Who here is predatory
For the first time it seems that the right's intellectual firepower is greater.
The Ecclesiastical Forum is an example of a solid conservative thought base, therefore it is under demonization attack
Don't take them at their word, but it seems that Israeli society has reached a tipping point.
Against the background of the struggle to pass the legal reform, for the first time it is clearly seen that the intellectual firepower of the right is greater than that of the left and the establishment.
The numbers are still on the left and the establishment, but the arguments and theoretical infrastructure of the hundreds of academics from all fields who signed against the reform are weaker.
faded
How to say, not convincing.
And on the side of the government stands a sufficient number of intellectuals, who provide the convincing theoretical background, and what is more important - the justice and the sense of justice and the solid moral foundation.
"I believe that in the end, the articles of the legal reform will pass. There will be some amendments along the way, and it will pass with the broad support of more than 64 members of the Knesset," Prof. Moshe Kopel, who heads the Ecclesiastical Forum, told me this week.
"Perhaps even a majority of 70 members of the Knesset. If this happens, it will be excellent. But if it is a struggle of power all the way, then the reform will pass in 64 MKs.
This is much more than the 32 votes that passed the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom."
Ecclesiastes does provide a solid intellectual basis for the right, and this is probably what worries the propagandists of the left a lot.
This is the reason for the wave of demonization done to the Ecclesiastical Forum in recent times.
The attacks were such that "Haaretz" thought for a moment that the Ecclesiastical Forum was panicked.
That's what the title said.
"These are nonsense," Koppel says.
"Eitan Avriel has been hot on us for five years because we are not socialists, so he jumps on all kinds of realities. I participated in a panel, and I said there that I was ready to talk and compromise in order to get wider support. But I would say that about any issue in the world. So this speech On negotiation and compromise, he made him make an item out of it."
What do you say about Blinken, who came and said that a consensus should be reached on such an issue?
"A good friend who came to give good advice," he says with a sort of wink between the words.
"Thank you very much for the advice. I'm not excited. Our opponents don't manage to get a majority in the elections, so they turn to outside sources."
Prof. Koppel says that he talks a lot with opponents and those who take a position of opposition to the reform, "and I ask these people what section they consider to be the end of democracy. No one knows how to say. At most they say, the section on the increase. Or they say, increase by 61 MKs It's too little.
So they start haggling over how many Knesset members are needed to overcome."
It is known that Gideon Sa'ar supports the increase with 65 MKs, and so does Ayelet Shaked. Lieberman said 70. Naftali Bennett appeared in the so-called "Church Emmanuel" on Fifth Avenue. This is the synagogue of Ramat Aviv III, not the synagogue of Har Nof Or Neve Ya'akov exactly. Bennett said there that he smells a compromise. There will be a reform, but they will reach a compromise. The question, of course, is about what and with whom. Not with Ehud Barak and Yuval Diskin. Since both on the right, among the biggest supporters of the reform, and on the left there is opposition As for the overcoming clause - this is the clause that gets them the clause more than anything else, there is a reasonable possibility that the government will give up on this point. Legal experts who know the legal establishment, including Aharon Barak and President Hayut, claimed that what bothers them the most is the change in the composition of the committee for the appointment of judges, but on that There will be no compromise.
In the book "Derech Begin", which has just been released as if by invitation, there is an explicit position of Menachem Begin as the leader of "Harot", which strongly supports the appointment system known to this day.
Begin expressed his position when Chaim Cohen was a legal advisor, in 1953.
To this Kopel says, "This was before the era of judicial activism. Therefore, regarding his position today - he is no longer with us - I am only guessing... he has his own ways."
"We influence so they attack us."
Prof. Kopel, photo: Dodi Vaknin
A few years ago I was walking around the corridors of the Ecclesiastical Forum, and then I saw people from the Yishuv, accepted in society, showing their presence there.
For example, Zvika Hauser or Yoaz Handel.
Tzipi Livni appeared there.
Ayelet Shaked.
Prof. Kopel recalled that there was some kind of conference where, without any special invitation, the late Supreme President Meir Shamgar was seen sitting in the first rows.
Come to see and listen, and maybe make his comments.
I asked Kopel what he says about the claim that the "legal revolution" is being run at a crazy pace.
"What a crazy pace! The discussions in the Constitution Committee just started, and it will continue until the end of the winter session. They simply don't want the reform, so they say it will be done in a predatory way. Check who signs the letters and the petitions. None of them voted for any party from the coalition . There is no connection between the articles of the reform and the economy. When they shout 'the end of democracy,' they are actually inviting the investors and entrepreneurs to withdraw their investments."
It is not the government and the reform that endanger the economy, but the businessmen who initiate sabotage in the economy.
"Yair Lapid says: They will do business in Singapore. Nothing bothers them in Singapore? It's a semi-dictatorship. There is no independence of the judicial system there. Nor in China."
Do the attacks on Ecclesiastes bother you?
"We influence and then we are attacked. OK. We will go through that too. If the alternative is that we will not influence and they will not attack, I prefer to influence and accept the attacks."
It is a fact that there was a strong protest and allegations of predation. The claims I hear are that this is a "regime legal revolution", and not a reform. If there was legal reform, they would support it.
"When they decide they want to give up territorial water, in a transitional government, within one week, right before the elections - this is not predation. It is important to do it now. But in the case of the reform,
When there are open discussions on the issue for months and you want to move it within three months - then this is rapacity.
So they are serious and we are not serious.
I really like these guys who say 'I'm for reform, but not now.
And not such a reform.
So when do you want to?
They will never say that.
And what reform?
also not.
Most things aren't even a revolution.
The fact that the ombudsmen cannot issue orders to the prime minister, is this a revolution? Or that the judges cannot prevent the appointment of a chief of staff or the head of the Shin Bet. This is simply a return to sanity. There cannot be a situation where the reasonableness clause would allow them to replace the judgment of a minister or the government.
"There are a few who behind the curtain of ignorance will say that they are in favor of the right balances and brakes. Not yours, but correct balances. That is, assuming you don't know that behind the glasses the judges think like you, then the judgment of reasonableness? No. They do not agree to transfer the judgment to the judges. The legal advisor : Will he run the country? No. In the end it turns out that they agree with you in principle, but in practice they oppose the reform because 'the judges look like me, I understand them. We are from the same village', and they know that the reform will change this situation."
The collapse as a method
The idea of negative economic activity to the point of collapsing the economy, as a basis for emergency opposition action, is not new in Israel;
The model was invented in response to the '77 upheaval
In an article from about two and a half years ago, "The Fragility of Liberal Democracy", Dr. Yoel Fishman points out the democracies in the USA, the UK and Israel as being under attack.
The time that has passed since then has proven that the attack from within has put the important democratic regimes in the West into a state of partial dysfunction.
In Israel there is a transition from the black shirt riots in front of Balfour Street and at crossroads during the Corona epidemic, to the protest riots against the legal reform.
On the one hand, a legal, bureaucratic, gradual reform, and on the other, a revolutionary action by the masses, who at this stage are only taking over important axes and central intersections in Tel Aviv and partially in Jerusalem.
The ambition of some of the leaders of the political warfare was to degenerate the situation into violence.
It hasn't really happened yet.
The question is what is the goal of the organizers of the riots.
As I recall, at the beginning of the activity nearly a month ago, the new Israel Fund made a public announcement for the first time and was given responsibility for organizing the various operations.
Liberal democracy collapsed in the early 1930s in Germany and led to the rise of Hitler as a result of cooperation between the National Socialists and the Communist Bolsheviks.
There is no economic crisis in Israel.
The economy has become a stabilizing factor.
It is very evident that a large group of economists, businessmen and groups of "high-tech" are trying, through extreme announcements, to undermine Israel's economy.
It's not the reforms that hurt the economy, but the economists and CEOs, with their baseless statements, are trying to hurt the economy. Businessmen who met with American Ambassador Naides heard from him at first that he didn't understand how the reform was hurting the economy. What's the connection? After all, this is a Jewish American Democrat who understands something in a regime structure that establishes democracy.
"A good friend who came to give good advice," says Moshe Kopel about Blinken, with a kind of wink between the words.
"Thank you very much for the advice. I am not excited. Our opponents do not manage to get a majority in the elections, so they turn to outside sources"
But there is probably a goal to undermine the economy, and it seems that in this matter the CEOs and economists have positioned themselves as useful idiots. The new guru of the war against the Viktor Orban-style neo-dictators is Gurayev. Guy Rolnik relied on him when he presented a theory that was the opposite of reality regarding the intentions of Netanyahu and Rival Levin. Guraev and Treisman's 2015 theory is that modern dictators don't use force and violence but propaganda. They also win elections. What does this mean? Contrary to Guraev and Rolnik's view, this places Orban on the democratic spectrum - maybe not in a good place - but part of democracy, and not on the dictatorial continuum .
In any case, it is worth paying attention to Gurayev-Treisman's instructions: "Instead of building a new order, such regimes model democracy, hold elections in which they guarantee their victory in advance, bribe and censor the private press instead of eliminating it, and replace the ideology with some kind of anti-Western resentment."
The urbanites also co-opt the elites, and "such dictators survive as long as the economic shocks are not too great."
What is happening in Israel is that right-wing writers are also aligning themselves with the establishment and the left against the Netanyahu government, and this is for fear of harming the big businesses, negative publications on social media and the law enforcement system.
At the time, one of the eight members of the Labor Party said in a joint interview with "Haaretz" that only a severe security catastrophe or an economic catastrophe would allow the left to return to power.
By implication, he and his friends were drawn to the vision of the catastrophe.
Utopian stories were also written about the peace that comes after a missile catastrophe and tens of thousands of dead.
It is strange that a considerable part of the state's top officials, economists and even business owners, would strive to collapse the Israeli economy - in light of what they see as the end of democracy.
A kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
At the time, one of the eight members of the Labor Party said in a joint interview with "Haaretz" that only a severe security or economic catastrophe would allow the left to return to power.
By implication, he and his friends were drawn to the vision of the catastrophe
The idea of negative economic activity as a focus for emergency opposition action is not new in Israel.
Few today remember the name Jacob Levinson.
The affair that led to his suicide in 1984 raised a murmur of speculation regarding the transfer of the Histadrut's assets abroad to Israel following Likud's rise to power in 1977.
As far as I know this has never been proven, but in the biography written by Aryeh Avneri about Levinson, "Character Assassination" (1985), he gives part of the story.
The very fact that Bank Hapoalim's actions in the late 1970s and early 1980s vis-a-vis the company "Ampel" founded by Levinson in the USA, to the initiative of transferring assets from the country to abroad, teaches a great deal.
In a report written on Ampel in the days of Simcha Erlich, "a one-way route was established for the flow of profits to Ampel, when the way back to Israel through dividend receipts was blocked."
And Avneri interprets: "In human terms, these words mean that an unknown hand takes care of transferring Bank Hapoalim's assets from the country to abroad, from Israeli ownership to some foreign ownership." The journalist Yair Kotler quoted Simcha Erlich, who was deputy prime minister in the Begin days, that " There is a document requiring examination that financial institutions of the workers' company transferred huge sums as investments abroad without compensation..." Kibbutz funds planned to purchase a bank in Chicago.
Another way to spend capital in those years.
The political state of mind in the labor movement was such that after the political upheaval there was an even greater fear of a Likud victory under the leadership of David Levy in the Histadrut elections.
The takeover of the Histadrut was more frightening than the government led by Begin.
The Histadrut was then considered the center of control in the country.
Today the Histadrut is little more than a joke.
What resembles that parallel government today is the High Court.
Gurayev and Treisman's theory was correct in Begin's time, although Begin was definitely not a dictator but a populist democratic leader.
The economic shocks, along with the First Lebanon War, overthrew his rule.
Today Israel is in a different world economically and it enjoys stability and resilience.
The absurdity, which would not have been accepted by the Likud leaders in those days, is that even just having an account in shekels in 2023 is better than buying dollars or investing in the stock market.
Aura of Zionists
Tzvi Zameret had a criticism of the court, and it was closely related to his social perception.
"It is not possible for a judge to determine the character of Jerusalem," he told me
Zvi Tzameret, who died this week and was laid to rest in the cemetery in Modiin, had very clear views on the issue of the Supreme Court.
His encounter was within the framework of the Top Commission, which dealt with the Bar-Ilan road, and his experience in front of the High Court was very difficult. At the end of 2000, nearly 23 years ago, the High Court had already become a national problem, and as part of a profile article on Aharon Barak in First source" I also spoke with Zvi Tzameret.
"If our society demands objectivity and correcting crookedness, then there should be a super body that is not only made up of judges, but also corrects judges," he told me.
The late Prof. Zvi Tzameret, photo: Uri Lentz
"The fact is that the High Court headed by (Barak) has become a political player.
He has a clear tendency to make everything related to the concept of justice.
Sometimes things are accepted by one voice.
For example, the definition of a spouse.
impossible.
It's not possible!" he said, and I can even from the distance of the years hear the sound of protest in his so recognizable voice. "How is it possible that Ila Proccia will determine the character of Jerusalem?!
That the same judge who claimed that Saraa is not a Jewish community will determine the whole issue of shopping centers on Shabbat?
It is not possible for one judge, with all due respect to his academic education, to decide such significant matters related to society in Israel.
Another, very dangerous situation has arisen here.
Barak, following his dangerous activism and his sharp war in a certain direction, provokes extremism on the other side - which in my opinion is no less dangerous.
"There is a very big problem in Israeli society, that we work with extreme pendulum reactions, and the pendulum will always come to the other side. There is nothing more dangerous than a democracy without a reliable judicial authority. This is very troubling to me. The system is being undermined from below. The role of the Supreme Court should be to decide small disputes , and not to create big disputes."
Zvi Tzameret was proud of his Nahalai background and membership in Kibbutz Ha'on on the Sea of Galilee under the Syrian shelling.
Then Kiryat Shmona, Sde Boker, Yeruham.
I see him walking with a halo on his head that simply says: "Zionist"
Tzameret felt that the Supreme Court is exercising its concept of justice in very certain places, and this justice comes into play only in such areas that create adverse discrimination between different groups in the public, usually in favor of Ramat Aviv C and to the detriment of Kiryat Malachi. "This is the type of thing that people turn to the High Court They don't live them, and they don't care. They don't want the High Court to enter their home."
The rain, sorry for all this symbolism, started during the funeral in Modi'in when it was already dark.
I tried, but I couldn't quite remember when and how exactly I met Zvi Tzameret.
It must be somewhere in the late 90s.
At the time, I was working on the book "We lost everything that was precious..." and Zvi - I never got used to calling him Zvika - opened up to me a treasure trove of documents from the Stalinist days of the PMF and kibbutz left.
Dusty protocols, photographs of moldy articles from "Aal Hamishmer", books that no one opened except him (and me).
His parents came from the town of Klossowa in Poland, where the pioneer kibbutz was established that injected a very specific DNA into the united kibbutz. Klossowa is a general patrol of socialist Zionism, he used to say.
He spent several years as a child in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel and carried wounds from there.
He was proud of his Nahlai background and membership in Kibbutz Ha'on on the Sea of Galilee under the Syrian shelling.
Then Kiryat Shmona, Sde Boker, Yeruham.
I see him walking with a halo on his head that simply says: "Zionist".
Which is good for the Germans
A "press" that engages in secret recordings of Man Dhu's mother's house, both as a prime minister and as an ordinary citizen, is very close to being a branch of the secret police
A lot of Jiffa's comments were poured over Boaz Bismuth's bill to prohibit the publication of secret recordings without the consent of the other party.
This is an attack on the freedom of the press.
The counter argument sounds seemingly convincing.
Until I heard to my surprise that this is the law in Germany.
You cannot make secret recordings.
point.
This prevents the public use of these recordings, which in Israel support all the media and legal persecutions.
MK Boaz Bismuth, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Why is it like this in Germany?
The one who presented the German matter could not explain, but one can speculate the reason: a nation that experienced the horror of the Gestapo and then the horror of the Stasi, was very anxious for the rights of the individual.
For us it is only a theory.
It's unpleasant to say, but a "press" that deals with secret recordings of Man Dhu's mother's house, whether as a prime minister or an ordinary citizen, is very close to being a branch of the secret police.
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