Benjamin Netanyahu, Would-Be Authoritarian
Amid the fog of war, Netanyahu has been pushing ahead with his highly unpopular “judicial reforms,” which would concentrate power in his hands and allow him to undermine free speech and the rule of law in Israel.
Last Wednesday, 20 November, Israel’s leading daily, Haaretz, ran a full-length advertisement on its front page—a highly unusual occurrence. The ad featured a photo of the country’s attorney-general, Gali Baharav-Miara, and was captioned “Continue to uphold the rule of law on behalf of all of us.” It was signed by the “Business Forum,” which consists of the heads of Israel’s 200 leading corporations, including the country’s major banks and insurance, pharmaceutical, technological, and energy companies.
Israel’s business leaders—along with the Israel Bar Association and most of the country’s journalists, academics, and intelligentsia—support Baharav-Miara, against whom Netanyahu and his cabinet have mounted a public campaign with the probable aim of forcing her resignation, or as a prelude to firing her. She has been vilified by cabinet ministers as an “anarchist” and “the most dangerous person to the State of Israel.”
So far, Baharav-Miara has braved the storm and continues to oppose government actions that she believes are designed to weaken or destroy Israel’s democratic infrastructure and the rule of law. But the government appears bent on replacing her with a yes-man or -woman, much as, last month, Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and replaced him with the compliant—though inexperienced and inept—Likud Party apparatchik, Yisrael Katz. Gallant was dismissed because he opposed Netanyahu’s efforts to get the Knesset to pass a law legitimising the continued exemption of the country’s ultra-Orthodox community—who comprise some 15 percent of Israel’s population—from military service.
The military service exemption was first introduced by Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, during the state’s first decade, when the ultra-Orthodox constituted only 1–2 percent of the population. But in 1977, Menachem Begin, the country’s first right-wing prime minister, made the exemption permanent. The IDF is currently engaged in a war on several fronts: it needs every hand on deck. Israeli Jews now overwhelmingly support conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, but Prime Minister Netanyahu remains opposed, since he needs the cooperation of the two ultra-Orthodox political parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, with their combined 18 Knesset seats, to maintain his coalition.
The intended ouster of Baharav-Miara is the lynchpin of efforts initiated by the government soon after it assumed office in December 2022 to introduce what Netanyahu calls “judicial reform,” but which his opponents—and most of the country’s legal experts—view as a political putsch designed to subordinate the judicial system to the executive, thus undermining the country’s traditional system of checks and balances. Given Netanyahu’s tight grip on his cabinet and on the Israeli Knesset, in which his coalition holds 68 of the 120 seats, the subordination of the judiciary to the executive would mean unchecked authoritarian rule, at least until the next general election, which is scheduled for October 2026, and which some commentators believe Netanyahu may try to postpone. All opinion polls since the start of the current Middle East war in October 2023 have consistently suggested that Netanyahu and his coalition are likely to be trounced in the next elections, even though most of the Israeli electorate is right-leaning. Most of the public, including many traditional Likud supporters, blame Netanyahu for Israel’s failure to foresee or properly counter the Hamas assault on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
The prospective judicial reforms were first announced by Justice Minister Yariv Levine in January 2023. Levine first sought to gain control of the Supreme Court by appointing justices and a court president who are friendly to the government. Since then, the government has instituted or tried to institute a swath of measures designed to undermine the judiciary. Last week, the cabinet decided to oust the legal advisers of seven government ministries—a clear sign that it intends to remove legal objections to future ministerial policies or actions. The government has also announced its intention to gain control over the Israel Bar Association.
Netanyahu has been Israel’s prime minister since 2009 (except for the period from June 2021 to November 2022). He was a firm supporter of the independence of the judiciary and the Supreme Court until November 2019, when he was indicted on multiple counts of corruption. Since then, Netanyahu has frequently depicted himself as the victim of a liberal/left-wing conspiracy. His corruption trial opened in May 2020, but the proceedings have unfolded at a snail’s pace, since the Jerusalem District Court has acceded to the defence’s repeated requests for postponements. The outbreaks of Covid and the current war caused further delays.
But matters have now come to a head. Netanyahu’s testimony is scheduled to begin on 10 December. Netanyahu asked the General Security Service (GSS), which is responsible for protecting the prime minister, for a letter stipulating that it is unsafe for him to appear in a courtroom in view of possible Hezbollah or Iranian drone attacks. GSS head Ronen Bar rejected the request. In response, Netanyahu’s aides launched a campaign calling for Bar’s ouster.
The GSS is also conducting an ongoing investigation into the felonious mishandling of documents by the prime minister’s closest aides, apparently at his behest. Months ago, reports surfaced that Netanyahu office staff had destroyed cabinet papers that might damage the prime minister’s reputation. It has now emerged that Netanyahu’s chef de cabinet, Tzachi Braverman, illegally altered a date in the minutes documenting Netanyahu’s actions on the morning of 7 October, while Hamas were invading Israel. It is unclear what Braverman hoped to gain by making the alteration and whether he will be charged with a crime. But in a separate case, Netanyahu’s spokesman on military affairs, Eli Feldstein, and an unnamed IDF soldier have been charged with “endangering state security” by illegally accessing or purloining a top-secret intelligence document, which Netanyahu’s office then leaked to the German Bild tabloid newspaper. The leaked document appeared to show that it was Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas chief in Gaza, and not Netanyahu himself—as many Israelis believe—who was responsible for blocking an agreement to release the hostages abducted by Hamas on 7 October in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the liberation of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. The leaked document appeared to vindicate Netanyahu from accusations by the families of the hostages and by the public that he has either simply not done enough to obtain their release or has even actively blocked a hostage deal.
The case of the leaked document was initially pursued by the GSS at the behest of the IDF and, later, by the GSS jointly with the police. When the affair first hit the newspapers in October, Netanyahu initially claimed that Feldstein had never worked for him. But last week, the prime minister reversed course, calling Feldstein a “true patriot” and accusing the IDF high command, the police, the state prosecutor’s office and the GSS of persecuting him and subverting the war effort. Meanwhile, of course, he has been quick to take credit for the IDF’s recent battlefield successes.
Back in 2023, before the current war began, the “judicial reform” campaign was challenged by mass demonstrations the likes of which Israel had never seen, culminating in March 2023 with a speech in which Defence Minister Gallant, a Likud party member, decried the “reform” effort. When Netanyahu responded by proclaiming his intention to fire Gallant, tens of thousands of people flooded Tel Aviv’s main thoroughfares in protest. Netanyahu backed down and the campaign was suspended.
Then the war began. First, Hamas attacked on 7 October and then the war expanded to the Lebanese border when Hezbollah began rocketing Israel. Inside Israel itself, there was an upsurge of terrorist attacks by West Bank Palestinians and, occasionally, by Israeli Arabs. With all their energies focused on the war, the government’s “judicial reforms” were initially sidelined. But over the months that followed, the fog of war provided cover as the government began to subvert the rule of law on various levels.
When he constituted his coalition government at the end of 2022, Netanyahu gave two extreme right-wingers control of vital ministries: Itamar Ben-Gvir was made Minister of National Security, which gave him control of the police, and Bezalel Smotrich was appointed Finance Minister, with additional responsibility for the settlement enterprise in the West Bank. The two men allowed—and perhaps quietly encouraged—West Bank settlers to harass and terrorise their Arab neighbours: killing farmers and burning their homes—sometimes in response to Arab terrorist attacks—and preventing the Palestinians from farming their lands and harvesting their vital olive crop. For Ben-Gvir and Smotrich—and for the settlers—these activities furthered the ultimate goal of “Judaising” the territory and pushing out its Arab inhabitants. Meanwhile, the police and IDF occupation forces focused on preventing anti-Jewish terrorism and turned a blind eye to settler violence. Since the start of the current war, Israel has barred West Bank Arabs from crossing into the country for work and that, coupled with the settlers’ efforts to subvert Palestinian agriculture, have exacerbated the Palestinians’ economic woes.
In the past, the GSS would occasionally identify settlers who had been responsible for vicious crimes and the IDF would imprison them on the strength of administrative detention warrants—that is, without a trial, on the authorisation of a judge. In one of his first acts as the new defence minister, Yisrael Katz announced that he will no longer issue such orders against Jews—meaning that they will henceforth only be used against Arabs, thousands of whom are already detained in Israeli prisons under such orders. The Supreme Court may eventually force Katz to rescind this order. But either way, conditions for detainees of the Israeli prison system—which is also under Ben-Gvir’s control—remain appalling, having worsened considerably since the start of the war. Arab and Gazan prisoners are subjected to overcrowding, beatings, and torture. The inmates are deprived of adequate medical care and the press has reported occasional violent deaths in custody.
Benny Morris
In Israel proper, surveillance of the country’s Arab citizens by the police and Shin Bet has intensified since 7 October. Dozens of Arabs have been briefly detained, and a few dozen have been tried and fined or jailed for “incitement” or alleged support for Hamas. The freedom of expression of Israel’s Arabs has been severely curtailed. The government clampdown has also extended to dissent in general. Some Jewish protesters have been beaten by police and many have been arrested, usually on the basis of false allegations—though most have been freed almost immediately by the courts, without charges ever being filed. Police have also prevented or dispersed demonstrations by Israeli Arabs in Haifa—a mixed Jewish-Arab city—in sympathy with Gaza’s suffering population.
The police are now trying to institute changes to the definition of “incitement” in Israel’s anti-terrorism law that would give them wider powers. Last week, the Knesset passed a law empowering Education Minister Yoav Kisch, one of Netanyahu’s most loyal aides, to cut government subsidies to schools that permit “identification with terrorism” and the ministry’s director-general can now fire teachers, without warning, for “identifying with a terrorist act” or “encouraging terrorist acts.” In addition, a bill allowing senior police officers to ask district court judges to break into personal computers and phones has passed a first reading.
There has also been some censorship of anti-Zionist films. In 2002, the Supreme Court over-ruled government efforts to prohibit the showing of Jenin, Jenin, a documentary directed by an Israeli Arab, which falsely alleges that IDF troops massacred civilians in the Jenin refugee camp during the Second Intifada. But in recent weeks, the government banned the screening of two documentaries: Lydda and 1948—to Remember and to Forget, which deal in part with Israeli massacres of Palestinians during the 1948 War. (Earlier this week, the government lifted the ban on 1948—to Remember and to Forget, but it is not clear whether it will be broadcast by the state-run TV Corporation Channel 11, as originally planned.)
Over the past year, Ben-Gvir has either dictated or interfered with the appointments of senior police officers and has tried to influence various politically-tinged investigations from behind the scenes. Opposition Knesset members accuse him of having “politicised” the police force. Last week, Baharav-Miara formally notified Netanyahu that if Ben-Gvir persists in this course, the prime minister must fire him.
In recent weeks, Levine has increased his efforts to “reform” the committee that selects the country’s judges, including Supreme Court justices, to allow Netanyahu control over the judiciary. Such control would help the prime minister defeat the corruption charges he faces. For example, if convicted, this could be overturned on appeal by a friendly Supreme Court. Levine has so far managed to prevent a liberal judge from being elected to the Supreme Court presidency.
All this bears on Netanyahu’s fortunes in another way, too. By law, state commissions of inquiry—the country’s most powerful investigative tool—are appointed by the Supreme Court president and chaired by Supreme Court justices. According to opinion polls, Israelis overwhelmingly want a commission of inquiry to be established to investigate the circumstances leading up to and during the horrific events of 7 October, when Hamas gunmen slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages in the worst disaster in Israel’s history. Such a commission would be completely independent of the government and would likely conclude that Netanyahu was chiefly to blame and recommend his resignation. Previous inquiry commissions have resulted in the ouster of Defence Minister Ariel Sharon following the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and indirectly led to the fall of Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defence Minister Moshe Dayan after the 1973 War.
For the past 14 months, Netanyahu has fended off demands for the establishment of such a commission. Indeed, over the past few weeks, the government has begun formulating a new law that would call for an alternative investigative commission headed by political appointees. One clause currently under discussion would specifically bar the establishment of a state commission of inquiry—though it seems unlikely that this provision will make it into law. Netanyahu has consistently declined to accept responsibility for 7 October, and has often stated that the IDF generals, including Chief of General Staff Hertzi Halevi, and GSS Head Ronen Bar, were responsible both for the intelligence failure prior to 7 October and for the IDF’s dismal performance on that day. Most Israelis believe that Netanyahu will fire both men as soon as Baharav-Miara—whose husband is an ex-GSS officer—has been removed from office.
The International Criminal Court’s decision of last week to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war in Gaza has worked in Netanyahu’s favour in Israeli public opinion, creating a rally-round-the-flag effect. The Israeli public sees the warrants as discriminatory and even antisemitic—Netanyahu has called himself “the new Dreyfus”—and interprets them as directed against Israel in general. People here also fear that the ICC may issue secret arrest warrants against a host of other Israeli officers and officials.
Yet the government’s “judicial reform” efforts have probably influenced the ICC’s actions. Some legal experts have suggested that the government’s campaign to undermine the judiciary and fire Baharav-Miara eased the path for the ICC judges to issue the arrest warrants by allowing them to argue that the weakened Israeli judiciary is now incapable of bringing Israeli war criminals to book. Similarly, by preventing the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, Netanyahu has bolstered the ICC’s argument that only a foreign organisation can be trusted to cleanse the Israeli Augean stables. Paradoxically, however, Baharav-Miara herself has joined in the general Israeli condemnation of the ICC’s arrest warrants.
