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Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Research & Special Projects, Liz Berney, Esq. released the following statement:
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is deeply disappointed by ceremonial Israeli President Isaac Herzog for his Orwellian speech on March 15, 2023, falsely claiming to offer a “golden mean” “compromise” – while impliedly threatening “blood in the streets” and actually offering a partisan one-sided far-left proposal that perpetuates the Israeli Supreme Court’s self-selection and dominant, intrusive, undemocratic power over the entire Israeli government, the entire nation and her security.
Wrongly, Herzog mislabeled his far-left undemocratic position as the “people’s framework,” and claimed that his plan would protect the people “from the power of the government.” In fact, the real “people’s framework” is the judicial reforms proposed by the officials whom the Israeli people voted for. And the entity that the people need protection from is the all-powerful Israeli Supreme Court which blithely ignores the law in order to throw Jews out of their homes; allow antisemitic BDS activists to enter the country; tie the hands of Israel’s defenders; give away Israeli maritime territory and gas field to Hezbollah’s control without a required Knesset vote; and allow terrorists to continue to use condemned roadside building to shoot at and kill Jewish women and children.
The Israeli presidency is a ceremonial role. Israeli presidents are supposed to remain neutral and out of the political fray, and to put aside their political allegiances (such as Herzog’s former chairmanship of the left wing Labor party). Herzog nonetheless inserted himself into the judicial reform issue, condemning the elected government’s proposals and insisting that they “must pass from this earth,” and urging “compromise” – meaning, watering down the elected government’s reasonable and legitimate judicial reform proposals.
In fact, the government’s reasonable proposals do not go far enough in putting an end to the Israeli Supreme Court’s control over the selection of judges and overreaching, dangerous, undemocratic control over the entire government and country. (See, e.g., “Netanyahu’s Judicial Reform Doesn’t Go Far Enough,” by former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, WSJ, Feb. 26, 2023; and “Israeli Judicial Reforms Are Good for Democracy and Rule of Law,” by Morton A. Klein and Elizabeth Berney, Esq., Jerusalem Post, Feb. 13, 2023.)
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