When a government makes a unanimous decision; and when it is made after the attorney general begs it not to because it is "legally problematic" to place cameras at voting stations, and that doing so could violate the fundamental voting rights; when the vice president of the Supreme Court and chairman of the Central Election Committee warn of "chaos at the voting stations if this panicked legislation is passed;" when the country's president who happens to be a disciple of Ze'ev Jabotinsky lambasts "the baseless and even irresponsible political attacks" against the gatekeepers of democracy โ we get the strange sense that perhaps the prime minister's true goal isn't exactly to uphold electoral integrity, rather a different agenda altogether.
Some say Netanyahu is again seeking to scare Arab voters. The assumption is that these voters don't really care where the cameras are specifically placed. Most of the Palestinians living in Israel feel the Shin Bet's eyes are following them anyway, and the majority of them will prefer to stay home rather than risk problems with the authorities by voting on camera.
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Others argue that Netanyahu doesn't actually want to pass the law. He realizes the Central Election Committee's decision to allow polling station workers to record the voting process is a more reasonable proposition. And he also understands, apparently, that in a proper democracy, laws pertaining to the most sacred of democratic acts should never be passed hastily โ as if it were a matter of national emergency intended to prevent extreme harm to the public.
Netanyahu is also well aware that the police didn't find wrongdoings in the hundreds of polling stations the Likud sought to investigate after the April 9 election, and that in the few polling stations were irregularities were found, the results actually favored Likud.
The claim, therefore, is that the prime minister simply wants to present the law to the Knesset, not secure the majority required to pass it; and that if a majority does emerge for the law that it be thrown out by the courts once the opposition files a motion to torpedo it, which it is sure to do. If the law falls in the Knesset and if it is rejected by the court โ and if Netanyahu loses his seat in the election โ he can claim the election was illegitimate.
It seems to me, though, that the question surrounding Netanyahu's motive is far simpler: Israel has far more serious matters on its agenda; the most pressing of which is that Israel has lost the Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it happened under his watch. It is also difficult for him to explain the sudden rapprochement between US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. And we haven't even mentioned his lacking response to the situation on the Gaza border, the increased security tensions in the north, or even the budget deficit.
So they make up a problem and it makes headlines; the experts go on television and the political rivals boil with anger; someone else decries the end of democracy, and Netanyahu, meanwhile, can rest easy. The diversion worked, and who cares about cameras anymore anyway?
