The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Israel in Crisis – Summer Reads

Episode Date: July 28, 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 edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of the week’s remarkable events in Israel. After months of protests, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu passed the first in a series of sweeping “judicial reform” laws aimed at curbing the power of Israel’s supreme court. Is this the beginning of the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? On the back half of the program, Janice shares her suggestion for a great summer read in the form of the new book Radical Uncertainty: Decision Making Beyond Numbers. Enjoy! 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.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by The Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website in just a few. simple clicks, triple W the monk debates.com. Look for the Friday focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website. Make your donation and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Hello, Monk listeners. Rudyard Griffiths here, the host and moderator of the Monk Debates.

Welcome to this, our regular Friday Focus podcast, as we are, each and every Friday, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director, the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned scholar and author. We find Janice at an undisclosed location, north of Toronto, deep in the woods, but with all her recording gear, how is your week at the cottage going, Janice? Let me just give our listeners a clue where in Canada is there a beautiful, rocky region. filled with lakes. I think any Canadian is going to guess that is Muscoca. Nice.

Well, hopefully I will be joining you in a couple weeks. It is that time of year. But it's also a time of year where we have seen a sort of remarkable developments this week in Israel, Janice. This has been a topic that you and I have talked about on past episodes of Friday Focus, to provide the briefest of summaries for those of us may be deep in our cottages and not following international news. After months of protests, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu finally went

ahead this week and passed the first possibly in a series of sweeping judicial reforms, stripping the Supreme Court of Israel of its so-called reasonableness clause. was a test that the court applied against legislation coming out of the Knesset. Conservatives in Israel saying this is about a rebalancing of the powers of the legislative versus the judicial branch. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of protesters, though, Janice and Israel saying something very different. This is a threat, a strike on Israeli democracy. the very future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. What's your take? Let me add one more fact, which I think will be helpful to otherwise bewildered Canadian

listeners when they watch this incredible display. Israel has no constitution, unlike Canada and the United States, because they couldn't reach agreement. Way back in 1948, these issues were there, Roger, between the Orthodox Jewish community and secular Jews. They couldn't reach an agreement on passing legislation to create a constitution. So they punted the ball. And what did they do? They passed a series of what they've called basic laws after,

which declared Israel to be a Jewish and a democratic state. Go square that circle. And the reason that temperature is so high is what made its way through the Knesset last Monday in two readings, all done in one day, was an amendment to one of the basic laws. So for listeners, it would be like amending our Constitution. Now, we have a very elaborate process. We can't do it. It's so elaborate, frankly, in Canada. it got done in the Israeli parliament in 24 hours. So it's not so much the content of what was passed, we could debate that. It's the way it was done that has probably 70% of the country,

if you look at the polls saying this is a mortal blow to democracy. And if people know people who live in Israel, there are existential cries of unks coming. This is the end. This is the end. We are watching the destruction of Israeli democracy. It's a process issue. Nobody amends even an unwritten constitution with a simple majority vote.

That's what this was. And by the way, the opposition walked out. So the vote was 64 out of 120 to zero. that is not okay as a way to a mental constitution. Even if it's an unwritten constitution, it wouldn't be okay in the United Kingdom, which doesn't have a written constitution either. It doesn't pass the sniff test, sorry. I think it's the question, Janice, is why now?

And it seems to be that Netanyahu has assembled a coalition for the first time in Israel, really of the right and the far right. So not only do you have Lakud, his traditional party, which is the kind of right of center party, it has for the first time cobbled together a working majority with the parties representing settlers in the West Bank and elsewhere and the ultra-orthodox community. And the results of this, Janice, is that you have in some ways a kind of foreshadowing possibly of what a Trump reelection might look like. you have the parties of the aggrieved in a country assuming power. And some might say Janice kind of rationally, not maybe agreeably, but rationally, making a strike on what they perceive as the power centers of the elite.

In this case, the Ashkenazi Jews who commanded the heights of the Israeli state since his founding who primarily come from Europe, not the Middle East, as most of especially the Orthodox community does in Israel. And what we're seeing here, Janice, isn't it just simply, unfortunately what we're seeing across a lot of democracies, which is factionalism, tribalism, groups setting off against each other and using the institutions of the state, you know, to settle scores? That's absolutely what it is.

And, you know, I was in Israel, as you know, Roger, just a few weeks ago. And being on the streets, it was really fascinating to hear the language that people described. It was war, of all against all. So on both sides. So for the secular majority, which is overwhelmingly, as you rightly said, descended from Europeans who came to Israel, not from those who came largely from the Middle East or Spain. The view was, look, demographics are against us. Because religious Jewish families are having eight, nine, and ten kids,

secular families, secular families all over the world, are having one, and if you really push the envelope, too. If we don't make a stand now, we will lose. We will be outnumbered by people who don't share, our values. They are our enemy. So we are going to stop this now no matter what. And that's why you got literally half a million people. That would be like having three or four million Americans in the streets every weekend. And there were more last weekend to make a stand. But more than that, Israel has a reserve army, which means you call up civilians because it's a small country. And the pilots

who are essential to the way the Israeli Air Force functions, the reserve pilots said they would not serve. They would not fulfill their reserve duty. The stakes have to be hugely hard to get people to do that. On the other side, the aggrieved, right? The religious who say, those secularists, they're forgetting about the Jewish part of this state. They drive cars on the Sabbath through our neighbors.

They engage in all kinds of. decadent and ruinous behavior. They don't care about us. They've ruled. They've had 75 years. We are going to take it back. And boy, we're going to do it now because we've got this narrow coalition. We might never have it again. So the really scary part of this, and I hear echoes of this in the United States too, is this is our moment. If we don't go all out now and they echo each other's language, We're going to lose and we're going to lose forever. That's the most dangerous moment, I think, in politics when we hear this totalizing language because that's when countries go over the edge into civil war, frankly.

Hi, Monk listeners. A friendly reminder that our Monk debate on artificial intelligence is now available in beautiful high-definition video on our website, www.munkdebates.com. tune in to this 90-minute main stage monk debate featuring four the world's leading thinkers on AI. Learn about this new technology. It's promises, it's pitfalls. We've got it all covered in this exceptional on-stage live monk debate recorded for you. If you are a donor, a supporter, a curator at the monk debates, you can access this debate free as part of your generous contributions to our charity.

If you are not a donor, please become one now. We'll send you a link to access the debate. You get all kinds of other great perks and privileges for as little as $25 a year, live streaming of two annual debates. And, of course, our much-inticipated weekly Friday Focus podcast. Get all this right now on triple w monkdebates.com and learn about the future of AI. So where do you think this goes from here? because we all have to pay high taxes, put up with all kinds of religious accommodation to put

a politely. Some would say those are pretty profound restrictions on their freedom. And we have to, you know, serve in the military. We have required mandatory military service. All these Orthodox Jews in Israel are exempted from military. service, they received large state subsidies to effectively engage in religious studies, you know, as opposed to contributing to the Israeli economy. I mean, it seems Janice like, I don't know, how do you square the circle? You have two groups who have vastly different

expectations, vastly different responsibilities vis-a-vis the state that are required of them. It seems like all of this was a series of landmines that were planted in the body politic of Israel that have now exploded. And I just don't know to extend the analogy. How the heck do you put Humpty Dumpty back together again? This is the existential question, Rudyard, and people feel what the stakes are so high for good reason. They really are very high. Where can this go from here? You have to ask yourself. Well, my answer is nowhere good. The first thing that's going to happen, just imagine this. Of course, the day after the legislation's passed, members of the secular community appealed to the Supreme Court. The very Supreme Court, that is, there's red flag to the bulls in the

government to rule on whether this legislation is constitutional or not. Which they will take up in September. Yes. There's no good outcome. They can duck the ball. that's not good. I'd say we don't review the so-called basic laws or the Constitution. They could say it is constitutional. You've got a huge excess of secular Jews from this country now. The ones who are driving the economy, attracting foreign investment,

leading the military, this is, in a sense, the backbone, as you rightly say of the state because Orthodox Jews don't pay tax, the men, don't work, study Torah in religious seminaries, and don't serve in the military. So if you take out a chunk of the secular community, you know, Israel slides into poverty at an astonishing rate, frankly, and loses a certain. technological edge. That's not a good prospect for the court. Or they rule it unconstitutional in September and then this coalition that is led by, I don't have words strong enough in my vocabulary

in a broadcast. I can't find the right words to describe this. Self-interested prime minister who is blowing up his country because he wants to. to fire the attorney general that is leading the prosecution against him in a series of criminal trials. And now he can do it because the court cannot intervene and say that is unreasonable. This is the most narrow self-interest. This is the most selfish act by a prime minister that it is conceivable to imagine. There is a string. There's a wonderful tradition in Judaism. We're a great inventive curses. A long string, a very colorful curses are invented. Now I have such a string in my head. I just can't use them in public because he is pushing this country to terrible,

terrible outcomes. And let's just add, Richard, just a very volatile region, right? The Iranians are watching very closely. The dysfunction that's going on inside Israel, you know, Hamas, Hezbollah, all of Israel. All of Israel. near neighbors who wish it ill are watching this and finally calibrating. Do we seize the moment now or do we wait for the dysfunction to get greater than it is? This is the most perilous moment for this country since 1947 in all honesty, all bought about by domestic dysfunction. Now, could we see a version of something like this in the United States? It is striking to me. me. Trump has a team. Leave out Trump himself and his personality, right? But he has a team of very

coldly rational people around him who are preparing for the next Trump administration and how they will take over and rid the deep state, as you put it, Rudyard, of all the people who have enshrined everything that they hate. It's not inconceivable. We could see this. Yeah, no, look, Israel in some ways is like, you know, a time machine into the future right now. Other countries have gone down this route. I mean, the analogies in Europe are Hungary, bonds that have kind of viscerated their, the independence of their judiciary. And it has been kind of instrumental to a new kind of soft authoritarianism that those two countries have now kind of pioneered, ironically, the very European Union that's supposedly dedicated to all these good principles.

The final thing I want you to end on, Janus, is just Israel could, with a great degree of credibility, when confronted around issues of law and human rights, say that we have a judicial system that is recognized as a peer with other democratic countries around the world in terms of its independence, its rigor, it's standing. And that has allowed Israel to effectively neutralize a lot of the, not only foreign criticism, but possibly foreign legal entanglement that could be targeted at Israeli generals, politicians, members of the IDF, who would run afoul of the international criminal court in Hague or whatever international body that, you know, potentially could, could target them.

This seems, Janice, like it has a double threat for Israel, an internal threat or regional threat, but also an international threat that undermines the legitimacy of the Jewish state on the basis that the democratic quota or quantum of that state is now in some moment of attrification? There's no question that there are international implications. It's not for no reason, Roger, that pilots and other reserve officers are saying we will not serve at this legislation. We will not serve our reserve duty when called up. And why is that? They understand the argument that you. You just may, that as long as there is an internationally respected judiciary court in Israel,

which ultimately is the High Court and there was the rule of law, the International Criminal Court does not have primary jurisdiction. The domestic court has primary jurisdiction. So were they to be charged? Their cases would be heard in the first instance by the Israeli High Court, which, like any other High Court understands better the local circumstances and conditions. If the Supreme Court is totally eviscerated, which is what this coalition has set out to do, and let me be clear, the reasonableness doctrine, which you started this, I was off with this morning, really doesn't

do that, all right? It's just one small piece in the powers of the court. And it has to do with the narrowest of issues, really around the prime minister's capacity to appoint former criminals as ministers. That's that, you know, it's that narrow. So it doesn't eviscerate entirely the court. But that's the trajectory thereon. There's no question. And were they to do that? I think the court would have, the international criminal court would have grounds for saying. We now, we now, have primary jurisdiction, and there are Palestinian suits before that court waiting for the prosecutor to make a decision on. And beyond that, countries like the United States, Canada, countries in the European Union, have always said there is a sharing of fundamental democratic

values. That's why Netanyahu was on every news show for the last 72 hours, saying, democracy and action, we're rebalancing the legislature and the executive. Give me a break, frankly. It is putting in place that fundamental basis of alignment, which is characterized the U.S.-Israeli relations and even our own government in Canada, will ultimately not stand by if it feels that fundamental democratic values are being weakened to a degree. in Israel. So this is, I think this is a triple whammy. People, and that's what people understand it. It's domestic, it's regional, it's international. The costs of this are potentially just enormous. I think the next thing to watch is, you know, does the next set of reforms in the so-called

judicial revolution happen? Because there is a commission for appointing judges. It has not been called by this government. There are dozens, possibly 100 or more unfafeited. unfilled judicial appointments. The next phase could be, again, to pass new legislation allowing the government to directly appoint judges to fire in a sense public officials within the judicial system like the attorney general. There are a number of other components to this. So I think the thing for listeners to keep an eye on is, is Netanyahu and his coalition

satisfied with this change to the basic law? related to the reasonableness clause or does this start to go further? And if it starts to go further, Janice, I think what we've seen on the streets of Israel is just a prelude, unfortunately, to much greater civil rest and civil rests that unfortunately could, and I expect would turn violent. Yeah. You know, just to provide a little gritty detail about politics here, last weekend,

Netanyahu was in the hospital. You needed a pacemaker and a president of the country rushed to the hospital to try to persuade him because he's nothing. He has no principles. He's a pragmatist. He does. And that's an unflattering. That's unfair to pragmatist to describe him that way. But went and urged a compromise.

Netanyahu left the hospital, went to the parliament. And he was told, but he didn't, he would compromise because that's who he is. He navigates the finest line. And he was told by his coalition partners, if you compromise on this piece, we're going to break up the coalition. And then, of course, he would have to find other partners, and he wouldn't get these legal protections against the criminal prosecution. It's possible that the coalition partners may have shot their, this may have been their moment.

They may have used their political capital with him. And the plan is to kick this down the road now for 18 months. If so, we will have a simmering crisis, but it will not boil over. So the thing to watch is indeed, two things. What is the court rule? Does it shove this back in the Tanyao's face? Where are the judges here? In terms of their estimate of what the political consequences are,

because judges think about that, even though they don't say it. And then does the coalition push him to take the next step, which could push the country over the edge? Okay, we will keep an eye on it. Quick break back on the other side for monk donors. We're going to get a sneak peek into what Janice is reading this summer. What books would she recommend for monk donors to break the spine on as we move towards the dog days of August back right after this break?

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