The Israeli public have again escalated their demonstrations, both against and for the current far-right coalition government’s planned legal system overhaul, leading to violence, road blockages, and calls on US President Joe Biden to condemn Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As the civil unrest picks up, will the Israeli leadership look for a way out by finding a military conflict as a distraction?
Thousands of frustrated Israeli citizens have continued to fill the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities, since the beginning of the year when a number of planned reforms to the judicial system were announced by the then newly voted in government. Back in March, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was forced to postpone a number of controversial bills that were set to be brought before the Knesset, following unprecedented strike action — organized through the Histadrut (Israeli labour union) — that threatened serious economic consequences.
This week, the first bill of many others to come, was voted through in its initial stage, that will pave the way towards achieving the desired judicial system amendments. In response, Israeli demonstrators cut off major roads near Tel Aviv, even blocking off part of the Ben Gurion Airport — built on the occupied Palestinian city of Lyd — invoking a harsher than usual reaction from the Israeli police. The police were filmed on horse back, using water cannon trucks to disperse protesters and even dragging off some, arresting just over 60 people. Responding to this, the US Biden administration said that it “urges Israeli authorities to respect right of peaceful assembly after police arrest protesters”, which is interesting, especially considering the fact that when peaceful Palestinian protesters are shot dead in their hundreds, not a single word of criticism is uttered.
A number of attempts have been made by Israeli supporters of the judicial reform to even commit car ramming’s against the self-styled “pro-democracy” movement. The new bill, if it passes the next two of its three required votes in the Knesset, will curb the Israeli Supreme Court’s power to quash decisions made by the government, ministers, and elected officials, by ruling them to be legally unreasonable. For the supporters of the legal system reforms, they view this as a positive step towards true democracy after the Netanyahu coalition was elected by the majority of Jewish-Israeli voters. On the other side, Israeli supporters of the opposition believe that these bills will lead to an theocratic system being set up, largely based upon Jewish religious laws, of which many could restrict liberal practices and transform the nature of the current State model. Thousands of Israelis even protested outside of US offices on Wednesday, calling on the Biden administration to step in and condemn Netanyahu.
To understand this situation, what has to be known is that Benjamin Netanyahu himself does not necessarily care much for these legal reforms and the 8% dip in the value of the Israeli Shekel is also a nuisance for him; something that is being partly attributed to the legal overhaul push. Strikes, road blocks, and even potentially riots, all will carry severe economic costs to Israel. However, regardless of what the Israeli PM actually thinks, he needs to keep his coalition partners happy and the second largest party in his government, after his own Likud party, is the extremist Religious Zionism alliance. If the PM backs away from these bills that are aimed at amending the legal system, he will likely lose the backing of his coalition allies and would hence lose his ruling majority. As Benjamin Netanyahu currently undergoes investigation, during his corruption trial, he is also dropping in the polls and has been overtaken by political rival Benny Gantz, which is why he cannot afford to be pushed from power at this time.
There has been some indication that perhaps the US government is secretly supportive of the so-called “pro-democracy” demonstrations, even leading some to believe that Washington is covertly backing some of the protesters. This would align with the way in which the Biden administration has been speaking about the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, especially as the Israeli PM is yet to be invited to the White House. Despite this, there is currently no solid evidence to back up the theory that the US is fueling a color revolution within Israel. Instead of Netanyahu, the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who is much less important than his Prime Minister, has been invited to the White House to discuss a number of issues regarding regional politics. Israeli President is more of a symbolic position, in contrast to the PM who actually has direct power, but it is notable that Herzog has been rather critical of the legal overhaul plans, even warning of civil war between Israelis.
Although Israel is an apartheid regime, which illegally occupies Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territory against international law, it does indeed follow the Western model to a great degree when it comes to the way its regime functions, at least for most Jewish people within the occupied territory. For Israeli Jews, they have full rights and are able to vote, pretending as if half of the country’s population are not human beings with the right to be treated as equals. So for Israeli Jews, they get to live in a Western style “liberal democracy”, where there is the novelty of Tel Aviv being a very liberal city where LGBT people — so long as they are not Arab — are free to thrive and people can go to night clubs, take drugs, and live a life that isn’t touched by religious rulings. They see the new legal system overhaul as threatening their cushiony lifestyle, a life which emulates the way it is in Europe, Australia, or North America. For the US government, they would also likely favor an Israel which shares a similar system to the one they have.
The most powerful people currently leading the way towards these controversial legal reforms, are interestingly mainly illegal settlers who live in stolen Palestinian homes — or on stolen Palestinian land — in either the West Bank or East Jerusalem. It is this group of extremist ideologues, that seek to create a theocratic State that is free from Arabs, Muslims, and Christians, that serves the interests of Jews only, that are behind this push to pass such legal reforms. What is interesting, is that the US government is on paper opposed to settlement expansion, it has even set this as a red-line several times, yet it not only refuses to act against further settlement expansion, but actively aids the extremists in taking more land.
Not only are a number of US-based charitable organizations financing the settler movement, including Yeshivas — Jewish religious schools, some of which are where settlers are taught to hate Arabs as a “cancer” and that killing babies is justifiable — but they actively arm the Israeli military which protects the settlers and enables their expansion. By doing absolutely nothing, other than incentivizing more settlement expansion, the US government has now created their own problem. The government of Joe Biden is angry at Netanyahu’s regime, but for what? For continuing to do exactly what they have been doing every year since the Johnson administration in 1967? The US wants Saudi-Israeli normalization, it talks about a “two-State solution“, it even hopes to reduce West Bank violence and to stop settlement expansion, but then refuses to ever hold Israel to account for its actions that serve the opposite of each of these stated policy goals.
Now the Israeli PM has two options, he either endures the wrath of civil disobedience and possible violent clashes between opposing protest groups and watches the economy take a huge hit, or he searches for a distraction and delays the period in which the judicial overhaul bills will be passed. If things begin to get worse for the Israeli coalition and the demonstrations increase in their intensity, in addition to a general strike being announced, he may seek the latter option. Although the Israelis have already attempted to invade the Jenin refugee camp and disband the Jenin Brigades armed group, they could well try this again, yet with more force and intensity. However, such an operation may not be enough to drive the attention away from the judicial reform issue. There is then the options of Gaza and Lebanon, and Israel launching an attack against Hamas in either one, which would quickly stop the demonstrations due to the inevitable rocket fire.
If Tel Aviv decides to attack Gaza, it is risky and may not carry the greatest reward if they are unable to assassinate anyone significant within the Hamas movement. There is also the chance that an attack on Hamas in Gaza could spark rocket fire from Southern Lebanon. On the other hand, if the Israeli regime decides to attack Lebanon in a way that would be limited to a few days of fighting and nothing more, this would provide a great distraction, yet could backfire in an enormous way. Israel has already illegally occupied the Lebanese village of Ghajjar, which caused Lebanese Hezbollah to place a tent in the Shebaa farms area and has since caused outrage among Israelis that believe this area to be theirs, just as they claim the Syrian Golan Heights to be their own territory. There are growing talks about the Israeli military’s fear of Lebanon and its inability to deal with Hezbollah, which may give Netanyahu a great excuse to strike the tent placed in the Shebaa Farms area placed by Hezbollah. Another option is that the Israeli military only go after leading members of Hamas, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Lebanon, hoping not to draw Hezbollah into a full-scale conflict.
All of the above mentioned possibilities could be devastating, especially when it comes to a potential attack on Lebanon, however, it all comes down to Benjamin Netanyahu’s level of desperation. Will the weakness of the current Israeli coalition, as a result of internal pressures, push it into committing a fatal mistake? This is yet to be seen, as is the ability of the Israeli government to deal with a number of strategic defeats and high casualty rates, while under the control of extremist ministers in the current coalition.
