Was in Israel auf dem Spiel steht

Aus einem sehr lesenswerten Editorial des Herausgebers der "Times of Israel" über die Folger der sogenannten Reformen, die die neue Regierung plant:

The trouble is that the ultra-experienced, super-smart Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs no advice from anyone on reasonable terms for judicial reform. If a constructive adjustment of the sensitive separation of powers between the executive branch and the judiciary were the goal, he would not have appointed Yariv Levin as his justice minister, propelled Levin into the spotlight six days after his coalition took office to present a long-prepared judicial scorched-earth program, and made sure the legislation is being sped through committee and into the plenum to rapidly become law.

What’s breathtaking about the package is the sheer overkill. The various pieces of submitted and envisaged legislation destroy almost every means for our courts to protect any and all Israeli citizens from almost any abuse by the elected majority at least six times over. (...)

Any single one of these changes, as advanced in their current form, would be deeply problematic. Together, they add up to a kind of constitutional coup, an abandonment of Israel’s foundational democratic values, a revolution in the way Israel is to be governed.

Once the legal barriers are cleared away, self-evidently the abuse will follow. Two coalition agreements already seek the legalizing of discrimination based on religious belief. Several coalition parties are deeply committed to the annexation of the West Bank, the biblical Judea and Samaria, with no provision for equal rights for non-Jews there. Jumping the gun, Shas last week presented then hurriedly withdrew legislation criminalizing mixed-gender prayer and immodest dress in the entire Western Wall area. Fellow coalition party Otzma Yehudit wants the ban on racists running for Knesset lifted — lifted, that is, for Jewish racists. A bill long in the works would restrict the right to demonstrate.

Needless to say, any one of a multitude of gambits would enable criminals to hold ministerial office. Oh, and the termination of the trial of a serving prime minister.