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By Jonathan S. Tobin
(JULY 26, 2023 / JNS) For American Jewish liberals and the legacy organizations they dominate, the impulse to take sides in a debate that is polarizing Israeli politics was irresistible. So, it was unsurprising, if disappointing, to see with what eagerness they weighed in on this week’s Knesset vote on the first part of the judicial reform package put forward by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The largest and most influential of the groups that have always claimed to speak for American Jewry were not shy about expressing an opinion about what was, strictly speaking, a purely domestic issue. Taking their cues from the secular liberal opposition to Netanyahu that has mobilized street protests in the last six months over the plan, organizations like the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs all expressed their dismay over the vote to prevent the Israeli Supreme Court from striking down laws purely on the basis of what the judges arbitrarily claim is “reasonable,” rather than on a point of law. Other mainstream groups like the Jewish Federations of North America, as well as a host of smaller left-wing organizations, and those representing Reform and Conservative Judaism agreed.
These Jewish groups were expressing their instinctual support for the opposition to Netanyahu, with whom they generally agree on issues relating to security issues. In doing so, they were likely listening to the sentiments of many of their constituents, in addition to following the lead of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, which the majority of non-Orthodox Jews supports. Just as Democrats have rallied around the dubious claim that their opposition to Republicans is a matter of defending democracy, liberal American Jews have swallowed the anti-Bibi resistance talking point about judicial reform being an attempt to destroy Israel’s democracy hook, line and sinker.
This is exactly the sort of virtue-signaling that leading Jewish groups excel in since it will have zero impact on events in Israel and costs them nothing. Aligning themselves against Netanyahu and his right-wing and religious party allies that won the last Israeli election just seven months ago undermines their claim to be supporting democracy. The same is true of their rhetoric about insisting that such legislation be passed only when there’s a broad consensus behind them—a point they’ve never insisted on when it comes to either American or Israeli policies that tilt left. Given that, like President Joe Biden, Jewish Democrats are vocal critics of the far less powerful U.S. Supreme Court for its conservative decisions and the utterly unprincipled nature of their critique of Israeli judicial reform is readily apparent.
But the problem here goes far beyond hypocrisy.
As even some on the left have conceded, for all of the apocalyptic rhetoric that has been voiced recently about democracy being imperiled by judicial reform or the claptrap about Netanyahu setting himself up as an authoritarian dictator, the argument is really about something far more serious than those bogus claims.
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