks facing the next police inspector-general is the need to repair the significant damage inflicted during the COVID crisis on the relationship between the police and the public,” he said. “These findings only increase the difficulties facing police: to enforce the strict restrictions imposed by the government on the public in the face of a deepening crisis of confidence.”


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