The makeup of the Likud leadership shows that the vanguard of the Opposition's battle ahead of Election Day will aim to hold up Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal trial.
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There is almost no one in the top 10 spots on the list, or after them, who hasn't taken a stance in this spirit, either by directly addressing the indictment against him or by harsh criticism of the legal system, the state prosecutors, and the Israel Police. They all made monolithic statements about people being tired of the State Attorney's Office, and there isn't a single one who will tell the truth about what the emperor isn't wearing.
The parties will also address disagreements about issues like national security, the economy, and diplomacy, and hair-raising stories about political rivals might pop up, but the trial will be at the core of the election. Therefore, Netanyahu needs not only 61 coalition members to form a government, but also the same number to support a bill to stop witnesses from testifying.
In effect, as much of a thrilling political drama as this is, it's just the tip of the iceberg in a wider sea of legal issues that can be summed up by the battle for the legacy of former Chief Justice Professor Aharon Barak.
The struggle began with Barak's predecessor, Meir Shamgar, who ruled that the High Court of Justice must be opened to the Palestinians, who realized that if Israel remained in control of Judea and Samaria without annexing it, then residents of Nablus must be allowed their day in court just like residents of Raanana.
Aharon Barak expanded judicial activism, and turned the court into a beacon of Israeli justice throughout the world. A ruling he wrote about the security barrier in the territories is a calculated piece that removed the threat of the Palestinians appealing to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and thereby to the UN Security Council to sanction Israel, a possibility that kept many international legal scholars awake at night.
Barak was Israel's legal Iron Dome, and anyone seeking to wear down his legacy because here and there he ruled that some piece of land or other should be returned to a Palestinians does not understand the viper's nest that Israel could land in if it follows that foolish path.
The debate about judicial activism is legitimate. It took place in the Supreme Court itself, when Barak's colleagues Dr. Moshe Landau and Menachen Elon preferred the conservative route. There are people on the Right and in the center, like Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar, Naftali Bennett, and Matan Kahane, who want to see changes to Barak's legacy, and that's natural. Every thesis throughout history has been met with an anti-thesis, until a compromise is reached.
But these people wanted a discussion about strengthening conservatism, not wild verbal incitement against judges and state prosecutors and high-ranking police officials. There is no reason not to discuss a bill that would allow the Knesset to overrule a Supreme Court ruling, but when the public discourse takes place in David Amsalem's provocative style, there's actually no one to discuss it with.
If Amsalem and Yoav Kisch's tactics succeed, Israeli citizens will wake up one morning and discover that the "Barak school of thought" has been uprooted and there is no one to defend us against the ghosts of international law and sanctions, and the term "generational curse" will move from Exodus to Israel being cast out from the circle of enlightened nations, battered and bruised.
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