Opinion When there is nothing to say, raise your voice Israel today

You know it: someone is arguing, and his arguments are silenced.

He stiffens, then raises his voice.

Sometimes he even raises his hands.

We are all experiencing this, or perhaps we are on our way to experiencing it, in the public discourse on Justice Minister Yariv Levin's moderate plan to democratize relations between the authorities in Israel.

The followers of the sovereignty of the judges instead of the sovereignty of the people did not even enter the metaphorical debate room (and sometimes the real one - they did not enter the room of the Constitution Committee in the Knesset).

They shout slogans, not make arguments.

Emotionally distracting and not trying to deal with the claims of their opponents.

We got caught up in a discussion of rules that one of the parties reduced to a very poor level of discourse.

The responsibility for this situation is attributed almost entirely to the duty of those whose job it is to mediate these difficult issues to the public: the media and academia.

It is a shame for the media to expand the speech - almost all of it is a wasteland of superficial manipulations, ignorance, the absence of an intellectual or value horizon.

But the situation is not better on the front of academics in the humanities and social sciences, especially historians, political scientists, philosophers and jurists.

The great majority of academic jurists show an incredible laxity of thought in everything that is not the profession of law in its narrow sense, that is - in the philosophical-political and ethical basis of constitutional law.

Senior officials among them deny, for example, the fact that the regime that prevails here is a parliamentary democracy, or reason with an authoritarian frown and with zero arguments why judges are allowed here to cancel the results of elections, prevent huge publics from choosing their representatives, enact a constitution or determine government policy.

The unfortunate situation of the community of academic jurists is such that there is no damage to the professional status of any of them who make such lame "claims".

So if, unfortunately, most jurists are not interlocutors - what about political thinkers in political science, political philosophers (a rare phenomenon in our country) and political historians?

They too, almost all of them, did not enter the metaphorical discussion room at all.

A man like Prof. Shlomo Avineri, a top expert in political thought and for many years one of the main spokesmen of the Zionist labor movement, warned a long time ago about what he called "Begzocracy", and now he is silent. Perhaps he is afraid that his words at that time will now be useful to his political opponents, led by Netanyahu? Such an account. With few exceptions, almost all political science in Israel has now been presented as an empty vessel, and with it the profession that is almost extinct here: political philosophy. In history, the situation is not much better.

And when there is nothing to say, they raise their voices.

This is the nature of the mass petitions sweeping the faculty members in universities.

This herd crowding is worrying in itself, in its opaque and discussion-free unity.

This is a herd prone to McCarthyist predation, and he who has no arguments is an especially prone bull.

In such an atmosphere, there is no room for any agreement between the parties, and the responsibility for this rests with the one who shouts and does not speak logically.

Part of the feeling of being robbed that befell those who were in the minority after the last elections, is expressed in claims against regime change "on the basis of one party".

Indeed, our political tradition requires an attempt to reach an agreement before making a decision.

But it should be remembered that the same tradition was violated in Barak's coup d'état.

His coup was carried out by the decision of a few judges and "in a one-party stand", without significant discussion.

Barak and his followers grossly violated the "politics of consent", which was established here from the beginning of Zionism and the Yishuv and throughout decades of statehood.

Barak's coup was, therefore, a one-sided "politics of decision", but for supporters of the democratization initiated by Levin - this is no excuse to follow Barak's ways.

We must debate in a good spirit with our fellow citizens who are afraid, and allow them to influence - on the condition that the results of the elections are respected, and with them the desire of the majority for a fundamental change.

We will consider arguments, not screams, and we will not shy away from a decision.

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