Let's admit it. No one fully understands Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and his court jester Raz Nizri's complex about the appointment of a justice minister. What is clear is that through them, the Supreme Court is effectively appointing itself justice minister. This we understand. It's hard to do democratically, or as a disinterested act.
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This was a move that developed slowly, and primarily has to do with Mendelblit's strange insistence on upholding a mechanism of balance, even during a transitional government, and more so after an election and a new Knesset. When people keen over the fate of rule of law, it's important to remember that the mechanism of balance is something that came out of the attorney general's overheated brain, and not through legislation by the Knesset. As usual, it's not about rule of law, it's about rule by legalists.
But why should we look for democratic logic? It's like the idea of appointing a prime minister from a party that won seven seats. For the first time, Israel could see a government formed against the will of the people and the basic values of democracy.
The same goes for Benny Gantz. He just won eight seats in the last election, but he continues to behave as if he has over 30, while his "bloc" depends on Joint Arab List leader Ayman Odeh. The same Odeh who preaches intifada and violence and on whose shoulders Gideon Sa'ar and Naftali Bennett want to build their Potemkin government. You'd think that after the public had its say and it turned out that Gantz did not have their support, he's adopt a bit of modesty. Of humility. That he'd bow down to the voters. But no. He demands the justice ministry and fights like a lion for it, when he should know better than to want it. It's not unusual for governments to have unstaffed positions as they disappear, especially when the problem started when Gantz himself insisted on firing former Justice Minister Avi Nissankoren. There is something going under the surface that the public doesn't know.
Of course, the heads of the country, like Movement for Quality Government chairman Eliad Sraga, are already prepared with forms in hand, wiling to hand issues of government over to the High Court. Before all this happened, there was another drama in which Gantz was holding the procurement of vaccines hostage over the issue of the justice minister appointment. It was insufferable, but it did not keep the opinion-shapers from doing what they do and ignoring the serious harm it caused the public. It seems this, too, is a matter for selective enforcement.
Of course, all this could be ended at once. Image that the whole matter of the Supreme Court overturning the government were solved through the establishment of a right-wing government with 65 seats. It's not that unfeasible. But again, Bennett and Sa'ar could send any reforms of the legal system up in smoke. We could show Mendelblit the door, if only the right-wing factions would come to their senses and do what their voters have believed in for years.
If that doesn't happen, you can talk about promises to the public from now 'til the cows come home. Forming a left-wing/Arab/Bennett/Sa'ar government has major implications for the legal system – everything will remain as it is. Gideon Sa'ar, rather than defending Israel, has become a defender of the prosecutorial authorities.
It's hard to imagine that out of everyone involved, Prime Minister Netanyahu would turn out to be the most honest.
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