The open fascists of Israel’s governing coalition like to pretend that their attacks on the High Court are actually in support democracy of democracy. They ask why unelected judges should be allowed to overturn the will of the people (by which they mean, of course, those who are allowed to vote) as expressed by the Knesset the people [sic] elected. They are especially exercised by the standard of reasonableness, which - until this week - allowed the Court to block government decisions that the judges deemed unreasonable. But Justice Minister Yariv Levin gave away the game in a speech to the Knesset. Instead of providing examples of times when the Court blocked the people’s will, he offered these five examples that he felt demonstrated how the failure of the reasonableness standard:
- In 2018, bereaved Israeli families from Parents Circle – Families Forum and Combatants for Peace Tel Aviv invited bereaved Palestinian families to join them in observing Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) at a ceremony in Tel Aviv Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman barred those Palestinian mourners from entering Israel on the grounds that a joint ceremony was a “display of bad taste.” He characterized it as equating the murdered with the murderers. The Supreme Court overruled him and allowed the joint remembrance to take place.
- That same year Lara Alqasem, a 22-year old student at the University of Florida with Palestinian grandparents, arrived in Israel to continue her studies at the Hebrew University. She was refused entry, her student visa was canceled, and she was interned for two weeks on the grounds that she had previously been in an organization that supported boycotting Israel. The Court agreed with Hebrew University and with hundreds of Israeli and US professors that she should be permitted entry and they overruled the Interior Ministry.
- In 2002, three Palestinians - Kipah Mahmad Ahmed Ajuri, Abed Alnasser Mustafa Ahmed Asida, and Amtassar Muhammed Ahmed Ajuri - were accused of complicity in bombing attacks in Israel. The military commander of the West Bank ordered them relocated to Gaza and all three sued. The Court had no problem admitting conclusions of guilt that could not be supported by evidence because the source of that evidence was declared secret. The Court had no problem with the forced relocations of two of the three. But it overturned the third deportation (Abed) on the grounds that he was guilty only of being the brother of a bomber who had refused to loan him his car and gave him a ride instead.
- In 2021 Computer Science Professor Oded Goldreich of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot was selected for the Israel Prize in Mathematics for his work in computational complexity. Minister of Education Yifat Shasha-Biton refused to give him the prize on the grounds that he signed a letter to the German Parliament saying either - depending on whose story you accept - that support for boycotting Israel is not, by itself, antisemitism; or that they shouldn’t provide financial support for the settler college, Ariel University. The Court ordered Shasha-Biton to give him his prize, saying it is meant to be a reward for excellence in scholarship, not loyalty to the government.
- In 2018, Professor Yael Amitai, a neurobiologist at Ben Gurion University, was named to the board of the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, which is a fund for distributing research grants. Minister Ofir Akunis blocked that appointment on the grounds that Dr. Amitai signed a petition in 2005 supporting Israeli soldiers’ right to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. The Court asked Minister Akunis to reconsider.
On their face, these decisions affect both Israelis and Palestinians. It is definitely worth noting, though, that their weight and consequences differ. On behalf of Israelis, the Court intervened in cases where they were being denied academic honors, or the right to invite guests to a celebration. On behalf of Palestinians (or Americans of Palestinian descent) the Court intervened in their forced relocation and in the refusal to admit them into the country. As important, even the cases involving Israelis concerned Palestinian rights: including them in a joint bereavement ceremony, acknowledging that opposing an illegal occupation is not a crime, acknowledging that opposing that illegal occupation is not antisemitism. It should be clear from this that, at least for now, the motivation for the attacks on the Court is to give the government impunity in attacking Palestinians.
Israelis are not wrong in protesting a partisan parliamentary attack on the independent judiciary. It would be good if they recognized that behind this attack on their individual rights is an assault on the entire Palestinian people.
