A tyranny of the majority threatens to emerge in Israel

Protesters fear that the reforms the cabinet wants to implement will damage democracy and harm the public ultra-right make it easier for the government to implement controversial plans. How justified are these concerns?

The most criticized reform concerns the rule of law. The majority of parliament must soon be able to pass laws that the Supreme Court judges to be contrary to the constitution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says reform is needed “to restore the balance of power”. The court would interfere too much with the decision-making process in recent decades, according to some Israelis.

But experts are sceptical. The reform makes possible “a tyranny of the majority,” says Erwin van Veen, a Middle East researcher at the Clingendael institute. “If the Supreme Court opposes a law or decision, the parliament can say: we will do it anyway. Then the legislature will replace the judiciary.”

Worrying, agrees Dutch-Israeli anthropologist (UvA) Erella Grassiani. “Half plus one will soon be able to make decisions that go directly against the fundamental rights of minorities.”

It is safe to think that the new government intends to do so. Though Netanyahu says his government is there for all citizens, Palestinians and LGBTI people in particular often suffer greatly from his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners. “Lhbti people have long had the support of the more liberal parts of politics, but now they hardly have a voice in government,” Grassiani says.

And Israel “was already a country that treats its minorities very badly,” says Van Veen. “In 2018 declared the government of Israel as a Jewish nation-state, with Arabs as second-class citizens. Furthermore, the dispossession of the Palestinian territories has so far taken place in stages, but some parties in the new government want more speed and will support large-scale annexation.”

Grassiani, who is co-founder of a platform of Israelis in the Netherlands who oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories, sees this with regret. “For the average Palestinian in Israel, the current government is, above all, another step in the wrong direction, the next stop in a corridor that has been going on for decades.”

The two-state solution, in which Israel and the Palestinians live side by side in peace in their own states, seems further away than ever. Van Veen thinks other countries should recognize this reality and act accordingly. “The Netherlands is still focusing on a two-state solution, but Israel put this idea aside much earlier. Israel has not given the experiment a serious chance to make Palestine prove itself as a functioning state.”

“Israel has a long track record of violations of international law, the rights of Israeli Arabs and the rights of Palestinians. But the Netherlands rarely, if ever, attribute concrete consequences to this.”

Already now he and Grassiani expect the Netherlands not to take a stand, “not even with more abuses”. The Netherlands is not that big an international player, but minorities in Israel shouldn’t expect to lobby other countries either, Grassiani says.

Van Veen agrees. “The United States is an important factor, but it will not turn against Israel. President Joe Biden is strongly pro-Israel. In the US, the conflict is a political minefield where you have nothing to gain as a hardline president. “

Another question is how Muslim countries neighboring Israel will behave. Israel has had a few years with the countries in the region better (business) relations.. Van Veen expects normalization to stall “if the Israeli government makes life for Palestinians even more difficult than it already is.”

Grassiani thinks differently. “The relationship was built at a time when there was already severe oppression of Palestinians. That wasn’t an objection then and it won’t be now.”