A Tumultuous Week In Israel
Dear Friends,
These are difficult times for Israel.
The war in Gaza has resumed, as have the attacks by the Houthis on Israel’s population centers; 59 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, their families in agony as the prospects for their release grow dimmer.
Meanwhile, here at home, we seem to be back in pre-October 7th mode. The unity that characterized the early phases of the war has evaporated and the government’s divisive agenda of judicial overhaul is back in full force. Protesters are once again on the streets and a breakdown of civil order—24 months after President Herzog chillingly warned of impending civil war.
The situation came to a head in the last week over the government’s decisions to fire Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar and vote no confidence in Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, and the Knesset’s vote, on strict partisan lines, to change the composition of the judicial selection committee.
Amid all the noise and partisan bickering, it can be hard to discern what Israelis are arguing over. At the risk of oversimplifying, the underlying disputes can be boiled down to four main issues: the question of accountability for the failures of October 7th, the issue of ultra-Orthodox military service, the fate of the hostages, and the future of Israeli democracy. In principle, these four topics are distinct. In practice, they are hopelessly intertwined. And what makes the situation especially dangerous is that on most of these issues a sizable majority of the public is on one side, while the government is on the other.
Take the government’s decision to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. In the abstract, the end of Bar’s term was wholly expected in the aftermath of the failures of October 7th. Bar himself had accepted full responsibility for his role in the catastrophe and pledged to step down on more than one occasion. But the Prime Minister, in his initial announcement of his intention to fire Bar, did not cite October 7th as the reason, but rather his loss of trust in Bar. Why?
The most likely reason is that a large majority of Israelis want all those responsible for October 7th to resign—including the Prime Minister. And 65% favor the establishment of a national commission of inquiry that would investigate not only the tactical failures on that terrible day, but all levels of government and their actions in the years leading up to the Hamas attacks. This is something the Prime Minister strongly opposes and Bar has insisted is necessary in order to ensure that the right lessons are learned and that such a catastrophe can never happen again.
To complicate matters further, the Shin Bet is in the midst of a complex and highly sensitive investigation into allegations that senior aides to the Prime Minister were on the payroll of the Government of Qatar. Instead of cooperating with the Shin Bet director, aiding his investigation and helping him assess whether a threat to Israel’s national security exists, the government, led by the Prime Minister, chose to dismiss him. The Prime Minister, and by extension the government as a whole, appear to be acting under an acute conflict of interest in moving to dismiss Bar at this moment. And so, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether the real motive for Bar’s dismissal at this moment is the desire to quash his investigation. Given the immense powers in the hands of the Shin Bet (think of the FBI, the Secret Service, and certain functions of the CIA rolled into one), his firing under these circumstances also raises concerns that a less independent or qualified successor could turn the agency into a tool for political persecution.
The government’s vote of no confidence in the Attorney General, which is the first step in the process of firing her, is suffused with a similar conflict of interest. Recall that in the Israeli system, the Attorney General serves simultaneously as the legal advisor to the government and the Chief Prosecutor. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently a defendant in a criminal trial. And while the Prime Minister recused himself from the government meeting in question, few have any doubt he is behind the initiative to fire the AG.
Therefore, it is hard to avoid interpreting the present situation as one in which the defendant is trying to fire his prosecutor, in effect placing himself above the law. To be sure, the government has a long list of complaints about the AG’s alleged lack of cooperativeness on policy matters. Of these, the most significant has been the ultra-Orthodox draft issue, where Baharav Miara has stubbornly thwarted repeated government attempts to avoid the implications of the situation in which continued exemption of ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students from military service has no legal basis.
The government has an interest in preventing the drafting of ultra-Orthodox men, because doing so would cause the ultra-Orthodox parties to topple the government. Yet 85% of the non-Haredi Jewish public (including a majority of Likud voters) believe that the Haredim should serve just like all other Jewish citizens—a sentiment that has grown ever stronger in the wake of October 7th and the sacrifices made by the serving population in a grueling multi-front war. Not surprisingly, many suspect that the real reasons for firing the AG are to stop the Prime Minister’s trial and save the government from collapse. And as in the case of Ronen Bar, here too, given the critical importance of the Attorney General in Israel’s democratic regime, the appointment of an unworthy successor could lead to the collapse of the rule of law.
To be sure, disputes, even serious ones, about policy and personnel are legitimate and expected in any democracy. But these decisions are not taking place in a vacuum. Israelis are still reeling from the trauma of the October 7th massacres. A sizable majority of Israelis prioritizes the return of the hostages over the resumption of the war. Most have little faith in the leadership that presided over that catastrophe and continues to manage the affairs of state. They demand accountability. They wish to rebuild. They crave healing, reconciliation and national unity. They do not want to go back to the internal divisions that led up to October 7th. Yet their elected leaders appear determined to double down on an agenda that serves the purpose of holding the coalition together but is increasingly at odds with public sentiment. And with elections not scheduled before October 2026, voters have little prospect of imposing a course correction at the ballot box any time soon.
Unfortunately, the casualty of this impasse may be the rule of law in Israel. In recent days, senior ministers have put out statements suggesting that the government ought to ignore a potential court injunction. Were Israel’s leaders to ignore a Court order on the firing of the Attorney General or the Head of the Shin Bet we would be in uncharted territory. Needless to say, no one is above the law. Every governmental action, including personnel decisions, is subject to judicial review—as the Prime Minister himself reaffirmed in a statement back on July 19, 2023. This has always been the case, and as long as Israel is a functioning democracy, it will remain the case. The notion that anyone can ‘ignore’ a court order has no place in a democracy.
And so, as Israelis continue to fight a protracted multi-front war, one prays their leaders remember their responsibility not only to defend the country from external threats, but to preserve domestic tranquility and uphold Israel’s remarkable 76-year democratic tradition.
For our part, we at IDI will continue to inject facts, data and expertise into the public debate. We will single out policies that stand to weaken Israel’s democratic foundations and propose alternatives that would strengthen them. And we will continue to work with responsible leaders across the political spectrum to defend Israel’s democratic institutions and to promote practical, research-based reforms that bolster individual freedom and benefit all of Israel’s citizens, regardless of faction or ideological persuasion.
Yours,
Yohanan Plesner
President
The Israel Democracy Institute