Israeli democracy: what does the right wing want?

after almost 30 weeks of protest Israel is facing the worst political crisis in the nation's 75-year history hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting against fundamental changes to the country's democracy the world's Parliament has voted and approved change a crucial aspect of the country's Judicial System the new law will limit the power of Supreme Court judges right-wing Coalition has voted to remove one of the main checks and balances on power critics say the bill is a threat to democracy but many Israelis feared the curtailing of the Supreme Court is only laying the groundwork for more radical plans so what exactly does netanyahu's government want to achieve thank you [Music] on July 24 the government pushed through the first part of its controversial judicial reform package this law removed the power of the Supreme Court to challenge government decisions on the basis of whether or not they're reasonable foreign [Music] there's no second house to oversee the decisions of the knesset of the parliament so the Supreme Court is an incredibly important check on the decisions made by any one single government this law on the reasonableness challenge is just the first part of a wider package of judicial reforms one of the other really important ones that the government wants to enact is to change the way that Supreme Court Justices are appointed the government wants to be able to appoint them which would allow them to stack the court with people very sympathetic to their own political views [Music] one of the new things to emerge from the vote is that Netanyahu the Prime Minister looked weak he was seen in the kinetic trying to persuade some of his allies to delay the vote which might have given them a chance to come to some kind of compromise but his allies refused that and insisted on having the vote on Monday that in turn raises a lot of concerns about what those allies want to do with the power that they now hold [Music] this reform gives government decisions a far greater degree of immunity from challenges from the Supreme Court one question is whether the government would like to replace the current attorney general with someone who might be more sympathetic for example to dropping the corruption charges that the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing charges which he strenuously denies that would be a controversial decision but the Supreme Court would no longer be able to challenge that on the basis of whether or not it's a reasonable one in the longer term people are worried that this reform and the other judicial reforms are clearing the way for a government that includes a variety of ultra-nationalists and Ultra religious groups to push their policies through whether that be in relation to the Palestinians in relation to the role of religion in Israel's daily life or other institutions as part of Israel's democracy one of the immediate concerns is about the support for settlers in the West Bank from parties within the government we've seen them speaking in support of the kind of violent vigilantism that has been happening in the West Bank recently and the concern is that these legal reforms will clear the way for those who want to escalate this [Music] I'm Josie de la The Economist Middle East Editor to read more of our coverage of Israel please click on the link thank you for watching and don't forget to subscribe [Music]

Channel: The Economist

Views: 59,933

Keywords: israel, palestine, tel aviv, protest, news, benyamin netanyahu, constitution, crisis, The Economist, Economist, Economist Films, Economist Videos, Politics, News, short-documentary

Id: lrsbtj2eAJg

Length: 4min 22sec (262 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023