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This is a watershed moment for Israel. The first part of the judicial overhaul legislation becoming a law. Protests in the street, talk of the Supreme Court striking down the legislation. A lot is going on. There are ramifications where this is all heading. A lot of questions. I think we'll pretend to answer at least some of them. Jonathan, it's unholy. I'm Yani levy of Channel 12 in Tel Aviv.
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C
And I'm Jonathan Friedland of the Guardian in London. Yet we're doing an emergency episode, an update midweek. Because of everything that's been happening, we thought we couldn't wait till Friday. I mean, we'd said in our last podcast, Yoni, that we thought that the crunch moment had come, that we were at the moment of truth. And sure enough, on Monday, the big vote that we had been talking about, you and me, on and off for the six months, really finally came. I just thought it would be really helpful if we, before we get to even what's going on in the last just hours as you and I speak at, you know, Tuesday early evening Israel time, just to walk through what's going on and what has happened, because it's been a lot. So I mean, just talk us through it, you know. The scene begins Monday morning where there's this expectation that finally the judicial reform that has been talked about and talked about and protested about for months and months is before the Knesset just one piece of it, namely the striking down of the so called reasonableness clause by which the Supreme Court could strike down or countermand any order that they regarded as unreasonable. The proposal was to scrap that. It came before the Knesset. I was madly, like a lot of people listening to this, I'm guessing, hitting refresh on my phone, thinking, is there news of a breakthrough, a compromise, of pulling back from the brink? Anyway, that's Monday morning. Talk us through what happened next.
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B
That's what other people could do. You have an Israeli friend who actually wrote to you what the outcome will be before it happened. But never mind that. I just want to backtrack a little bit, if I may, and say to those of you, you know, of our listeners who love literature and appreciate foreshadowing, metaphors and the like, I would point you actually to the night between Saturday and Sunday this week when Prime Minister Netanyahu fell ill. He had a transient heart block which led doctors to actually reveal that he has had a chronic heart problem. And not like the reports were initially of dehydration, but he had a pacemaker put in his heart. And for a few hours, the acting prime minister in the country was actually the Minister of Justice, Yerive Levine. So anyone looking for signs, how week was about to play out, I think could have been pretty appreciative of that story. But as you say, let's move forward to Monday morning, the opening or the beginning of what was the vote, dramatic vote about the reasonableness clause striking down, actually the reasonableness clause, which would prevent the courts from striking down any decision made by the government or ministers on the grounds that it is extremely unreasonable. Essentially the first block in the wall of Netanyahu's attempt to. To change the judiciary in Israel, weakening judicial oversight and also weakening the gatekeepers of Israel's government. Now, as you said, drama was building up to this moment. Remember Netanyahu's coalition was saying to him, you must pass this bill. And the opposition and the protesters in the streets saying, you mustn't. It is really a crucial moment for the future of the country. Everyone knows how this ended, right? And the law passed. The opposition en masse stepped out of the classid plenum. So the actual decision was passed. 64:0 to anyone trying to convince the rest of the world that this was done in any sort of broad consensus, this was the result. And obviously this put into the clearest terms the total split in Israel, two completely opposing views of Israel's future, and a lot of happiness on the coalition side or particularly the people who are sort of spearheading this. And of course, a very dark day for the people who oppose this.
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C
So the reason why I was hitting refresh minute by minute was for two sets of reasons. The first one was there were lots of reports coming of meetings, sort of huddles on the floor of the Knesset, even to the last minute reports that, for example, the Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, was saying to the Prime Minister, Netanyahu, you know, you give me something here because I've got all these reservists, officers in the military, who have said they're not going to serve if this goes through a delay, a partial climb, a compromise, something. And then Yariv Levine, who you mentioned, who some people metaphorically has been saying is the actual Prime Minister, and as you mentioned with that heart issue, literally became the Prime Minister for those few hours, him saying, no meetings between the heads of the military and the leader of the opposition, as if the military were briefing yay elipid to say, don't push this to the brink here. We've got to find a way through all of that. Made me think as I was using my thumb to hit the refresh button, that maybe there would be the thing that usually happens in politics, which is just some decision to kick the can a little bit down the road, even if it was 48 hours or tomorrow, we'll do it tomorrow. We'll have another meeting. That was the first thing I was checking for. The second thing I was checking for was the notion that somebody and I did have Gallant in mind, but there were two or three others who a couple of months ago did say that they were pleading for the whole legislative package to be put on hold, to wait. We can't drive the country crazy. We can't tear the country apart. I thought that perhaps one or two or three of those people would rebel and not vote for this change because they couldn't bear to see what was happening outside the building where hundreds of thousands of protesters were filling the highways. And amazingly dramatic pictures of the road that sort of ascends from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Normally it's cars filled with the blue and white flags of the flags of Israel, but the flag that's been adopted by the protests, I thought two or three or four Likudniks would say, come on, we can't tear the country apart. Tell me why both of those things, the frantic little meetings and the backbench rebellion, why did neither of those things happen?
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B
Well, first of all, you're not wrong about Israeli politics in general. Always leaning definitely, since Netanyahu is the prime minister leaning towards last min. This is a lot of how he operates. And you're right about the fact that there were last minute negotiations, by the way, a lot of them happening in front of the camera. You have the picture of the day, Netanyahu sitting in the Knesset plenum. On one side of his was Yevin. The other side, Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defense, both saying contradicting things, right? Yariv Levine wanting the bill to pass. Yoav Gallant actually not because he was very concerned about the ramifications for the military. Last time he was more vocal about it. He was fired and then unfired at the end of March. We remember that. This time, little less vocal, but yet trying to tell Netanyahu, and there were these kind of, I'm not sure how serious they were, sort of last minute attempts to maybe say, as you say, let's delay this a day or even a few hours that didn't work because Itamar Bengvir, another very important player in Netanyahu's coalition, threatened to leave the coalition. Remember, this man is someone who in the campaign was so extreme Netanyahu wouldn't have his picture taken next to him. And now was actually listening to him. He tweeted, you know, there will be no softening in the law. We're going to do this. And that's how it happened. I want to just mention there were. There were also negotiations that were pretty serious in the 24 hour leading up to the vote. Gantz and Lapid, the de facto leaders of the opposition, some official and some in the polls. But our leaders of the opposition wanted to say let's give a freeze of 15 months for the rest of the negotiations, for the rest of the legislation. I'm sorry. And we'll soften the bill and then we'll, you know, we can do this. But at the very last minute, Yariv Levine said he's not going to freeze anything for 15 months. And that whole thing fell through. So that is to your question about any negotiations now about the moderate parts of the Likud. We have those people. We talked about them. It's not only Yoav Gallant, it's Yuli Edelstein and David Bitan Nirbarakat people who had this, you know, it was very clear that they had their stomach aches going up to this legislation. The reason that they this time decided to vote, although stating that maybe next time will be different, the reason that they went with Netanyahu again in background meetings and briefings that these people gave was to say we couldn't have the military and the reservists who are trying to dictate policy to the government. So that in their opinion. Right. The irony or the paradox here was actually that what the reservists were trying to do to stop the legislation, actually, again, according to these Likud ministers, made them vote for it.
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C
Yeah, I mean, I see that logic from their point of view that the. And this became one of the best arguments they had. The pro judicial reform camp, which was an elected government, must be able to implement its program. You cannot have the military telling you what to do. The reason why I sort of, despite that, thought that Gallant and the others might balk at the last minute, is because this isn't just one move. This is, as you said at the top, it's a watershed. This is a crossing of a Rubicon. Once you've crossed, you can't uncross. This is permanent. It wasn't just another reading or another committee stage or whatever. Of the bill, this was final. And something very big has changed in Israel. And we should explain this perhaps, that even though this isn't the whole package, that was what was going on in the spring, the attempt to do a wholesale reform of the entire relationship between these different branches of government, the judiciary and the executive. This was only one piece of it. Salami slice. This was the first slice of the salami. But the argument is that this change alone has now, and I was about to use the conditional and say would hand no, has handed untrammeled power to the Prime Minister of the day because he could make any kind of decision and say, and without fear that the judges will say that is unreasonable, they have lost that power to say that we'll come to whether or not that's going to be contested. But that's a really big and final kind of act. And therefore, even with the political argument you make, or rather you convey that they are making, it seems to me such a big deal that just for the politics of the moment, it seems to me anyway, extraordinary that people had big qualms in April, suddenly are able to not just abstain or vote for this change. And, you know, people have been saying in the commentaries, that's been triggered now, if Netanyahu decided to make demonstrating illegal, no court's there to say that's unreasonable. If he wanted to postpone elections, he could say he could do that.
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B
Well, actually, postponing just to say elections are enshrined in an 80 majority of 80 members of Knesset. So that would actually be a much more difficult thing to do. But you're right about the fact that there are many, many decisions that the governments can make that different ministers can make in their own ministry that are not subject to any judicial oversight. So the court's striking it down due to unreasonableness. And the main thing that everyone is sort of worried about, everyone on the anti Netanyahu camp, is that he will attempt to fire the Attorney General in this country. She is also the head of prosecution. It is in the middle of Netanyahu's trial. It is, of course, you know, pretty safe to assume that the court would say it is extremely unreasonable to fire her in this situation, but that it is a possible thing to do. The minute that you strike down the unreasonableness clause, it's just possible. There are a lot of other things that are possible. The Minister of Finance, besides Moltic, wants to fire the entire senior civil servants. He could do that in his office and nothing, nothing can be done. So, of course, this is a massive change. It can be undone. I just need to tell you, because the whole issue here, and by the way, Benny Gantz promised he would change it if he elected. And the reason is that every basic law in this country can be changed with a simple majority. That's part of the problem. This is an amendment to the basic law, the judiciary. So that is why it is so easy, relatively easy to change.
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C
Yeah. Let me convey what I hear though, from people who are involved in the opposition to this, which is, yeah, that presumes there could be another election in 18 months time or two years or whenever, and there'll be a change of government. The lesson of Orban's Hungary or Erdogan's Turkey is the next election won't be on a level playing field. Because despite what you say about the threshold for changes to election timing and electoral law, the playing field in a liberal democracy, the aim is that it be level for opposition and government. But if you hand so much unchecked power to the government, then one side in that competition has advantages that the other doesn't have. And therefore, would a further election be a fair election, Would you actually have the chance to throw this government out? Lots of people in that protest movement believe that the motive here is for Netanyahu to avoid going to jail because he's in facing those trials. He's in multiple trials on multiple charges, corruption and other things, but also governmentally to make sure that those who are in power never lose it, because they will learn from the playbook written by Victor Orman and others, which says you can do a whole lot to ensure that when an election comes, you are on the winning side, because you limit the airtime or whatever it is on tv and other things, rules you can do about media, about broadcasting, about the whole environment in which elections happen. And therefore it's not that easy to think. Don't worry, next election comes, the new lot will come back in. Maybe the new lot won't be able to come back in. That's the fear that you hear from the protesters and demonstrators.
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B
Okay, so first of all, new basic law and unholy, you want to talk to other Israelis, you go through me. And not independently, just talk to other Israelis. Okay, Just to make it clear that that's new rule here. But to your point, I would say two things. One, Israel is very different. It's still very different from Hungary and from Turkey and from Poland, but it has the military. And I think that is a game changer in this story. I think we should talk about that a little bit more. I should also tell you that there is an option that the Supreme Court will strike down this legislation. Again, this is somewhat of a constitutional amendment because it's an amendment to a basic law. So the Supreme Court can still decide that it is an unconstitutional constitutional amendment. This will, of course, put us into new uncharted chartered territories and catapult Israel into a continued judicial crisis, but a constitutional crisis rather. But, you know, that is a possibility.
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C
Yeah, that is the definition of a constitutional crisis. Exactly. That scenario where two branches of government have decided opposite things. And how do you resolve that when the rules are not clear? And I don't know how that would get resolved. I mean, then you really are into who has the battalions, you know, who has the squadrons. If Netanyahu says the law is X, Supreme Court says, no, it isn't. How does that. Who's the referee in that dispute? And this is, I think, why so many people did not want, you know, were pleading with the Prime Minister not to force this. Well, for so many reasons. I mean, you know, Israelis fighting Israelis. Those scenes of the protests before the law was passed. But afterwards with the. And. And, you know. Well, you tell me. But the pictures looked as if this was a much tougher police response. We talked about on the podcast not long ago when the head of the Tel Aviv police resigned, saying he'd been. He had to quit because he was coming under political pressure to deal more harshly with the protesters. Images of the protesters being water cannoned and beatings handed out, it looked much more grave. And one almost wondered is, is this what happens when those in power feel that they have been handed yet more power and that a major restraint on their muscle has been removed? And you know, look, here's the evidence right now on the streets. That's what it looked like a little bit watching those pictures from afar.
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B
And by the way, that's what it felt like to a lot of people being on the ground in these protests, saying that, you know, up till now, 30 weeks of protest, pretty peaceful. And that yesterday something changed in the way that the police treated the protesters. Even people who weren't blocking streets, people just, you know, standing there. A lot of families coming to these protests, particularly yesterday in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv. And the reports are of a much more, you know, brutal police trying to disperse the. The protesters after the decision made in the Knesset.
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C
So the military were huge in this story. Their attempts to, by some individuals to halt this change, saying that they would refuse to serve or to turn up for training and so on. What do they do now? What's their next move? Those either the refuseniks or those who are in charge of them.
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B
Well, look, I mean, first of all, as I said to you, the military in this country is a lot of what sets us apart from other countries going through the same process. Israel is a country under existential threat. The military is everything. And when, especially when you have a conscription army and most people have mandatory military service. And we talked a lot about the effect of hundreds of reservists saying that they will not show up now. It's not only a threat anymore. As of yesterday, there are pilots in the Air Force, reservists in the Air Force headquarters, which is sort of the beating heart of the Israeli Air Force, the command and control of the force, saying they're not showing up. This changes the military's rank readiness for war. And it's also going on through different parts of the military. Think, Jonathan, of career officers, right, who have to renew their contract. Those are people who might not do it. And we have to say something that we talked about the meetings going on in the Knesset, a meeting that didn't go on yesterday and was supposed to go on, or at least didn't go on before the vote was a meeting between the chief of staff of the idf, Herzi Halevi, and Netanyahu. Herzi Halevi asked Netanyahu for four days to meet with him to, we assume, discuss the ramifications of this legislation. Netanyahu would only meet with him after the vote. The official line was, you know, scheduling difficulties, I would assume. The non official line is what you don't know doesn't hurt you. So that is, that is a big, a big deal. And what happens now is, is a huge question. What happens in the military is a huge question.
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C
I mean, what in terms of those individuals do they think? Well, we made us, we took our stand, it didn't work. Time to drop protests. And this goes for the protesters on the streets too, who really threw everything at this. I mean, they did more to fight this. We heard it from Tom Friedman of the New York Times last week. We heard it from Anne Applebaum a few weeks earlier that, you know, if you compare it to the movements in the likes of Hungary or Poland, there is nothing really to compare with the relentlessness or the stamina of these protesters. 29 weeks turning out, it didn't work brutally. It didn't, didn't do what they thought it would do, which is to prevent this thing passing. The thing passed. It's now the law, do they at this point? What's their next move?
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B
Can I disagree with you ever so slightly?
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C
Of course.
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B
I think it's wrong to think that the protest movement failed. I will remind you that less than seven months ago, Yariv Levine stood up and meticulously planned and said out loud, he's a meticulous man. He gave all of the stages of his judicial overhaul or coup. You can call it whatever you want, depending on your worldview. And he said it was the first stage. They thought in the coalition at the time, January 4, that they will pass this in a matter of weeks. They called it shock and awe. We are seven months, almost seven months to the day after that. And there is one piece of the legislation that they got through. Now, I'm not saying that the protest movement needs to be thrilled about this, but this is the perspective. I think it's a good time, Jonathan, to just, you know, briefly tell you who are the groups, organizations that make up this grassroots protest movement. It's important not only because I think we should say some of the names, I think we might be hearing them again, but also because I think it's important to understand these are serious people and they are not going to back down. So you have, obviously the protest movement of the high tech sector. In Hebrew, it's Mecha'. Ata. It's led particularly by Moshe Redman, who's a high tech guy who closed his company to sort of dedicate his life to this. You have what is called the Brothers and Sisters in Arms. These are the reservists, led by Eyal Naveh, who was the head of the elite military unit Sayeret Matkal. And you have what is called Kaplan Force. Kaplan is the main street in Tel Aviv that you see in all the pictures of the drones. They are the more radical part of the protests, led by Shikmah Bresler, who's a physicist from the Weizmann Institute. These are serious people. They gave up their whole, you know, careers to dedicate their lives to this. They are not backing down. Their disadvantage here is that the Knesset is going into recess until mid October. Right. So you are going to have to keep all this together for all of that lengthy time. Right. The scheduling of the protest doesn't fit with the politics and the schedule of politics, their advantage. This government is giving a lot of reasons to keep on protesting in their worldview. And the main thing now on the agenda, particularly where the Knesset comes back, is the exemption from military service to the ultra Orthodox. This is going to Bring back all of this and with a lot of force.
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C
That's a very good correction. I think that's right. That of course they've achieved. I wouldn't say that a movement like this has failed. On the contrary, as you say, they've got from the whole package down to this one slice. But the slice did, you know, was put on the plate and it was been forced down the throat. You know, it has happened. And I think there was hope that the combination of street protests, protests within the military and pressure from abroad led by Washington, would prevent the government going ahead with this. And you know, the Prime Minister Netanyahu does have a track record of those last minute dramatic moves. And then I think there was hope that that would come instead. The law of the land has changed. And the problem here, particularly for the protesters, is their argument in recent weeks was not, oh look, this is only one thing. We can, you know, let's not worry. Their argument was this one thing will be the crossing of a red line. And that red line has now been crossed. And so even though you can say, well it's great, look, all the other 30 red lines haven't been crossed. If you've told people this is a red line and that gets crossed, on one level there will be, I think there's an issue there for how a movement holds together because they've thrown everything at this. Short of actually staging on a full blown military coup and removing Netanyahu from power, nobody on the protester side says they want to do that. Short of doing that, what else can they do? And so therefore, if you are Yeruv Levin who sat there in the Knesset refusing these approaches, these entreaties from Yoav Gallant to please pause, do give me something. He just thinks all I have to do is just stay tough and do the next slice and the next slice and the next slice. Because so far it's not what I wanted on the timetable I wanted. But he has won that first battle.
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B
Well, you know, it's interesting because when you, you're right about the fact that if you threaten Israelis that democracy is going to end when the bill passes and the bill passes and democracy is still here, because obviously it still is, then what do you, how do you continue that kind of battle? It's a big question. I would think that for them it's going to be a very long summer followed by a very long autumn and followed by a very long winter. Israeli journalist Nadaviyal called it a war of attrition for Israeli democracy. This is not going to be a short story. And again, even this part is not entirely over yet, as we're saying. We said the Supreme Court could strike down the Knesset's decision from yesterday. You see the news coming out of credit agency Moody's saying they're releasing a special report on Israel today. This probably will happen after we record our conversation. I mean, things are still happening in response to this bill passing. So I think, again, it's a big challenge for the protest movement, but I think they've achieved, you know, a lot of. But so far, it's important to put that in perspective. They represent hundreds of thousands of Israelis. One out of five Israelis said in a recent poll that they had participated in at least one of those protests. I mean, these are staggering numbers. And I think that. I'm sure that today they're having a horrible day, but it doesn't mean this is far from over. That is what I'm trying to say.
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C
Yeah, and I get that message. I mean, when you say that, look, democracies, they warned that this would end democracy, and look, democracy is still here. I would say that it's too soon to tell that because the government now has this power to do what is, quote, unreasonable, unquote. I don't think we've yet seen. It's been less than 24 hours. We've not seen what they will do with that new power to be unreasonable. And given the people who make up this government, I think we should brace ourselves because I think they are suddenly unleashed. One big restraint on. Their power has been taken away. It's too early to say, well, look, and I think that's what they rely on in a way, which is to say, look, this has passed. The skyline hasn't fallen in. Those guys who were telling you this would be terrible, you know, they were wrong. On we go. I think it's too early to judge that.
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B
Yes, but as you say, this is the makeup of the government. It is considered in the eyes of many Israelis as a very extreme government. You hear more and more people, protesters in the street, saying, you know, this is Ben Gvir's police soldiers about to enlist into the military saying, I don't want to serve in Smotrich's army. This is all pushing, you know, the protests forward. This is giving, you know, a lot of fuel to these protests. So again, as you say, both sides are going to have to recalibrate and see how this, how this moves forward. I don't have a, a good answer on that because I really don't know. I think A lot of the question has to do with what is Netanyahu's rationale. Yesterday, the rationale was, I don't want the government to fall apart, but I also think that we should, you know, get used to the fact that maybe we are less and less talking about Netanyahu's sixth government and more and more talk about Yariv Levine's first government. It's a different world in many respects, not only in the legislative and the judicial aspect, but in the politics as well.
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C
Yeah, I was very struck by Netanyahu's biographer, Anshel Pfeffer of the Haaretz newspaper, tweeting that Bibi is now irrelevant was how he put it that he's no longer in charge as prime minister. And that's why that, you know, the literal incapacitation for medical reasons became a sort of stand in for a metaphorical incapacitation, that he is no longer functioning in that photograph you mentioned of Gallant and Levin, as if those two were really the argument and Netanyahu was in between. I just want to say something about counter productivity because you made this interesting observation about the military that in a way, by their stance, they made it actually harder for some Likud moderate, so called to take a stand. Because suddenly it was this new argument that came into the fray, which was, we can't, as an elected government, be bossed around by the military in the similar department of potentially counterproductive interventions. I would say that the statements that have come out from the White House and from Washington, which we talked about last week with Tom Friedman, in which Joe Biden urged there to be, you know, take more time, seek a consensus, that he'd be, you know, disappointed. The White House put out a statement describing these events as, quote, unfortunate. Now, that reminded me, first of all, do you remember Susan Collins, the Republican senator, who's the sort of moderate senator who constantly would say that she was troubled by Donald Trump's behavior and then occasionally deeply troubled, but would always vote for him anyway. And it became a joke among sort of liberals that Susan Collins will say she's troubled, she'll make a sad face, but she'll vote with Trump. And I sort of wonder if Biden is to Netanyahu what Susan Collins was to Donald Trump, that he says, it's unfortunate or I'm disappointed, or I urge Israelis to think again. But then immediately. And the statement that came out, the White House says that repeats that, look, Israel is our number one friend. We love Israel, deep values, nothing's going to change. And if that's the case. I wonder if the intervention from Washington, such as it was, made Netanyahu think, okay, I've got a blank check here. Here, I'll get some, you know, sad face emojis coming out of Washington. But I can essentially act with impunity. Nothing big is going to change. I did raise this last week when we talked with our guests. I said, you know, is there a stick here of any kind? No. Nothing in the intelligence relationship or militarily will change. And I wonder if that did actually make him feel like, you know what, I can keep going and vote on this thing and pass it 64 to 0 because there'll be a sorrowful statement, but nothing else.
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B
I think that on Monday at 3 o', clock, the person he was worried about, whose last name starts with a B, was Ben gvir, not Biden. And I'm not sure that all of that came into consideration. Is it productive, Counterproductive? I think he assumed what you're saying. Yes, but the one thing that really scared him was his coalition falling apart. Ben gvir, while all these kind of last minute negotiations that were going on tweeted, this is going to happen. There will be no softening of the bill that was closed the lid on whatever he was thinking he might be doing in that instance. We should say, by the way, again, we're recording this. It's an update podcast. This is very much a developing story if ever there was one. We need to update and say that first of all, Kalkalis newspaper, financial newspaper in Israel is reporting that the CEO of Moody's behind closed doors says, I'm furious. Never have I been personally lied to so much, but by a leader of state like Netanyahu. We should remind our listener we said the Moody's report, a special report on Israel is coming out. We should remind our listeners that Netanyahu told all of these credit agencies that he is going to seek broad consensus. He told it, said it not only to the President of the United States, also to credit agencies. That is why we assume their reports on Israel thus far haven't been so severe. We're waiting to see what will happen. You mentioned incapacitated. I will be remiss not to say that another thing that happened today, we keep talking about the Attorney General in Israel, Gali Beharav Miyara, she is fighting back against this government. There is the, the law that did pass a few weeks ago, also part of the judicial overhaul, one should say, is that the Attorney General can't say that the Prime Minister is incapacitated. So now Galiba Rav Meara is saying to the Supreme Court this was an improper use of the Knesset's authority. The Supreme Court could also strike down this law, which is also an amendment to a basic law. That can also send us into a crisis here, a constitutional crisis. This is going on and on like this is not at all the end of the story.
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C
You know, you mentioned that we might describe this as Yuri Levin's first administration rather than Netanyahu's sixth. Your observation there about the person he was frightened of once that tweet came was Ben gvir. I mean, this is Ben Gvir's government now. I mean, we did talk about this, that Netanyahu is a prisoner of the right. That has never looked clearer. We should mention that Ben GVIR marked the day not just content with making it clear that the judicial reform this measure had to go through, otherwise he was in effect going to walk. He allowed himself some ruminations on things that Israel should import from the United States and suggested that he really liked the execution of death penalty for convicted terrorists and was also a fan of more, more widespread licensing, looser gun laws, because those are. Those both really do work so brilliantly well in the United States. I mean, Bengvir is a dangerous figure. Very easy to have dismissed him as slightly clownish. He is more and more in the box seat, I think, when you look at Israel and how things are playing out there. Just one other thought that crosses my mind as we're talking, which is a very cynical politician might think it's great to vote for this thing. Then I've done my duty for Bai, Bengvir and Levin. I've got it through the Knesset and now let the Supreme Court strike it down. And then I can turn around to Biden and the others and go, the system's working, it's not happening. And he turns around to his right and says, look, I did what you asked of me. Turns around to everyone else and says it can't be done. That's a manoeuvre that would be known by some politicians in some places. Do you think that is possibly what Netanyahu is hoping for? Does he want the Supreme Court to save him from himself and to save him from his right wing coalition partners?
- [33:54]
B
I think there have been many times in Israel's history where Netanyahu did act in that way, right, that it was easy for him to blame the Supreme Court, the High Court of Justice, saying, oh, it's their fault. They struck down this and he wasn't entirely displeased that that happened. I really don't know. It's very hard to say what he would want. I assume that the answer is for all this to go away. Right. Remember, this is Netanyahu, who in his first speech as returning as this Phoenix to the Prime Minister's office, said he wants to deal with Iran, with the Iranian threat, and he wants normalizations with Saudi Arabia. Where are are all of these issues now? And so I think what he would want is maybe to say to his coalition, we've done this first part. Let's just leave the rest. I'm not sure he can. Neither is anyone else saying, we're going to stop after this, this part. So really, I really don't know what his plans are for the next session of the Knesset that starts in October.
- [34:56]
C
Well, as you say, it is only Tuesday. And this is a moving story. We will get word on Moody's, we'll get word on international reaction, I'm sure all of it ready for when you and I meet again later on in the week for our regular episode, which will come on Friday. But I think for now, people are a little bit updated with what's happening there.
- [35:21]
B
We should, we should say, just to my final depressing point to you, just to remind you that this is the week of Tisha B'Av, which according to Jewish tradition, the temple was destroyed and destruction fell upon the Jewish people because of baseless hatred between two parts of the Jewish people. Just to sprinkle a little bit more ominous historical warnings. We hope we're not heading in that direction. I think this episode should have come with this warning, like in the United States with the commercials, right? Like this medicine could create spontaneous combustion. We apologize. If you want to be happy about any of the unholy episodes, go to the Nick Heitner episode where we discuss Guys and Dolls. It's a much happier episode than this one. We apologize. Jonathan, I think you should apologize, too, to our listeners.
- [36:02]
C
Yeah, no, we should. We'll institute trigger warnings from now on. But look, we'll both keep talking about it, we'll both keep following it, and see you all again on Friday.
- [36:19]
A
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