The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Israel in Crisis – Chinese Warnings

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates.  The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of the ongoing crisis in Israel over proposed sweeping reforms to the country’s high court. What is at the root of the mass public protests over the high court changes? Are we seeing the emergence of deeper, more intractable fault lines in Israeli society coming to the fore? What could this political and possibly soon constitutional crisis mean for the future of Israel as a democracy? Friday Focus wraps up with a discussion of the return of a war of words between Beijing and Washington over the state bilateral relations between the two superpowers. To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast, consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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contribution. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, the regular Friday Focus podcast. Each and every Friday, we are joined by Janice Gross-Stey. the founding director of the Mug School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned scholar and author. Janice, great to be in conversation with you today, the 10th of March. Great to be here with you, Roger, and lots to talk about. Absolutely. Let's dive right in.

First topic we want to address is what's going on in Israel. It's been something we've touched on in the last few shows, but it seems Janice to have gone up a perverse. Notch mass protests across Tel Aviv late this week, shutting down key highways infrastructure. If anyone's been to Tel Aviv, you know those highways to Ben Gurian Airport, all of it closed, hundreds of thousands of people out onto the street. Reports that senior reservists in the IDF and the elite Air Force refusing transatlantic training for a day symbolically. But nonetheless, the IDF, the most important institution, arguably,

in Israel becoming drawn into this national crisis over the future of the high court in Israel. Will it remain independent from the legislature? Will it function like a traditional high court? The government of B.B. Netanyahu seems bent on de-fenestration, a wholesale assertion of the Knesset, their legislature to, in a sense, establish the highest legal laws in the land. Janice, many people are talking about an existential crisis in Israel. Is that reaching too far? Is that rhetoric out of step with reality? Or is that, in fact, what is going on right now?

Oh, I think the rhetoric is right on. I would say this is the most severe democracy. domestic political crisis that Israel has undergone since 1948, frankly. But I want to sound a slightly counterintuitive note here. I think Bibi Netanyahu may be beginning to blink in the face of all the protests you described for two reasons. first the extraordinary protest by the reserve pilots. They are the backbone of the emergency response of the defense structure.

It's almost inconceivable, Raddard, that these people would join in a protest against domestic legislation. And by the way, if somebody said to me, not such a great sign. Because you politicize the military, that is not what you want to see in a well-functioning democracy. However, the sense of crisis is so great that these reserve pilots quoted their civic duty to engage on this issue. And I think that has given the prime minister some pause. Secondly, we now know. that there are behind the scenes conversations going on. They are going on under the auspices of the president, who's neutral. It's like our governor general, neutral, but nevertheless in his house, there is a mediation process going on with two, frankly, of Netanyahu's more extreme partners in the coalition, who are nevertheless there looking for a way out of the impasse,

Now, the very fact they're there tells you that something has shifted over the last week to 10 days, that the cost of doing this are so catastrophic, frankly, domestically and with the United States. And equally, in a Middle East where Iran is literally 10 minutes away from, as you put it, last week, enriching uranium to the required 90%. The cost of just grown too great. So I have a faint hope here, this week that I actually didn't have last week. Yeah, as I understand, look,

there are a number of big roadblocks, potentially that Netanyahu's government could face in getting these laws passed. One, their coalition could fall apart. I mean, he has a very small majority, so he just simply have to lose a few members of his Lakud party, which traditionally has been a more centrist party,

isn't right now. Secondly, Herzog, the president could simply not sign the legislation into law. I mean, that would be a constitutional crisis, but nonetheless, there is a pathway there. And I mean, Janice, isn't it more likely than not that this is headed off? Probably, you know, Israel will see what would it be at six election in three years. Again, these are not health signs of a healthy democracy. But I guess my question. question to you is what is the damage that has been done here because you know you can avoid the worst case scenario which are is in a sense uh you know a direct strike by this legislation on the core tenant of liberal democracy which is an independent high court and it's effective removal

from israeli society you can avoid that but what's left what are the pieces that you're picking up on the other side when you have these groups facing off with each other. Ultra-Orthodox Jews who are represented in this coalition and are driving Netanyahu pushing him towards these aggressive reforms of the court, aggressive resettlements in the occupied West Bank. You've got the whole settler wing of Israeli society similarly here that has become increasingly radicalized and violent, as we've seen in recent weeks. And then on the other side, mainstream Israeli society that's increasingly had it. They're up to their eyeballs in high taxes, serious civic obligations in the form of national

service that much of the rest of society, the ultra-Orthodox society, are not only exempted from, they don't have to work. they are funded by the state to study the Torah, as is their religious preference. And, you know, they now represent well over 10% of the Israeli population, predictions they would reach 30% of the population within a generation. I don't know, Janice, I just see fault lines here emerging in Israel that look deep, that look religious, that look, we can talk, they may have ethnic characteristics to them. This does not bode well for the mid to longer term trajectory of Israeli society.

You know, there's no question. There are multiple fall lines, as you just said. You're right to put your finger on the resentment that largely secular population, majority secular population feels about subsidizing the ultra-Orthodox element that as you say, is subsidized to study. But I don't think that would break apart the bargain. They growl, they resent, but that's not a deal breaker. The second big issue is between Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews,

and that can explode into violence. It did last time, not to mention the escalating series of attacks and counterattacks and raids. And there was an attack in Tel Aviv yesterday, which is normally immune, except when tensions really boil over. So we are in the midst of a situation that is at the boil. But what will break it, Rudyard, I have no doubt, is if this government persists in establishing the absolute supremacy of the Knesset to pass legislation by a single vote. That's really what's wrong here, just by a single vote. There are ways to climb off the cliff, but there are ways to go over the cliff.

Here's one that we didn't talk about thus far. They don't back down. So Netanyahu could lose his coalition if there's a mediated arrangement, and it brings it back. And the more extreme, so success could be failure, right? you could have a coalition could fall apart that way as well as some of the lecood members the old lecoot members you know deflecting defecting from something that was so radical and the nightmare scenario yes here they go ahead they pass legislation that court overrules that legislation which could happen you're in a full-blown constitutional crisis where everybody

take it to the street and you go over the edge into violence. So this is the moment of truth. From every perspective, can they find a way to walk back from the cliff that they're on? And can I expect conversation you and I were having just before we went on live? Where's the public square here? where's the opportunity when the stakes are so high to have a civil debate where you lower the stakes. But when it's, when politics is a war of all against all, which we're seeing not only in Israel, but in other states as well, that's when life gets very, very dangerous, Roger.

And we're at that point in Israel. Just in our many moments on this topic, to broaden this out a bit, it seems like Israel's following a pattern, a pattern that we've seen in Poland, in Hungary. You could say a pattern to an extent that we saw with Trump in the United States, it wasn't able to reach its full culmination because he lost the election. But this kind of fracturing of society into these irreconcilable groups, kind of hard minorities running roughshod over solid. soft majorities.

So these minorities have really intense feelings, causes, issues, and grievances. And it makes them really effective in our kind of social media networked political, democratic reality where many people over the course of the last generation or so have kind of checked out as citizens. They're consumers. They're pleasure seekers. They're not really interested, particularly. educated or informed about their democracy, their civic duty, this might as well be ancient

Greek to them. And as a result, their society, their democracy is in a sense unable to insulate itself electorally against the assault of these very vocal networked minority groups. and then you have populist leaders who conveniently come along and see the opportunity that these disenfranchised groups represent, and boom, you're off to the races. So to what extent is do you buy that thesis? And then secondly, is Israel just following in a course here, a trajectory that we've seen over the last few years of the decline of democracies? You know, Israel is the leading edge of the curve often over the last 30.

It's really quite remarkable. It almost prefigures what happens in other societies. You know, to give you one example, Redyard, they use law as a weapon in Internet. Israel was at the forefront of all of that 10 years ago, too. So when I look at what's going on, what's really changed, I think, here, what it makes this so interesting in an appalling way. Let me put it to you that way, but nevertheless, so interesting. And that's where I derive this ray of hope. We have 100,000 people plus who are not part of those groups who normally will engage, right?

at this level of a TEDCC, coming out week after week after week to demonstrate in public squares in the big cities because they recognize now they're off the fence, Roger. They recognize the stakes are very, very high and that their democracy can be weak. And they don't, I don't know how much they know about constitutional law or the role of courts

or all those esoteric things that, you know, some of us care about. But they sent something, is going on here that is going to weaken the fabric of their democracy. And when you look at that, that's amazing that you're getting, you know, 100,000 plus people every weekend are coming out to demonstrate. And this is going into its third month now. For what?

For the rule of law and democracy? Well, what, you know, I've tried very hard to look at the glass half full here. What does that tell you? And it's not dissimilar, and I'm not drawing a parallel at orders of magnitude, but Canadians also get, it has to do with election interference. They don't know the details here. They really don't. If you ask people who are not political junkies, they don't know in and out. But they sense, something's not right.

Elections matter. Who I send to parliament matters. And I think there are a core set of issues that the broader public. just intuit. And when they get there, they say enough. And that's the hope I have, because we have seen a decade of polarization, which shuts out the middle, makes it as you and I know all too well, so hard to have a civil debate. So if we're reaching that threshold of enough in some places, that's got to be encouraging, no matter what the outcomes. Yeah, who knows.

Maybe if there was an election, Netanyahu's government fell, you might suddenly have a return of a modern centrist government on the basis that a whole bunch of people have been politically radicalized by this experience. Well, we'll continue to follow the state of Israel, both metaphorically and the reality of such in the weeks to come on this podcast. It's an important global story that we should all be, tuning into. When we come back from the break, we're going to go to China, some especially harsh words out of the new foreign minister. He's the former US, former Chinese ambassador to the

United States. So someone who is clearly in an important regime position now, seeming to set out an argument, a case for the inevitability of conflict between China and America. We've got that conversation for you right after this break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website, triple-w The Monk Debates.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site.

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