Netanyahu’s government began approving legislation for the “Judicial Amendment” program and passed a law that would end the judiciary’s oversight of government decision-making and policy, thereby constituting a major turning point in Israel’s history.
At first glance, the impact on Israel of passing the Judicial Amendment may seem contradictory, as it would make Israel more aggressive towards the Palestinians while at the same time causing the erosion of the power base on which it depends.
By abolishing the law on judicial oversight of government policies and decisions, extremist Jewish religious forces, which wield enormous influence within the government coalition, will be allowed to implement their plans aimed at resolving the conflict with the Palestinian people through implementation that may be quite genocide-based repression to empty the Palestinian lands of their owners, thereby taking control of the Palestinian lands and annexing them to Israel.
Passage of the bill would also allow the Israeli government to expand its use of other means of repression against Palestinians, such as imposing the death penalty on resistance fighters, demolishing homes, and deporting family members of resistance activists, among others.
Admittedly, the Israeli judiciary has in the past provided “legitimate” justifications for successive Israeli governments to justify their aggression against the Palestinian people. Yet these judiciaries still formally give Palestinians the ability to file petitions against decisions of the Israeli government and its institutions, even if those petitions are overwhelmingly rejected.
However, when laws are passed to abolish judicial oversight of government decisions and policies, extremist religious parties can get involved and push for extremely dangerous decisions about conflict, even without any form of legal cover.
And if the political platform of the “Jewish Force Party” led by Israel’s Minister of State Security Itamar Ben-Gvier clearly calls for the displacement of Palestinians, then after the passage of the latest law, the party implements this through the policies and decisions adopted by the government. A program becomes possible.
At the same time, the law will allow the government to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by ramping up repression against the Palestinian people, which may even reach the level of genocide. Israeli Finance Minister Smotridge, leader of the far-right religious Zionist party, has explicitly called for the “destruction” of the Palestinian town of Huwala. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the government, after passing the judicial amendments, will develop security and military policies aimed at achieving this goal.
Passage of the bill would also allow the Israeli government to expand its use of other means of repression against Palestinians, such as imposing the death penalty on resistance fighters, demolishing homes, and deporting family members of resistance activists, among others.
On the other hand, after starting to pass this judicial legislation, Israel will become a politically divisive, socially fractured, uncertain entity, and will abandon many elements of power that have ensured its existence until now.
Minimal solidarity has been lost among the various components of Israeli society, and positions for judicial reform based on racial and religious considerations have become entrenched, with ultra-Orthodox and Eastern Jews supporting the amendment, and most Western secularists opposed the bill.
This reality presupposes the outbreak of other polarization processes of interest to all parties, deepening social rifts, heightening political polarization, and national uncertainty.
The passage of this judicial amendment will open up new avenues of confrontation for both political and social circles who support and oppose the judicial amendment. Those involved in government will take advantage of the lack of judicial oversight of their policies and decisions in an effort to advance the interests of the social groups that support them.
Henceforth, the government will be able to make decisions under the influence of the religious groups involved in order to ensure the strengthening of the country’s ultra-religious character in a way that is at odds with the interests of secularists and their views on how their social activities should be regulated Serious contradiction.
Religious groups involved in the government have declared that they want stricter regulations on the sanctity and social patterns of the Sabbath, in particular to reduce the presence of women in public places and require them to wear specific attire and enforce gender equality in some public institutions. Segregation, which allows rabbinical inquisitions to intervene in civil cases, undermines the rights of some minorities and restricts the freedoms of gays and others.
At the same time, the lack of judicial oversight will allow ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects to legit.