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Protest against Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv: violation of the separation of powers
Photo: Abir Sultan/EPA
The President is concerned: Because the country is "on the brink of a constitutional and social collapse".
That's what Isaac Herzog said on state television on Sunday evening, one day before Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-right coalition in the Knesset plans to launch its controversial judicial reform.
At the end of the day, Israel could no longer be a liberal democracy: in future, the Supreme Court should no longer be able to overturn laws that contradict constitutional basic laws.
The "reform" also envisages that in future the government alone will decide on the appointment of judges - a blatant violation of the separation of powers.
The startups are leaving
Hundreds of thousands have been protesting against the government's plans for weeks.
There were mass demonstrations and the first warning strikes, writers, ex-generals, doctors, prosecutors, judges and even secret service agents wrote letters of protest.
But now the anger has also reached parts of the economy.
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Economist Eckstein: "The government is completely controlled by people who mostly have a non-liberal, conservative-religious background."
Photo: Eldad Rafaeli
Israel is a prosperous country, the unemployment rate is around four percent, the per capita income is the equivalent of around 41,000 US dollars, which is slightly less than in comparably large and wealthy European countries such as Sweden, Austria or Denmark.
Zvi Eckstein, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Reichman University in Herzliya, says: »This is mainly due to the high-tech sector.
Around 17 percent of GDP comes from this, more than 11.5 percent of the population over 25 years old works in high-tech companies, and the trend is rising«.
Along with Silicon Valley, Israel has long been the world's most important location in terms of digital innovation and revolution.
A little more than half of this branch of industry in Israel is represented by the branches of international tech companies such as Google, Intel and Microsoft.
40 percent are domestic start-ups.
But young inventors in particular need freedom, an open, colorful environment in which to develop their ideas.
And they need the reliability of a democratic system.
Back in January, Einat Guez, head of the cloud-based payroll platform Papaya Global, announced that the company, together with two venture funds, would transfer around a quarter billion US dollars abroad.
The two investors Tal Barnoach and Yorai Fainmesser announced something similar.
From now on they want to bring around 250 million dollars abroad and only process investments through foreign banks.
The cybersecurity company Wiz is taking its assets out of the country and only wants to leave as much money in Israel as is necessary to pay the salaries of its employees.
five other companies
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Tom Livne, head of a »unicorn«, i.e. a start-up worth at least one billion US dollars, announced that all assets and the company would be completely relocated abroad.
He is no longer willing to pay taxes in an undemocratic state.
Politicized courts
“The government is completely controlled by people mostly from non-liberal, conservative religious backgrounds.
Apparently they want to allocate government funding primarily to their clientele," says economist Eckstein.
This refers to settlers and ultra-Orthodox, a very large proportion of whom do not work but study the Holy Scriptures in religious schools.
The working population of the country, above all the entrepreneurs, finances around a third of the non-working, often anti-democratic population with their taxes.
The fact that the ultra-Orthodox do not have to serve in the army, while a number of high-tech entrepreneurs have served in the combat troops or the famous tech unit »8200«, also causes particular tensions within society.
Every year they are also used for reserve exercises.
Experts warn that the government's authoritarian restructuring of the state becomes a problem for entrepreneurs in particular when legal disputes are pending - for example in disputes over property rights, intellectual property or in the case of corruption.
Then they face courts set up by the ultra-right government.
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Researcher Yashiv: "The criminal and corrupt elements in the government could use the justice system to their advantage"
Photo: Picasa
"The criminal and corrupt elements in government could use the judicial system to their advantage," says Eran Yashiv, professor of economics at Tel Aviv University.
In the long term, the loss of democracy and pluralism will drive the most talented out of the country: »Let's assume a high-tech entrepreneur finds out one morning that the left-liberal daily Haaretz no longer exists or that strikes are forbidden.
Then he will quickly look for a way out of the country for his family, his company and his money.« Because the ultra-Orthodox and the national-religious in the government are striving for a clerical-religious state, says Yashiv: a »Jewish Iran«.
