Israel’s judicial standoff deepens as Netanyahu delays firing minister

Middle east
By Editor_1
Netanyahu returned to power last month and made ultra-Orthodox party leader Aryed Deri (L) health and interior minister -RONEN ZVULUN / POOL/AFP/File
By Patrick Kingsley

JERUSALEM — The new right-wing Israeli government and the country’s judiciary remained locked in a standoff Thursday (19), after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed upholding a Supreme Court ruling that called for the dismissal of a key government minister.

Netanyahu had taken no action on removing his interior minister, Aryeh Deri, by the early afternoon, a day after the country’s highest court ruled that the minister should be fired, principally because he had recently been convicted of tax fraud and received a suspended prison sentence.

If Deri does not resign in the coming days or Netanyahu does not fire him, the legal dispute will compound a wider clash between the government and the judiciary that analysts consider one of the most profound in Israeli history.

Netanyahu faces an almost existential dilemma: Legal experts say there is no direct precedent for an Israeli leader failing to heed the ruling of the Supreme Court and would constitute a broadside against the rule of law, but removing a top official from his coalition could bring the government crashing down.

Coalition leaders were locked in tense private discussions about how to respond, amid speculation in the Israeli news media that Netanyahu would ultimately acquiesce to the court’s decision, to avoid exacerbating an already febrile mood in the country. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara advised Netanyahu that he had no other legal option, according to a letter published by Kan, Israel’s national broadcaster.

The standoff with the judiciary comes just days after Netanyahu’s government set out plans to significantly reduce the Supreme Court’s power over politicians and increase political influence over the selection of the court’s judges.

The proposed overhaul prompted large protests across Israel in recent days, amid furious disagreement within Israeli society about whether politicians or the judiciary should hold primacy in a liberal democracy.

Opposition leaders and several former prime ministers have warned that the judicial overhaul would damage the democratic process, while the government and its supporters argue it would strengthen it — by giving greater power to parties representing a majority of voters.

These tensions are set against the backdrop of Netanyahu’s own corruption trial, which his allies portray as a case of overreach by an unelected judiciary against an elected political leader, but which his critics cite as an example of the need for strong judicial independence from the political executive.

Deri’s predicament also threatens to resurface long-standing grievances from Jewish Israelis of Middle Eastern and North African origin, or Mizrahim, who form Deri’s political base. After Israel’s founding, Mizrahi Israelis suffered discrimination from Israelis of European descent, or Ashkenazim, a group that dominated Israeli society for decades and still form a majority on the Supreme Court.

By Thursday afternoon, it was not yet clear whether Netanyahu would ignore the court’s decision, setting off a constitutional crisis, or find a way of upholding it without collapsing his government.

Following the court’s announcement Thursday, the leaders of Netanyahu’s coalition issued an ambiguous statement, promising to “correct the injustice” of the ruling but leaving open the possibility that Deri might still resign.

The disagreement stems from Deri’s decision to re-enter front-line politics in a general election last November. Deri is a political veteran, first serving in the Cabinet in the 1980s. But he had promised a court in 2021 that he would retire from political life in exchange for sparing him from jail time for tax fraud.

In the election, Deri’s party, Shas, a group popular with working-class ultra-Orthodox Mizrahi Jews, won 11 seats. Shas became the second-largest party in Netanyahu’s victorious right-wing coalition, giving it the balance of power in parliament.

To secure Deri’s support, Netanyahu appointed him to lead two powerful ministries — health and interior. In doing so, he set up the clash with the Supreme Court, which was forced to rule on Deri’s suitability for office.

Though members of Shas threatened this week to bring down the coalition if Deri was forced to leave office, they scaled back that rhetoric after the court announcement.

Asked for comment on the party’s intentions, a spokesperson for Shas sent a statement underscoring its support for Deri and his continued leadership, but avoiding any mention of his ministerial future.

-New York Times

Editor_1
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