Leftists do not want to improve countries; they want total power in their hands.
Dennis Prager attended a yeshiva (male Torah seminary) in his youth. On this website, he has often and eloquently distinguished between liberals and leftists. Classical liberals and conservatives could honestly debate issues even while holding very different opinions. Think of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich or Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan. Leftists, on the other hand, are like a drug-resistant ailment: they are completely impervious to any arguments or discussions on any issue. Imagine approaching the anti-fossil fuel crowd sitting on a highway, preventing people from getting to an airport or important personal engagements. You read to them reams of data on how EV cars are overall more detrimental to the environment or how nature produces more CO2 than humans or that none of the threats of the end of snow, loss of arctic ice or disappearing islands has come to be. They would ignore you or threaten you, but they certainly would not take anything you say to heart. They are ideologically programmed and are completely inert to truths, facts, or examples.
Here in Israel, it is Saturday night, which for the past few years has meant big protests in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere. Now the protests are ostensibly about getting the hostages home and having new elections. Before the Hamas pogrom, they were about fighting judicial reforms. The external reason is always just a cover. Their only goal is power—their power. There was an interesting conversation this week between a lefty radio DJ and a right-wing activist. The latter said, “Okay, let’s say that we have elections and some new right-leaning government would be formed. Would you accept those results?” The answer: “Absolutely not.” This has nothing to do with democracy or in their parlance Democracy or with the will of the people or doing right. This is about power. Everyone wants the hostages home with their loved ones. The ones on the streets tonight want Bibi Netanyahu gone and if there is a bonus of freed hostages, that would also be nice. Ehud Barak, one of the main organizers of these leftwing mobs, told the US Congress to rescind its invitation for Bibi’s planned address to Congress. Sometimes you wonder if these people have any brakes, and then you realize that they do not.
The pre-October marches and mayhem were directed against any changes to Israel’s High Court. The courts are the only leftwing bastion left. The High Court justices are not chosen by the prime minister. Rather, there is a complex and opaque process that involves the Knesset and the lawyers’ guild; in practice, other than one each guaranteed Arab and “religious” positions, all of the judges on the court are card-carrying lefties. The changes in law proposed by the Likud would have returned the court to its historical job: the highest appellate court in the land. It would take the court out of its self-appointed job of being the final word on all subjects in the country. 72% of Israelis believe that the internal fighting that pitted Israelis against each other contributed to the Hamas attack on 10/7. Hamas has said out loud that the fighting strongly encouraged them to attack, as they saw that the Jews were busy fighting each other and did not pay attention to what was going on in Gaza.
The power of the court was on full display last week. There have been several hot-button issues for decades in Israel. “Who is a Jew”, meaning whose conversion to Judaism is acceptable in the state of Israel is one such issue. Another has to do with the military participation of the “charedim” or ultraorthodox. When Israel came to be 76 years ago, Ben Gurion agreed that the 400-500 yeshiva students saved from the fires of Europe would be free from military service. Torah study has always been a central part of Jews’ existence. When one looks at all of the great dynasties from the Babylonians and Romans to the Nazis and Communists that have faded away while the Jews have kept going, one can see that Torah learning and commandment performance have been a major reason for the continued existence of the Jewish people. The ultraorthodox population has grown and there are now tens of thousands of yeshiva students who still receive deferrals annually until they pass a certain age at which time they will not be drafted.
With the growth of the ultra-orthodox community and the outbreak of the present war, the subject of military service has again taken center stage. The Netanyahu government has several ultraorthodox parties as members. There have been attempts to find a solution to the issue of yeshiva student military service. Families that send their sons and daughters to serve look at the ultraorthodox and ask why they do not send their children to serve to protect the state of Israel. There needs to be a solution, one that addresses the manpower needs of the army as well as the concerns of the ultraorthodox community. To note, several thousand young ultraorthodox joined up after the 10/7 attack. I believe that good-faith negotiations can lead to a solution that is acceptable to all parties. The problem is the High Court.
The High Court ruled unanimously that the government must draft all of the ultraorthodox students. The latter said that they would go to jail before they will be drafted. The Court would not accept any formula created by the government on the subject. Now, with those words, the Court has said that it alone has the final word on this—and every other—subject in the country. Not the democratically-elected government or Knesset. No, fifteen appointed judges alone will determine the outcome of a sensitive subject like this one. Israel does not have a constitution, though there are some things called “Basic Laws”. Not having a constitution means that Israel does not have checks and balances that exist in the US. As such, the High Court in its present format will outweigh any government that exists. And this is the reason why the lefties fought tooth and nail against any change in the Court’s breadth of activity. People gave up voting for the left after the second intifada and they cannot get an elected majority in the Knesset. Their last trump card is the Court and they will do anything—Barak even suggested that there might be bloodshed—to keep that power. Rather than a democratically-elected majority government negotiating between the ultraorthodox and the army to get to an acceptable solution, the High Court will tell the parties how it will be. Period.
Leftism is a cancer on the body politic in every Western country. It does not want to improve a people’s lot but rather control all of the levers of power that it can. Look at the way unelected bureaucrats destroyed economies and societies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Think of how European governments want to destroy their agricultural sectors to please the climate gods. The time has come to throw the lefties out of office and out of power. Voting has never been more important than it is today.