The Supreme Court’s interference in all parts of Israeli life is not theoretical. It’s real and it’s dangerous. We will show its disastrous outcomes.
In January 2023, the Netanyahu Government began moving forward on a landmark judicial reform. The need was clear: Israel’s Supreme Court had usurped so much power that the legislative branch, the Knesset, was becoming almost irrelevant. Laws that had a chance of being struck down by the court were not even brought to a vote. At other times, the Knesset would pass laws, which if controversial to the courts would be struck down partially, completely, or sent back to the Knesset for correction.
The judicial reform legislation was met with a highly funded and well-planned protest apparatus. Protest organizers had already hatched the plan before the government took office, and they were ready to strike once the judicial reform legislation began hearings in the Knesset. Groups within the Air Force, the intelligence community, the business community, and the high-tech community brought a level of threats to the Israeli government not previously seen. The continued protests, and vicious threats by so many in positions of power, led some to wonder whether the judicial reform was really worth the fight.
Many were well aware of the Supreme Court’s overreach. However, they began to wonder if the whole fight was merely academic. Do the Supreme Court’s decisions really affect our day-to-day lives? Obviously, on ideological issues like Judea and Samaria, the overreach was clear, but perhaps for the sake of peace amongst the citizens, it would be appropriate to halt the judicial reform legislation.
Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7th put the nail in the coffin of the judicial reform legislation for the near future, and Israel’s Spureme Court buried it for good, as it canceled the reasonableness clause that the Knesset had passed only a few months ago.
The Supreme Court’s interference in all parts of Israeli life is not theoretical, nor is it academic. It’s real and it’s dangerous. In our judicial overreach series, we will highlight the disastrous outcomes of the Supreme Court’s usurpation of power on Israeli life. Because the outreach is so pervasive, weekly events in Israeli life will provide abundant material for this.
