If, by the end of the tenure of the incoming Israeli government, the judicial system has been weakened beyond recognition, and with it the country’s democratic system, the buck will stop fairly and squarely with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu. Irresponsibly and unscrupulously, he is caving in to the anti-democratic and corrupt demands of his far-right ultra-orthodox coalition partners-to-be, to the detriment of Israel’s future as a liberal democracy and the prospect of living in peace with its neighbors, especially the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s motivation to stay in power is as clear as day. Beyond his misguided belief that there is no one more suitable than him for the job, his main concern is to stop the corruption trial that may well land him in jail. To this end he is prepared to sacrifice the country’s future. For Netanyahu, subordinating the justice system to the will of politicians is all about the means to subvert his trial; for his partners, including some of his own Likud party, it is an ideological stance that necessitates a wilful distortion of the democratic system and the need for checks and balances. Their perception of power is that those who win elections have total control and are within their rights to alter unilaterally the system of governance.

In Israel, and in some other parts of the world, the right deliberately conflates agenda-setting based on the manifesto the parties presented to the electorate during the election campaign with changing the rules of the game and compromising the very system which was the means by which they gained power in the first place. To state the very obvious, although not that obvious to Netanyahu and his political allies, laws, especially those with constitutional weight to them, are there to serve the entire country and transcend any specific government, and even more so to prevent the political system from serving the vested interests of individuals. The shamelessness of the coalition-in-waiting knows no boundaries, and already in order to form the next government they are trampling on all standards of good governance and decency in public life.

As a first act they voted for a new temporary speaker to the Knesset to enable them to pass pieces of legislation that make a mockery of good governance. The first law passed by the new Knesset was designed to alter Israel’s quasi-constitutional basic laws to allow the Shas party’s leader Aryeh Deri to serve in Cabinet despite being recently sentenced to a suspended prison term for tax fraud. The original law banned convicted criminals from serving in government for seven years. To begin with, appointing anyone to government with such a conviction, and a recent one at that, is plainly wrong, and even more so if that person has already served a jail term for corruption, as Deri has — he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in 2000 for  taking $155,000 in bribes while he was interior minister. Ordinary citizens with a similar track record would find it difficult to find any employment at all, let alone a post in which one is trusted with money. Deri has been slated to take charge of two ministries that have huge budgets of many billions of shekels. Worse, a law should never be a personal one, but one that represents a universal principle or code of behavior by which the society would like to live, yet in this case the name of just one person is written all over it.

Another law is aimed at bolstering the power of the far-right National Security Minister-designate Itamar Ben-Gvir over the police, including subordinating Israel’s police chief to the minister, ending for all intents and purposes the independence of the police in initiating and conducting investigations.

Considering that Ben-Gvir himself has previously been convicted of criminal offenses, and that he is a champion of the most extreme elements among the settlers who regularly assault Palestinians and destroy their property, the police will feel a tailwind straight from the minister to step up their abhorrent violent harassment of innocent Palestinian civilians. Add to this a law to allow the transfer of powers over civilian governance in the West Bank to a new head of the Defense Ministry, expected to be Religious Zionist party chief Bezalel Smotrich, who himself is a settler who supports the annexation of the entire West Bank, and one can only expect even more oppressive measures against the Palestinians in the occupied territories which will make their lives impossible.

In an act of pure folly, Ben-Gvir is also advancing legislation that would grant immunity to Israeli soldiers and the Israeli police from investigation or legal action against them for any alleged unlawful behavior during operations and clashes with Palestinians. The first to voice their concerns about this were actually senior members of the security establishment who have pointed out that such a move might send the wrong messages to lower-ranking officers and soldiers, especially those who sympathize with Israel’s ultra-nationalistic-religious far-right. It also removes the pretense of a justice system that deals with soldiers’ crimes against those whose lands Israel has occupied. As a consequence, it will increase the drive for the international community to pursue justice for the Palestinians by indicting Israeli security personnel in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

These bills, and the demand by all members of the incoming coalition for a law giving the government the power to override decisions of the High Court of Justice, which would effectively end the court’s power to strike down legislation and reverse any government decision that would violate people’s fundamental rights as given in Israel’s Basic Laws, are a source of deep concern for the state of Israel’s democracy. The country’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miard, has rightly warned that if this bill is passed it will leave Israel “a democracy in name only.” There are growing voices, including those of senior high-tech figures and other captains of the economy, who are warning that undermining the judiciary or the rights of minorities might have “devastating consequences for the economy in general, and the high-tech industry in particular,” and hence will constitute an existential threat to Israel.

This might be the start of the fightback of the country’s progressive forces in defense of its democracy, and might also mean that such attacks on it would be linked with the ills of the occupation and the blockading of millions of people, but these forces are currently on the back foot. In the meantime, it might be said that the far right is behaving like children in a sweet shop grabbing whatever they can, but this resembles more like a herd of bulls let loose in a china shop. However one looks at it, the resulting damage to Israeli democracy will be irreparable, conflict with the Palestinians will intensify, as will friction with the international community, including the country’s close friends and allies.

  • Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. Twitter: @YMekelberg