Our guest, Tamara Newman, a seasoned refugee rights advocate now associated with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, is here to unravel the complexities of the judicial crisis unfolding in Israel, making for a conversation you don't want to miss. This episode sheds light on the ticking time bomb that is the proposed judicial reforms put forth by the current right-wing and religious coalition government. Tamara brilliantly connects the dots and reveals how these reforms could invariably lead to a disturbing power monopoly, pushing Israel down the path of extremism.
Music: Coma-Media (intro)
WinkingFoxMusic (outro)
Recorded: 9/13/23
Our guest, Tamara Newman, a seasoned refugee rights advocate now associated with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, is here to unravel the complexities of the judicial crisis unfolding in Israel, making for a conversation you don't want to miss. This episode sheds light on the ticking time bomb that is the proposed judicial reforms put forth by the current right-wing and religious coalition government. Tamara brilliantly connects the dots and reveals how these reforms could invariably lead to a disturbing power monopoly, pushing Israel down the path of extremism.
Music: Coma-Media (intro)
WinkingFoxMusic (outro)
Recorded: 9/13/23
Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in today. In today's episode, get ready to hear about the judicial crisis in Israel, the actors, the motivations, the implications and much more. This conversation is with Tamara Newman. Tamara moved to Israel from Australia in 2013. Since arriving in Israel, Tamara has worked in the field of refugee rights as the Director of International Relations and Development at the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants from 2014 to 2019. She was establishing and managing an emergency humanitarian aid program for the refugee community at the outbreak of Corona in 2020 and a life-let for refugee children from 2021 to 2022. Prior to moving to Israel, Tamara was involved in establishing the new Israel Fund in Australia.
Speaker 1:Tamara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies and History from the University of New South Wales and a Master's Degree in Non-profit Management from the University of Technology Sydney. If you enjoy this conversation, all I ask is you share it with a friend. Thank you. Could you, just as a beginning opening question, could you tell me a little more about the role, a little bit more about yourself and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel? Sure?
Speaker 2:I'm Tamara. I am the Director of International Relations at ACRI, which is the acronym for Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and we deal with issues of civil and political rights across the full spectrum of Israeli society and those living under Israeli control, which includes Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, and we work with a wide range of communities, including Jews, arabs, Mizrahi Jews, jews from Ethiopian descent, asylum seekers, migrant workers, on the various issues of civil and political rights probably a good comparison to your ACLU in the US.
Speaker 1:Interesting and as a backstory to an in your bio that was mentioned that you came from Australia. Just to touch on that a little more what brought you to Israel specifically?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been in Israel since the beginning of 2013. So that's getting on 10 and a half years now. I grew up in Australia and Jewish. I came here for a year when I finished school on a service program and then I was in and out of Israel for a number of years and in 2013, I decided to give it a go, living here.
Speaker 1:Nice. Now to get more specifically on to today's topic and issue. Could you give me a quick overview what is currently happening with the High Court of Justice in Israel and the Executive Branch, more specifically Prime Minister Benjamin and Netanyahu and his party Sure?
Speaker 2:So last year in November there was elections in Israel and Israelis went to the polls and voted in what became a coalition government of the most right-wing extremist religious government that Israel has ever had. It's made up of four parties. One is a liquid Netanyahu's party, who's been in power with the exception of the last year for many years now, and they part together with Tionotatid religious Zionism, which includes elements of real fascism in there, as well as Shafs and Unitorial Judaism, to ultra-Orthodox parties who make up the current government. And whilst they don't share common ideology those parties within them have quite a bit of space between them they do share enough to take the country in a pretty big shift further to the right. I will say it doesn't come out of nowhere. It feeds on years and years of the country moving to the right, but I think the elements of fascism and Jewish supremacy that this current coalition government brought in has really pushed it much further, and so as they came in, they made a lot of big announcements, and the main one that really has caught the grab the attention of the whole country is the attack on the judiciary.
Speaker 2:So in January 4th, the new Minister for Justice his name is Ziorib Lavigne he got up and announced at a press conference a series of laws which he called would be the phase one of judicial reform.
Speaker 2:It includes a whole range of different laws that will dramatically weaken the power of the judiciary and in some ways turn it into just another arm of the government, and in a big way it will just allow them to consolidate power and really have uncontrolled power.
Speaker 2:And very quickly the Israeli public woke up to what the meaning of this proposed reform is, that it's not really a reform, that it's some kind of coup to change the rules of the game and it was. It's a big break from what was going on here and since then there have been enormous public protests. The first law as part of the judicial overhaul they attempted to bring in was about the judicial appointments committee. It failed in the wake of the enormous protests domestic pressure, international pressure, economic pressure, strikes and then they went to the next piece of the judicial overhaul, which was about abolishing the reasonableness clause, and that piece of legislation passed. A number of organisations and lawyers submitted cases to the court about this law, including the Association for Civil Rights where I work in, asking the court to overturn the law, and it went to court and the hearing was held just two days ago amid, again, massive protests on the streets, huge national civil division about what this means.
Speaker 1:Now speaking to that petition and what the High Court of Justice is now listening to, the paying on how they roll members of the Kineset or the Neset, if I pronounce that correctly. Kineset yeah, Kineset. Yeah, they said they may ignore what they rule on. Do you believe that would be a crossing the Rubicon moment in Israel if they simply ignore the High Court of Justice and their say ruling on the matter? Like will that?
Speaker 1:in effect just be the what they're putting forward. That quote unquote reform already going into? Say are they going into effect if they just ignore it and then move forward?
Speaker 2:If the government ignores the ruling of the High Court. It's a total constitutional crisis In some form. In some ways it's a form of anarchy, not knowing who the supreme power in the country is, and it's really unprecedented. The fact that many politicians are already saying on Twitter and in interviews that the court have no right and they want to buy by is sort of setting up the groundwork for such. They've been inciting against the court and talking, you know, saying, you know all kinds of things that they have no right, they have no authority to intervene. You know really slandering against the judges and Bibi himself, the nickname for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Bibi has said has not committed to saying that he will abide by the court ruling, but neither has he said that he won't.
Speaker 1:Understood Now, something you mentioned earlier when you're explaining the issue and dissecting it, is that the most far extremist right wing kind of government has been put together with this coalition. They've been voted in for a large part and then layer down that in that segment when you're breaking things down. You mentioned that the public is no majority is like protesting in the street. There's not riots, but there's protests. There's walkouts, strikes. So why would people in Israel vote in these politicians who would go so far to do something and then protest when they do that?
Speaker 2:Okay, it's a good question. So, firstly, there's a couple of answers to that. One is that, the way that our government works and the way the elections fell, quite a lot of people's votes ended up not counting. The merits left wing party did not meet the electoral threshold to enter the Knesset, so there were thousands of votes that didn't get counted. The threshold to enter the Knesset there are 120 seats and in order to enter you need to have at least four seats. So they didn't pass. And there was also one of the Arab parties that ran that didn't pass not a huge amount, but there was also some votes there.
Speaker 2:And then what happened is the vast majority of the coalition comes from Likud, but Likud partnered with parties that are even further right of them, and Bibi was desperate to make a coalition because, without being Prime Minister and without being able to pass laws in his favor to get himself out of his trial for corruption, he is less vulnerable, and so in his coalition negotiations, he gave the national designers and the ultra orthodox a lot of ministries, portfolios, powers that they, I believe that he wouldn't have if he was not so desperate to form a coalition. And the other centrist parties, who are a little bit to his left were not an option for him to work with. They ran on election promise of not willing to work with Bibi, so he only could look right in terms of forming a coalition. So that's the election part of it. And then I'll come out to say that most of the people protesting would be people who did not vote for one of those coalition parties, but not all. There are some people who did vote for that government who have since come out and realized that what they're doing is extreme and have changed sides.
Speaker 2:I will say that the narrative that the government pushes right now is the people voted for us. This is what the people want. If we go back and look up the lead up to the November elections, actually the judicial overhaul, or what they call reform, was not a major part of the public discussion in the lead up to their election. And there was a quote from Amir Okhana, who is a minister in the current government, and he was interviewed on TV and said when did you find out about the judicial overhaul? And he said on January 4th, when the Justice Minister got up and announced it in the press conference. So the truth is it's not that the public specifically voted for the judicial overhaul. They voted for the parties that they voted for, and it's become a dissimilar direction that they've since decided to take things in.
Speaker 1:Let's backtrack a bit. Why would the majority party be be and then? Why would they do this? What is the point of doing this? Like what led up this moment? Because I see that, you know, the high court of justice has ruled against the Knesset in different circumstances and members of the Knesset have mentioned that as one of the reasons. They have also mentioned that these justices, these judges, are appointed undemocratically through the Judicial Selection Committee, which is, like, made up of nine members. So that is like some of the cases that they're putting forward. But let's, I would like to backtrack and see why that's even happening to begin with, whether or not aligning and what led to this moment. If you can provide a little historical context.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there has become more and more of a I guess you could say political between what the recent governments, the agenda that they pushed and the world view of some of the justices on the high court, and certain rulings have really bothered the people who are make up the current government, and I'll give you a couple of examples. The National Zionist Party is led by. That's a lot of smart rich. He is a seller in the West Bank and as almost as other members of Knesset from his party, and the judges have not allowed Israel to do everything that they have wanted to in terms of occupying the West Bank. So there was there's been many cases, but in particular in 2005, when the then Prime Minister, ron you, pulled out of Gaza Strip in the Northern West Bank, the settlers took that to the high court. The high court did not protect them from that.
Speaker 2:By the way, I'll say that the disengagement from the Northern West Bank is something that's already been overturned by this current government, and the one that probably got them even further. Bother them is the 2020 talk as the law the expropriations law, which did not allow the government to retroactively legalize illegal outpost settlements that are built by Jewish settlers on private Palestinian land and it's from anyone who is familiar with a law and international law. The idea that this law could pass to allow retroactive approval of settlements is shocking and indeed an ACRI who I work for, together with partner organizations in 2020.
Speaker 1:I think we break that down a little more for some people who are completely unaware of Israeli settlements.
Speaker 2:So Israel has a military occupation of Palestinian territory. The West Bank has been occupying those places since 1967, when they were captured in the state war. Stories that were also captured in are Sinai, which was settlers but was returned back to Egypt I'm not sure what year, but Israel has built settlements more there. They withdrew their settlement in the peace deal with Egypt in that land, stakein was captured from Syria. The Golan Heights was actually annexed and became part of Israel and has been since 1967. East Jerusalem, which stays in this in between unclear status, and then West Bank and Gaza, which Israel occupied years, and when I say recent 30 years, it's understood that this is the major obstacle to any long term peace agreement with Palestinians. So, 2005,. Then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decides he has to start removing Jews from the settlements and he brings the settlers out of Gaza. I will say that most of the time when you hear about Jewish settlements and you hear about occupation, always talking about the West Bank, gaza, on the other hand, it's not occupied on the ground. There isn't a militant and Israeli military presence on the ground in Gaza, but it's not any less occupied, and by that I mean Israel has total control over Gaza, and from the air, from the crossings to go into Gaza, and also on the sea. So nothing goes in and out of Gaza without Israeli security going forward. They control the crossings both from Israel and from Egypt to get in and out of Gaza. They control water and electricity and really everything about how cousins are able to live their life is under Israeli control, but they don't see soldiers in the street when they get up in the morning, whereas in the West Bank there is a military presence of Israel.
Speaker 2:In the West Bank there are around 600,000 settlers living in different settlements, some of which are grown into enormous cities like Ariel or Qushet Zion, and some of which are continually being established or expanded under an ideological view that this is land that should become part of Israel and that was promised by God and is really a source of great tension.
Speaker 2:I'll say the international law is very clear. Occupying powers cannot go and send their populations to go and live there, and the amount of force and violence and oppression that is required keep the Jewish presence in the West Bank is horrifically oppressive and damaging to Palestinian human rights. That's two words on that, and so it's a little small twitch. It's in our bank via, and others in them. Their party is made up of people who live in those settlements, bank via, who lives in one of the most extreme settlements, kira Abba, and also MK, always spoke from their party. She lives in the heart of Hebron, the number one most extreme place that Jewish settlers live in terms of violence and being in the center of a major Palestinian town, and and so that agenda of trying to take over the land and push Palestinians out has become mainstream in the Israeli government.
Speaker 1:And the High Court Justice you were mentioning in 2020, retroactively ruled or ruled against retroactively looking at, say, palestinians land rights and going against them and allowing. Clear that up for me.
Speaker 2:Okay. So most settlements that Israelis have built in the West Bank are not planned. They are started by people who decide we're going to go and build a new settlement here, by Jews who decide to go and build a settlement, and then often it grows a few caravans turns into a few real long term structures. Eventually they get connected to the water supply and electricity and and they become towns and go on. They are building on occupied land. Now a lot of the land that they build on is state owned Palestinian man and some of that has simply been confiscated from Palestinians and turned into Israeli settlements. Some of it is privately owned Palestinian land and that is even a greater crime in terms of just the extent of helplessness Palestinian have in that scenario, and the High Court ruled against being able to retroactively rant those settlements to become regularized under Israeli law that have been built illegally on private Palestinian land.
Speaker 1:So because of that, rolling in a few others, the party in power now, bb's party, is now seeking to take away and pretty much diminish a large part of the High Court of Justices rulings and, in some cases, simply ignore them by taking away that power.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just say that that was an example, and it's an example of one of the laws that really get on that bother the settler movement. There are another series of high court that much more bother the ultra orthodox, specifically that they're concerned that the High Court will force them to be forcibly conscripted like all other Israeli citizens, and other laws that they have also struck down which were based on detention and deportation of asylum seekers, and those are some of the topics that have the High Court has taken a stance on and has created a big riff with the politicians.
Speaker 1:So, for those proponents that are pushing this forward, what is their argument mean? They're obviously not coming out and saying at least from my read and solve and seen they're obviously not coming out and saying we're doing this because we don't like what they did for a seller movement or because of, say, the far right parties. We don't like them because we are in fear of this or that. What's the argument that they're making?
Speaker 2:The argument that they are making is that they are the publicly elected government and the High Court is not letting them govern. The High Court is interfering and not letting them, you know, pursue what they claim is the will of the people and that the balance of powers between the government and the High Court, and obviously the Knesset are in there as well. But the way that the Israeli government system is set up, that the government is in control of the parliament, the Knesset, and they say the balance of powers have come out of, out of balance, I guess, and they are trying to restore balance and restore the power of the government.
Speaker 1:Is there any truth under that argument? There's any truth in that argument.
Speaker 2:I think that it touches on something real, which is democracy, is a balancing act between those three arms of government. The separation of powers is one of the, you know, basic democratic concept and there is room for a conversation about how the country structures itself in terms of its arrangement of separation of powers. That's definitely true. And the fact that they say the court, you know they are the elected officials and therefore that's what you know, that's what gives them the power, that's true. But there's a very good reason that that is how to add a.
Speaker 2:Three of the major powers in the country are, you know, the source of their authority. And if the parliament and the government are elected by the public and the judges are not elected by the public, that's the way it's set up, because the role of the judges is not to be the representative the public, it's meant to be the representative of the law and they decide what is legal. And in those cases that I mentioned you know the, the expropriation laws their reading of Israeli law was that what the government had decided to do was the legal and that's within their authority to do. But when it happened too many times, the government has not liked the restraint on their power.
Speaker 1:Understood. Where does the international community fall in this? You know you mentioned that they condemned this quote unquote reform and this push to deteriorate such kind of a staple institution to democracy. But where does kind of these players fall in specifically?
Speaker 2:There is a lot of talk about democracy, comparisons, democracy, democratic setups, the different powers they have and basically the way that Israel system work is. We don't have a constitution like you have in the US. We also don't have two houses of parliament, we have just one and the government always is the majority in the parliament. And so, because of those different checks and balances that don't exist in the Israeli system, the major or only check and balance on power is the court.
Speaker 1:Understood.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of international commentary, that's that I mean there's a lot of local commentary that says well, it's the only country that this is the country that this the truth is and this actually came up in the hearing that in certain things there are international comparisons and on certain things that just aren't international comparisons.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I can see why that the pang on how this all plays out. It really is a turning point in Israel's future, or could be a turning point in Israel's future for democracy, if there's no other checks on power besides the high court.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I'll. I'll let you in on something a little bit comical, but the example that they always discussing in in the media and in the court, even in the court on the big hearing on Tuesday, is what if the government decides to amend the law of the election law and that everyone who is in Hebrew Jinji but redheads, can't vote?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just as the comical, like you know, point that what they could do, basically, yeah, exactly and honestly it's.
Speaker 2:It's comical because of the way they you know, they use the terms, the terms Jinji, but it's not that unrealistic under the current government to think that they might do that, for example, for certain minority groups like the Arab minority of Israel.
Speaker 2:There are 1.25 million Arab citizens of Israel who are very much under threat under this current government and to think that they might pass a law to take away their voting rights is not totally after the changes we've seen. So the answer is that if that were to happen, there would be no level for a check or balance on that. If, if it was decided that the high court, if basically the judicial form was passed, the government would be able to say we're not going to let redheads or Arabs vote in the next election, and and that would be the end of the story there's no review on that. For the record, there are parties there who are part of that who would happily also pass a law that says we won't vote in the next election and again, if there's no judicial check or judicial authority to review that, that would become the law of the land.
Speaker 1:Where do you think we touch on the international community? Where do you think or do you think the United States has a role to play in this, since you know, israel is one of the largest dependent factors of USAID and you've seen President Biden kind of one distance himself from Benjamin Nahu in recent kind of date. Now they're meeting outside at the United Nations in New York City, compared to the White House, which I was watching some Israeli media, which is kind of seen as a slight. So I'm curious if you think the United States has a larger role to play or for, or a role at all. Some people just want the US out of it, which I also understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the US definitely has a role to play. Us and Israel have a long and involved, very involved relationship with one another, and that relationship is based on common values and common commitment to democracy. And when those values are no longer there and democracy is dwindling, it's worth reevaluating that relationship. I think most Americans believe democracy is a system worth protecting and I we definitely call on the international community to stand up for that system. I will say, you know, is in Israel.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of problems in this country, including the fact that, you know, democracy stops at the Green Line, which is the 67 day armistice, six day war 1967, six day war armistice line, where Palestinians on that other side don't have any rights and therefore is not a democracy. But putting that aside, the US has, you know, has, for, you know, the last 80 years, been pushing a foreign policy of advancing democracy and letting Israel slide into an authoritarian country, is pulling back from that policy, and so it seems like that the natural, appropriate measure for the US to take is to put pressure to keep Israel's democratic institutions the way they are.
Speaker 1:And yeah, if someone was completely blind about this issue, where should they go or what would you recommend to learn more about it? And actually, in two part questions what could be the potential consequences of this issue, or of this reform, if it does go through to, for the international community in the world?
Speaker 2:So I, of course, encourage you to get information from from ACRI, the Association of Possible Rights in Israel. You can find us at the acriallil acriallil, where we have a lot of material on position papers and about the various proposals going on and the situation, and we're also on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. I think it's important to listen to civil society voices such as ours about what's going on here. I think what was the second part of the question?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was completely separated. So the second part of the question was and just popped in my mind was that what are the consequences for the national community? Like why should you care, without being so blunt, but now being blunt about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think in a lot of the world there is a shift towards the authoritarian right, and if Israel's judicial overhaul and many other, by the way, it's not just the judicial overall, but a lot of other laws like, for example, to expand the authority and powers of the police those types of laws are looked at by different countries, by different leaders, to validate their own plans, and I can say that definitely what the Israeli government's ceiling has been seen in other countries before us Hungary, turkey, poland, countries that have gone through similar processes, where there's been changes to the judicial system or more control over the media and more rights limiting the rights of citizens, and so it's part of a global threat to democracy, to human rights, to freedom of expression, freedom of speech and to a lot of those values and rights that we have come to associate with life in the Western world. It's part of a chain and I think it matters to the, to the world.
Speaker 1:Maybe on another episode, to dive into why this is happening, because you do see that in places, as you mentioned Poland, in Hungary, with them being Well, some changes to the judicial setup and layout, but also just this move of nationalism as well. So I'm curious as to why that's happening. To close out to what, what is the next step for you and you and your organization? How do you kind of plan to handle this? What's your role in all this?
Speaker 2:So I will say specifically on the reasonability for us, we are case is on behalf of 38 human organizations, about how the reasonability for us will affect human rights and specifically, how affect the mechanism that we have to be able to protect human rights, and we will continue to pursue that role.
Speaker 2:We're waiting now on a decision in that case and there is a possibility that if it fought rules against, against the law, that there will be some kind of constitutional crisis. And it's not just this law. Obviously, there are the other one parts of what they call the reform, but the overall to dramatically weaken the judiciary. And then there are so many other laws that are on the books as proposals that will limit the rights of citizens to free speech, and the laws of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Arab minority and, of course, many, many moves to expand the settler movement in the in the West Bank and and to carry out a non officially declared annexation of the West Bank. And we will continue to fight for civil rights of all people living in Israel and under Israeli control.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your time and thank you for the insight provided here today. I really appreciate tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I play that. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for watching this video. See you guys.