The current battle over proposals to reform the Supreme Court and the Judicial system has laid bare the stress lines of our society. On the one hand, there are the prospective reformers, led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin of the Likud Party and MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party, who chairs the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. They have come forward with detailed plans and proposals for addressing long-standing abuses of power and discretion by both the Supreme Court and the attorney general’s office. They have also been inviting debate, discussion and above all compromise.
Arrayed against them and against any proposal or idea of change has been a largely leaderless amalgam of Leftist opposition politicians and their allies in the media, academia, culture and hi-tech. The messaging has been alarmist, evoking the end of democracy.
There has been no attempt nor desire to engage with the proposals, to address the obviously questionable practices, such as the veto that justices on the selection committee have over the selection of new justices, or to accord any empathy or understanding to the anger and estrangement that underlies the drive for reform. Instead, there has only been the threat of the ruination of Israeli society if any reforms are undertaken.
These lopsided and very different approaches to the subject make it rather clear that for the opposition this is about power and the fearful prospect of the loss thereof. Despite its pervasive control of the media, academia, culture and much of hi-tech, the left-wing opposition wants as many levers of power as possible and understands that they have largely lost their prospects for electoral dominance and control of the Knesset.
That leaves the reliably left-leaning Supreme Court, which, thanks to its accumulated and self-anointed powers of discretion, can not only balance the Knesset but realistically, can supersede it as it chooses. The judiciary is arguably the most powerful branch of the government. The Left knows it and wants to keep things just the way they are.
To many observers, the tenor of left-wing opposition has an imported American twang to it, reminiscent of the calls for resistance to Donald Trump and the willingness to invoke the specter of civil disturbance and even violence.
Bloodshed is a concept that has been bandied about by opposition leaders more than once and there have been personal threats made to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This American playbook would make some sense since it is no secret that very significant financial and tactical support has been coming from the United States.
However, there is also a homegrown model for the confrontation. One that produced some of the most shameful and yet also some of the most admirable conduct ever witnessed in our nation.
The saga of the ship the Altalena
That model is the saga of the ship the Altalena, which arrived off the coast of Israel in June 1948. The ship had been commissioned by the Irgun fighting force led by Menachem Begin, which was fighting in parallel but not under the orders of the newly organized IDF. It contained a substantial amount of much-needed weaponry and ammunition.
While there had been negotiations and an agreement that some 20% of the arms would be allocated to the Irgun’s Jerusalem Battalion, the crux of the disagreement had to do with the demand by David Ben-Gurion that the IDF be a unified force under his command, with no other ancillary or parallel forces, as had existed for decades leading up to independence, be tolerated.
FEARING THAT the remainder of the arms on the ship might be used to supply an army within the army, Ben-Gurion gave an ultimatum of 10 minutes duration that the arms and ship be surrendered or that the ship would be fired upon. This is indeed what transpired, though several IDF fighters refused the order to shoot at the Jews on the ship.
Begin – who had been watching the standoff and the firing from the beach – had himself taken by boat, under fire to the ship, which he boarded. Despite the ongoing fire, commanded on the beach by Yitzhak Rabin, Begin ordered that fire not be returned.
Years later, Begin said, “My greatest accomplishment was not retaliating and causing a civil war.” While he was intensely involved in directing the Irgun, Begin understood that there were larger and more powerful issues at stake, most especially unity. In contrast to the “my way or sink the ship” approach that Ben-Gurion took, Begin refrained from the fight.
It is not a major stretch to see the parallels between that painful incident and the current struggle. The leftist opposition has a no compromise, no talks, our way or else attitude that, despite evoking the specter of democracy, is profoundly undemocratic in its approach. The irony that the reforms reflect the will of the democratically elected majority is completely lost on them.
Instead, the issue is all about control and the larger implications of the potential impact on society do not register. By contrast, Levin and Rothman have been tripping over themselves emphasizing a focus on the larger public welfare and have repeatedly urged discussions and compromise in order to avoid harm to the body politic.
This reasonable, big-picture approach has been echoed by none other than President Isaac Herzog, himself a former prominent politician and Labor party leader who has risen to place the welfare of his society as his highest concern. He has both validated the justification of the reform proposals and has called for discussions and compromise.
For his statesmanlike act, he has been likened to Neville Chamberlain and condemned for surrendering by the opposition.
There is a profound need to address the 28-year revolution of the Supreme Court that has brought us to the current crisis. Those seeking redress have one eye on the substance of the proposals to achieve that redress and the other on the larger society in order to make sure that there is no pyrrhic victory, no battle won yet war lost.
Sadly, the opposition does not have the same solicitude for the larger society. It just wants to prevail. These starkly different attitudes should in and of themselves shine a bright light on the need for and the wisdom of reform.
The writer is the chairman of the board of Im Tirtzu and a director of B’yadenu and the Israel Independence Fund.