Dan Steinbock describes the process by which the Netanyahu government has sought to transform Israel from within and annex the occupied territories. Part 2 of a 5-part series.
Demonstrating against the Israeli government’s plans to suppress the Supreme Court, Feb. 26. (Oren Rozen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
This is the second in a five-part series. Here is part one.
By Dan Steinbock
The World Financial Review
Since January, the Netanyahu government has pushed for highly controversial judicial reforms, a series of changes to the judicial system and the balance of powers.
The effort has been led by Yariv Levin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deputy prime minister and justice minister, and Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
Levin fought the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, opposes a two-state solution and supports settlers.
Rothman, a critic of Netanyahu’s corruption trial, represents the militant, anti-Arab Religious Zionist Party that promotes far-right Kahanism and Jewish supremacy and supports the annexation of occupied territories to Israel. (For more, see Neta Oren’s article in The Middle East Journal, “’King Bibi’ and Israeli Illiberalism: Assessing Democratic Backsliding in Israel during the Second Netanyahu Era.”)
The key amendment passed by Israel’s Parliament,