The State of Occupation (Israel) is passing through a critical turning point due to the insistence of the government coalition on enacting a series of judicial amendments which would maximise the government’s powers at the expense of the Supreme Court. The ruling coalition was successful in passing the “Reasonableness Law” in the Knesset, limiting the Supreme Court’s power to overturn government and ministerial decisions if deemed “unreasonable”.
These changes weaken democracy and increase the government’s authority at the expense of the judiciary and accountability and takes the country near dictatorial rule.
This brings us back, once again, to the security threat at an extraordinary and uneasy time. There are tensions in the occupied West Bank. The confrontation is going on in Gaza. There are border tensions with Lebanon and Hezbollah, as well as the looming threat of Iran advancing in its nuclear programme.
The current crisis of Israel is due to the basis on which it is established and its identity crisis. Israel needed an interim and moderate identity which is capable of uniting and accommodating Zionist Jews to settle within it, despite their intellectual and cultural differences. However, today, the religious right-wing is gaining strength, benefiting from its majority in the Knesset and disregarding the divergent Zionist components, pushing towards a secular nationalist agenda. This opportune moment entices extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir to strengthen the right-wing rule in both the state and society.
These hasty and divisive transformations will exacerbate societal rifts which were previously latent, as the society was not unified or homogeneous enough.
[by Dr Osama Othman in Syria TV]