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By Kobi Erez, ZOA Michigan Executive Director
(JUNE 29, 2022 / JNS) Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government has collapsed and Israel is set to hold its fifth election since 2019. After a year with a government dependent on an anti-Zionist party, recent polls show that the next coalition is likely to be a right-wing one led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli right has promised that their first order of business after elections will be to reform Israel’s Supreme Court. Here’s why reform is so necessary:
Israel’s Supreme Court is by far the most powerful among the Western democracies. Only in Israel do Supreme Court justices elect their own successors. The selection committee consists of three justices, two representatives of the Israel Bar Association and four members of Knesset. A seven-vote majority is needed for an appointment, which makes committee selection impossible without the agreement of at least one Supreme Court justice. This means that the same small group of justices decides year after year and decade after decade who will make Israeli law.
As you might imagine, Supreme Court justices elect other justices who share their agenda. Those qualified individuals whose opinions differ have no chance of serving on the Court. Aharon Barak, a former chief justice, summarized it perfectly: “The Supreme Court is family. You can’t bring someone in from outside the family.” This undemocratic method of selecting justices has resulted in a Court that maintains a left-wing agenda at all costs.
Israelis often say, “Why go vote if the Supreme Court runs the show anyway?” This is because the Court has the power to overturn any decision made by the Knesset, and thus wields power over all aspects of Israeli society. For example, the Court overruled a Knesset decision on the location of Israel’s borders in Judea and Samaria, effectively giving vast amounts of Israeli land to the Palestinian Authority.
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