Israel is changing rapidly. The old elite and the oaths that led the Zionist movement and the state for years have lost their influence. That can be seen most clearly in the disintegration of the Labor Party.
The Supreme Court remains the last stronghold of the founding elite. The few justices that are conservative or religious, however, seem to be unimportant. The chief justice, who decides what panels of justices will debate sensitive cases, decides the results.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Many members of the public are convinced that the Supreme Court is trying to undermine the government – something unacceptable in a democratic regime – and force it to accept positions, values, and opinions with which most of society does not agree.
From the time of former Chief Justice Aharon Barak, the Supreme Court has forced extreme liberal opinions on Israeli society, opinions imported from the west coast of the United States that are far from expressing the feelings of most of Israeli society. These decisions have come under criticism both from justices and lawyers with international reputations.
For years, the court has tended to detach itself from worldviews that run deep in Israeli society and are anchored in the belief that we returned home after 2,000 years to establish a Jewish state, and not a state of all its citizens. It's hard to reject the claim that the court has turned into a nexus of assistance in helping the far-left Meretz party promote a radical leftist outlook, against the will of the majority. Lawyers who regularly file High Court petitions have become friends of the court, to the delight of the biased media.
One eminent legal scholar wrote years ago that "Judicial objectivity requires a judge to consider social consensus that reflects what is fundamental and shared in Israeli society." That important judge was named Aharon Barak. Later on, he and his successors went back on what was fundamental and held in common and opted for what was acceptable to "the progressive, enlightened public," as they saw it.
For decades, the Supreme Court has done everything it can to remove signs of Judaism from the state, even ones that were anchored in law. It did so through a cunning and ridiculous judicial activism, utilizing the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and the terms "reasonable" and "proportional." This created a reality in which the majority must be defended against a minority that wants to control it, and sometimes succeeds.
The drunkenness of power, which too often comes out of the Supreme Court, recently took visible form, in rulings on illegal residents, cancellation of the Shin Bet security agency's use of electronic tracking to battle coronavirus, an injunction to prevent the extension of the term of the acting state attorney, and on Thursday – a cancellation of the order that prohibits hospitals from declaring their premises kosher for Passover and banning hametz.
All of the above are current examples of how the court dismisses the Knesset and the laws it passes. Democracy is in danger when the court co-opts authority without taking responsibility for the results of its actions.
This coming week, a panel of 11 justices will convene to discuss the coalition agreements signed between Likud and Blue and White, and whether or not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can continue to serve as prime minister. Knowing some of the justices and their opinions, we can guess what the results will be.
Purism, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy have always been espoused by those who take the name of democracy in vain. I hope that the justices, at a watershed moment for the court, will allow wisdom to emerge victorious and not be entrapped by the same old court community whose members fill academia and the left-wing media outlets. Any attack on the coalition agreements will lead to a fourth election, with all that entails, and the loss of the last shred of public faith in the court.
The Supreme Court is important to each and every citizen of the state, and must not gamble with the future of Israeli democracy or the status of the court.
