The US, Israel, and Europe are experiencing similar phenomena: a small, vocal Left uses all means to foist its unpopular ideas on unwilling citizens.
I have written previously at this site about the issues related to judicial reform in Israel. With Israel’s president currently in Washington where he met a distracted President Biden and will shortly give a speech to Congress that “the squad” and their friends will boycott, it seemed like a good time to look at the stakes involved in the fight over judicial reform. The US and Israel are joined by many bonds—democracy, religious character, many dual citizens, strong high tech and powerful armed forces. But these two countries, along with those in Europe, are being subjected to oftentimes violent protests from groups on the Left whose ideas have been voted on and generally not accepted. Realizing that without power they will be reduced to academic and journalistic rantings, those on the Left are fighting to win. It is incumbent for those who want their countries to thrive and succeed to defeat these forces and their political enablers at the ballot box.
The image of judicial reform sold by the media and the Biden administration is one of a wild-eyed proto-dictator named Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to neuter Israel’s supreme court so that he will rule unchallenged. While one might invoke the old argument, “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist,” there is a more honest view of the events currently occurring in the Knesset. Chief Justice Aaron Barak, around 30 years ago, turned a sleepy appellate court into the most powerful political body in the state of Israel. “Hakol shafit,” which literally translates into “everything can be adjudicated,” intentionally made the High Court the final word on all political and legal subjects in the country as legal standing was no longer required to file a petition to the court. The court can nix an appointment made by a sitting prime minister; it can throw out agreements made by the prime minister with political groups or even with other countries; it can dictate the actions of the Israeli armed forces, including telling them where to put security barriers between Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has determined religious issues over the objections of the official rabbinate and has put its thumb on conversion questions, colloquially known as “who is a Jew.”
When the state of Israel was formed, the Mapai party—the precursor of the nearly defunct Labor Party—had all of the seats in Israel’s parliament. It was not until the 1970s, with Menachem Begin’s victory, did cracks appear in the absolute power of the Left to control the country, which at the time was not the swinging high tech leader it is today but rather a socialist country with one type of toilet paper. From the 1970s until around 2015, Labor alternated with the Likud for control of the premiership and thus power. As is known, Israel recently had a series of inconclusive elections which after four rounds brought in a Left-leaning government that for the first time in the country’s history included an Arab (Islamist) party. The numbers showed that the Left alone could never form a government again. Its once powerhouse parties of Labor and Meretz were shells of their old selves (Meretz did not pass the minimum electoral threshold to enter the current Knesset), and the “Left Camp” as it is known can no longer cobble together 61 seats needed to form a majority in the parliament and thus a functioning government. The right wing and ultraorthodox parties are growing in Knesset representation and will not sit with them, so the Left has only one trick still up its sleeve to control what happens here: the High Court.
As long as that body, with its 15 justices, can judge any issue in the country and throw out laws or agreements, the Left has its political backstop. The laws currently being written by the Likud would defang the High Court and once again make it into the highest appellate court in the land and little more. And so 161 officers of the Israel Air Force wrote a letter saying that they will not participate in their reserve duty. Large store chains closed in protest of the proposed new legislation. Protesters make travel in the country impossible by blocking roads, filling train stations, and preventing access to Israel’s main international airport. The Left is playing for keeps and as the first of the new laws moves towards approval in the Knesset, where Likud and its partners hold 64 seats, violence and threats of destroying Israel’s societal fabric become louder.
If one were to turn off the volume of a TV or other device, he would see similar events in Europe. Whether it is the anti-oil protesters who give themselves the right to destroy private property, museum treasures, or interrupt sporting events, or pro-migration groups demanding that European nations take in anyone and everyone, the protests in Europe would look very similar to those in Israel. In both cases, one sees a Left-leaning minority that holds views not shared by the vast majority of the public but will use all means—including violence—to push its agenda on the citizenry. Instead of accepting that Europeans want reasonably-priced energy and control over who enters their countries, those on the Left double down to demand that their views—and only their views—be accepted. Ireland and Holland dabble with destroying their agricultural sectors to please the demands to reduce nitrogen fertilizers emanating from Davos. I always laugh to myself about the Just End Oil people as they no doubt took some form of transportation to get to their point of protest. Ditto for the pro-migrant groups that do not want the newcomers anywhere near where they live.
And this finally brings us back to the US. That the current Assistant Secretary for Health is a confused human being who left his family and claims to be a woman does not bother most Americans. That the same person and many others on the Left want to make wholesale changes to children in the name of “gender dysphoria” is a non-starter for the vast majority of American citizens, however. Bud Light by just dabbling in the subject of “trans” seriously dented not only its brand but also everything associated with Anheuser-Busch. Americans also want affordable energy and are not interested in having electric cars foisted upon them or have to give up stoves that run on relatively clean natural gas. But the Left has moved to ideological purity and no resistance can be tolerated and no compromise can be considered.
So the next time a Serious Person says that Benjamin Netanyahu wants to become a dictator, or that Europe must take in all of the migrants from the Middle East, or that “gender affirming care” is a right for every child, just turn down the volume and grab a beer—anything but Bud Light. And then get ready to vote. Those on the Right tend to be too busy with family, religious obligations, community and work to spend their time protesting. They also tend not to make violent protests like Antifa and BLM do. Still, the Left must be answered. And the answer needs to be at the ballot box, to elect officials who will keep the Western democracies free and safe from the failed ideas of our socialistic and proto-Communist fellow citizens.