On the eve of Tisha B’Av, Israel risks an unforgivable process of self-destruction

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on regaining office in December immediately set in motion this entire unforgivable process of destroying Israel’s democratic checks and balances by neutering the High Court, seems more determined than ever to see it through.

In his fateful phone conversation with Joe Biden on Monday, according to his own office’s readout, he told the US president that the first piece of judicial overhaul legislation — barring the courts from using the legal barometer of “reasonableness” to review government and ministerial decisions — would be approved by the Knesset next week. (The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee indeed advanced it on Wednesday night for its final parliamentary readings, amid particularly acrimonious coalition-opposition feuding.) READ MORE