By David Israel
Two recent confrontations between Israel’s judiciary establishment and democratically-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be separate attempts to declare the PM unfit to serve, or incapacitated. One was the Jerusalem court’s decision to deny Netanyahu the delay he requested before testifying in his own trial; the other was a demand from the AG that Netanyahu fire National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir…
And that, folks, is how a judicial Coup D’état happens in Israel. The good government folks didn’t come up with the idea on their own. The move was clearly manufactured by the AG. Earlier in February 2023, Baharav-Miara ordered Netanyahu to refrain from interfering with changes in the judicial system due to his conflict of interest because of his trial. This was based on the 11-0 High Court decision to allow Netanyahu to run for the Knesset and become prime minister as long as he did not engage in issues having to do with his corruption trial.
Of course, the trial itself is based on a plot hatched by the Israel Police, the state prosecution, and then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, pushing accusations that are being exposed every week as shoddy, and involving unethical pressure on individuals to appear as state witnesses or lose everything…
Attorney Dafna Holtz-Lechner, representing some families of the hostages alongside a group of heads of academia and senior retired IDF generals, spelled it out:
“There is no way to regulate and/or prevent the existence of the reasonable concern that [Netanyahu] may have a conflict of interest during the conduct of war, by drawing up an arrangement or updating the existing arrangement,” and therefore, “The Attorney General is hereby requested to take the extreme measure of disqualifying Netanyahu from serving as Prime Minister and to order that he be barred from continuing to serve in his public office.”
There you have it: the coup d’état, which has been waiting to claw at its prey since mid-2022…
The AG, the prosecution, and the courts are looking forward in anticipation of Netanyahu’s breaking point when he would finally give in to his ministers and ask Justice Minister Yariv Levin to fire Baharav-Miara. Because even if the PM does not fire her himself, even if he only blinks approvingly at his justice minister, the courts, prosecution, and AG would come down on him like screeching vultures with a decree of incapacitation for crossing the red line set by the High Court’s 11-0 decision.
These are the pillars of Israel’s historic aristocracy, and they’re not about to let the multitudes govern their country, never mind their bigger vote base. Much like France’s royal dynasty, the Bourbons, Israel’s ruling families didn’t learn anything and didn’t forget anything. May God remove their yoke from our necks and their boots from our backs.