Israel’s government has passed a law restricting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down laws, it’s the first piece of a proposed overhaul of the country’s judiciary.
The vote, which was boycotted by the opposition in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is a landmark moment in a conflict that has consumed Israel since the beginning of the year. It is the first measure of the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul — which seeks to limit the Supreme Court’s use of the so-called “reasonableness standard.” It bars “reasonableness” as a legal justification for judges to reverse decisions made by the Cabinet, ministers and “other elected officials as set by law.”
Here is how U.S. Jewish groups are responding to the vote.
Sam Markstein, national political director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the group joins David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, in “hoping and praying that efforts continue—and succeed—to find a consensus.”
“Like other Jewish Americans, Jewish Republicans have varying views about Israel’s difficult judicial reform debate,” Markstein told JNS. “But we’ve been consistent in saying that Americans should respect Israel’s sovereign right to set its own course through its own democratic institutions.”
The American Jewish Committee stated its “profound disappointment” with the law, which it stated “was pushed through unilaterally by the governing coalition amid deepening divisions in Israeli society as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have taken to the streets.”
The AJC expressed “particular concern” given the fact that the law “has sown discord within the Israeli Defense Forces at a time of elevated threats to the Jewish homeland and has strained the vital relationship between Israel and diaspora Jewry.”
Prior to the vote, Mort Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, tweeted over the weekend that he “strongly” supports Israeli judicial reform.
“End unelected judges choosing Supreme Court members,” he wrote, adding that elected Israeli officials should select court members, as U.S. officials do.
Hours before the vote, leaders of the Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish Agency for Israel, World Zionist Organization and Keren Hayesod wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, “We must make every effort for unity and shalom bayit—peace in our home,” the leaders wrote.
“We, representatives of the national institutions and world Jewry, partners in outlining the future of the Jewish people, wish to express the concern of the entire Jewish people and aspire to strengthen the foundations of our national home,” they stated.
The Anti-Defamation League stated that it is “deeply disappointed that the Israeli government passed the controversial Reasonableness Bill, failing to heed the call of President Herzog and others to reach a compromise rooted in a broad societal consensus.”
The Jewish Democratic Council of America also issued a statement condemning the passage of the Israeli law, which it “strongly opposes.”
“We are deeply concerned by the ongoing attempts to erode Israel’s democracy with measures like this one, which unequivocally weakens Israel’s judiciary, democracy, and systems of checks and balances,” stated Halie Soifer, CEO of the JDCA.
The group stated that it stands with “the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have demonstrated in support of Israel’s democracy and in opposition to harmful judicial overhaul proposals, including this legislation.”
