Analysis
Netanyahu’s failure to grasp anger over Israel
judicial overhaul exposes weaknesses
Bethan
McKernan
in
Jerusalem
Israeli prime minister looks out of touch in his
handling of response to the country’s latest political crisis
Tue 28 Mar
2023 13.55 BST
The Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, kept the country waiting all day, but in
the end, when he finally announced a suspension to the government’s proposed
judicial overhaul, it was a theatrical speech. The 73-year-old compared the
unprecedented rift dividing Israel to the tale of Solomon, who commanded an
infant be cut in half to decide which of two women was its real mother. Try as
he might, however, in this story Netanyahu is not playing the role of the wise
king.
Rather,
Israel’s latest political crisis is once again completely his own doing. Bibi, as
he is widely known, has for now bought some time by delaying implementing the
controversial legislation weakening the power of the supreme court to the
Knesset’s summer session, but the issue is far from resolved.
The prime
minister’s inability to grasp the scale of the public hostility to the
anti-democratic plans, coupled with his struggle to cajole belligerent elements
of his coalition pushing for the changes, has also exposed a weakness that
wasn’t there before.
“This would
never have happened to the old Bibi; he would never have let it get to this
point, where he’s out of control,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a Netanyahu biographer
and columnist at Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record.
“I always
think about Bibi as someone who knows how to read the audience and public
opinion and how to manipulate it. It’s a flabbergasting failure at things he is
usually good at.”
Part of
Netanyahu’s unwillingness to engage with either domestic or international
opposition to the judicial overhaul is because it’s not a burning goal for him.
The changes are being spearheaded by his Likud colleague Yariv Levin, the
justice minister, and the Religious Zionist party MK Simcha Rothman, who chairs
the Knesset’s law and justice committee. Both men have a longstanding, ideological
hatred of Israel’s highest court, which they believe is too powerful and biased
against the right.
While it is
true that the proposals could help Bibi evade a conviction in his ongoing
corruption trial – in which he denies all charges – he does not think the
sweeping proposals are worth betting his career on. He has a personal grudge
against the justice system, and is afraid of going to jail, but this longtime
political survivor knows better than most that there’s more than one way to
skin a cat.
Since
returning to office in late December for his sixth stint as prime minister,
Netanyahu has been on no less than four state visits to European capitals,
viewed by many as a way of escaping the drama at home. That the radical members
of his coalition and the protest movement are taking up so much of the
political and news agenda, rather than topics he cares about, such as Iran,
clearly irritates him.
But after
betraying friends and colleagues in the past, the skilled deal-maker is out of
allies to turn to. It has been widely reported that Bibi spent several weeks
trying to reach a compromise with the opposition, but ditching his unruly
far-right partners and forming a new government without the need for elections
is not an option at the moment. Nobody trusts him, and the public has a
rekindled passion for the democratic process: he is unlikely to fare well if
Israel goes to the polls again soon.
Instead, it
looks like the prime minister will have to continue muddling through, trying to
keep his coalition intact despite the contradictory demands from inside and
outside the Knesset. In just three months, his motley crew of racists and
criminals has already damaged Israel’s economy, sullied its international
reputation, and inflamed tensions with the Palestinians and the wider Arab
world.
If he is
eventually found guilty of corruption, Netanyahu wouldn’t be the first Israeli
leader convicted of a criminal offence. At this point, however, his legacy is
already tainted either way.
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