WhatsappThis is huge! Absolutely huge!!!
Headline news in Israel:
ISRAEL’S JUSTICE MINISTER ANNOUNCES SWEEPING PLAN FOR JUDICIAL REFORM
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced on Wednesday a far-reaching program for judicial reform, with an emphasis on reining in the Supreme Court.
“I believe that not only the Knesset and the government serve by virtue of the public’s trust, but also the judicial system relies on the trust the public places in it,” Levin said at a press conference at the Knesset.
“The constitutional revolution and the increasing interference of the judiciary in the decisions of the government and in the legislation of the Knesset have degraded the trust in the judicial system to a dangerous low, led to a loss of sovereignty and severe damage to democracy,” Levin added.
“We go to the polls, vote, choose, but time and time again people we didn’t choose decide for us,” he said, reflecting the widespread view among Israeli right-wing voters that the court has expanded its powers to make law, rather than just interpret it.
Folks, this is massive, like truly massive, and the left is going crazy because they have been able to ensure that consecutive right-wing governments never succeeded in implementing right-wing policies because the left knew they could rely on the courts to stop every law, every political appointment, every policy that went against their progressive agenda to weaken Israel as a Jewish state.
Now, this is just an announcement of the planned reform, and there will still be many hurdles to overcome to institute the planned changes, but this is still truly incredible.
But, before I dive deeper into this issue, once again I just want to say thank you for joining me, Avi Abelow for another episode of the Pulse of Israel, where I provide the politically incorrect truth of Israel, the Jewish people, and the freedom-loving world. If you are not yet a subscriber, just visit PulseofIsrael.com to subscribe. If you like this video, then just click on the donate video so we can boost this video to be seen by more people. Today’s episode is dedicated anonymously for the complete recovery of Devorah bat Nisa Ethel.
Levin’s justice reform plan includes:
1. Changing the way judges are selected so that the Knesset members will have majority say on the Judicial Selection Committee;
2. Passing an ‘override clause,’ a law that would give legislators the power to reverse, or ‘override,’ the Supreme Court when it strikes down laws passed by the legislature;
3. Abolishing the legal justification of “reasonableness” by which the court can cancel Knesset decisions; Until today, Judges can just say that a laws or cases seem “unreasonable” to them, even if it totally goes according to the law. Basically, judges making up rulings based on their own ideological biases, not based on any law.
4. Empowering ministers to hire and fire their own legal advisers.
Understand, I and others have been vocal about the necessity for these changes to Israel’s justice system for years!
Here is a blog post I wrote back in 2003. Yes, before videos and social media, I used to write a blog, 20 years ago! Anyone can read those old blog posts at avirach.blogspot.com
On January 9th, 2003 I wrote the following under the title:
Israeli Democracy?
and I quote…
***I write the following harsh words about Israeli democracy because I believe that true change can only come about when we, en mass, start saying the naked truth about the situation loud and clear. Otherwise, we continue to play according to the rules of the undemocratic ruling elite. ***
Israel’s Democracy Must Be Changed!!
Yitzchak Rabin was quoted as saying that he had to try the Oslo accords because Israel couldn’t fight the Arabs anymore because of the Israeli Supreme Court.
Today we were provided further proof of that unfortunate fact.
The decisions made today in the Supreme Court allowing Tibi and Bashara to run for the Knesset had nothing to do with the law and everything to do with executing a particular ideology, (an immoral-European one, I might add, that appeases the ruthless, and directly & indirectly hurts the innocent).
As the symbol and executor of “authentic” Israeli Democracy, the Supreme Court further provided proof for me that this type of democracy must be changed.
My vote will go to the political party that earnestly and constantly communicates the messages below loud and clear to the Israeli public:
**Israel’s laws of democratic conduct must be changed.
**It is undemocratic for Supreme Court Judges to pick fellow Judges.
**A vote for Labor/Mitzna is a vote for politicians who support enemies of Israel to sit in the Knesset.
**We can’t totally win the war against the West Bank/Gaza Arabs and their Israeli Arab supporters if our own Supreme Court continues to take steps to defend their undisputed evil words and actions.
Following Rabin’s logic we should act towards changing Israel’s Supreme Court/laws of Democracy so that we can be allowed to win the war against the Arabs. We can not continue the dangerous Oslo path of land for peace towards more bloodshed.
Then on May 7th, 2004 I wrote the following:
Titled:
A Historical Week
and I quote
We just experienced one of the most eventful weeks in the history of the State of Israel. I think that in historical importance it falls right behind the eventful weeks when the State of Israel was declared and the victory of the Six Day War. Many of us might not yet know it, but I firmly believe that this week will be looked at by history as the major turning point in the existence of the State of Israel.
G-d’s hand was not just revealed once, but twice!
The first revelation was the wonderful victory in the referndum against Sharon’s plan to uproot Jews from their homes.
The second revelation was the amazing coverage given to the totally improper conduct of the Israeli judicial system that included the blatant disregard of proper conduct by our own Judicial Leadership!
These two issues might look unrelated, but they are extremely related.
The Oslo process was not just a peace process, it was much more than that. It was a process to break the spirit of the Jewish people and to break the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. This was best expressed in Peres’ quote in 1996 when he lost the elections to Bibi Netanyahu – Peres is quoted as saying ‘The Israelis lost and the Jews won’.
But, unfortuntely Peres was wrong, Netanyahu continued in the direction of Oslo, in the direction of the Israelis.
The Jewish connection to the land and the connection of the people to our religion has been deligitmized by politicians and the media for the past 10 years, all with the assistance of the Israeli Supreme Court.
But this week will become known as the turning point when the Land of Israel was reinvigorated with the spirit of the Jewish people. This is the beginning of the end of the “new” Israeli identity that Peres and the Left have always dreamed about creating here.
The Amcha have spoken. The tide is now about to turn.
People no longer want to have the “new” Israeli identity – most Israelis want to be Jews -Jewish Israelis – connected to their land, connected to their heritage and connected to behavior becoming of a Jew.
It has now become clear to all that the only way these changes will happen is if it comes from the Likud party. We are already witnessing thousands of religious people signing up for membership in the Likud. Why? Because the people of the Likud have spoken up to their spineless leadership and told them that they will no longer let them lead us down the path of Peres and the “new” Israelis. They clearly coneyed to their leaders that it is not so easy to disconnect Jews from their heritage or their homeland. The Likud has just been strengthened as the party of the Jewish people.
Change takes time, and not everything will go our way, but at least now the people have awaken, the leadership is shaken, the trust of the people in the system (Knesset and Justice) has reached rock bottom, and the only direction now is up.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are now living in exciting times. The people here in Israel will now begin taking back their country and making it the proud Jewish State it is supposed to be.
To all of you who are still not here yet – come home and help us make this happen because this is what being Jewish is all about.
So, it’s taken close to 20 years, but the necessary changes are finally being discussed at the political level to be implemented.
Now, last night a reporter by the name of Ariel Kahana asked Justice MInister Levin a really important question:
How would he respond to the international criticism that these changes to Israel’s justice system would harm Isreal’s standing as a democratic country.
Here was his brilliant and spot on answer:
And another thing, you will hear and see headlines saying that these changes are undemocratic. Well, the Likud and the right-wing parties were talking about these changes for years, and it was specifically discused before these elections as well, so the Israeli people voted knowing that justice reform would be a core issue of this government. That is pretty democratic.
What was undemocratic, was that the justice reform law from 1992 that former Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak used to usurp powers from the legislature and the executive branch only passed by a vote of 32 vs 21, not even half of Israel’s 120 Knesset members understood the importance of the law to even vote! Not only did the politicians not understand that the law would fundamentally change the balance of powers, but the Israeli public had no clue, and definitely did not vote for that.
So, the true people who were anti-democratic, were those who worked with the Supreme Court justice Aharn Barak to allow for that judicial coup over the legislature and executive!
And finally, I want people to understand how G-d works in strange ways. While Israel’s right wing has been screaming for judifical reform for years, Prime Minister Netanyahu always stopped it. While he was previously Prime Minister for 15 years, his former governments always included center-left parties that always vetoed judicial reform. The only reason we have a full right-wing government today without any center-left parties stopping the judicial reform is because of the No-Bibi camp, that pushed the center-left to the insane political position to 100% boycott sitting in a Netanyahu government. Now, that strategy worked for them, causing us to go to four elections within two years and stopping Netanyahu from becoming Prime Minister, but he won the fifth election and because of the promise to their voters to boycott Bibi Netanyahu, they forced Netanyahu to set up a full right-wing government without any center-left parties, for the first time ever! So, they can only blame themselves for the creation of this full right-wing government with the mandate to fulfill their campaign promise of judicial reform.
As I said, G-d works in strange ways.
As believing Jews, we learn that everything is always for the best, we just are unable to always understand.
In the meantime, let’s just say thank you that we finally have a government that will implement the judicial reform necessary to strengthen Israel’s democracy and stop the progressive, really regressive, agenda, that used the course to weaken the Jewish state of Israel.
I will end with a clip from this Jewish song, which is basically saying thank you to G-d above.
