The NPR Politics Podcast - How Will The U.S. Handle Israel's Democratic Crisis?

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a criminal corruption charges, has moved to weaken the country's court system. His plan is, for now, on hold after widespread protest.The situation has created a diplomatic headache for President Biden: a key ally's democracy wobbles as the White House holds its annual "Summit for Democracy."This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and Jerusalem correspondent Daniel Estrin.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Captain Damien Gibbons of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. This morning we officially started our 50th year of educating students and teachers about the bay and its watershed. I'm about to step onto my boat right here in Washington, D.C., just a short metro ride away from NPR headquarters itself. This podcast was recorded at 9.39 a.m. on Tuesday, March 28th. As always, things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll still be teaching students, educators, and, dare I suggest, my favorite NPR politics journalists.

Fingers crossed. In the meantime, here's the show. We should record a podcast on the bay with the captain. I love it. Maybe over some crabs. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordeñoz. I cover the White House. And Daniel Estrin, our Jerusalem correspondent, joins us. Hey, Daniel. Hey there.

In the wake of mass protests across the country, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pausing his plan to overhaul the country's judicial system and make its judges more subject to political control. Daniel, catch us up to speed into how it got to this point. You know, I don't even think Netanyahu knew that it would reach this point. I mean, I've been speaking with political experts here who say Netanyahu has flip-flopped on this so many times because he and, you know, frankly, no one out here could have predicted the groundswell of protests that we've seen to his proposal to remake the judiciary. I mean, the protests here have really been historic. The bottom line is that Netanyahu's

new government came to power three months ago, and right away it tackled this issue of the judiciary. They wanted the ability to override Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority. They wanted to pass a whole raft of laws all aimed at weakening the independence of the judiciary. And through protests, they dropped a lot of them. And in the end, the main thing that they wanted to do was to give the government, the ruling coalition, more power to control who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. What was the argument that advocates for this plan say? I mean, Israel is a democracy.

It seems like a rather anti-democratic action to try to weaken the power of an independent judiciary. Yeah, I mean, if you ask Netanyahu and his coalition, they say, look, unelected judges have more power than the elected majority who actually represent the will of the people. Why does this elite group of judges get to strike down laws that we pass? And so Netanyahu has been touting this overhaul plan as a plan to rebalance checks and balances and not to weaken democracy, but to strengthen democracy. Now, of course, the detractors of this plan, the opponents, I mean, you hear protesters on the street fearing dictatorship. We've even heard the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court saying that this plan would amount effectively to erasing Israel's democracy and separation of powers. And I think to understand why Netanyahu is doing this,

you have to understand that he doesn't rule alone. He rules in a parliamentary coalition with many different parties, and each party has a slightly different agenda. His far-right, ultra-nationalist partners want the power to grab more land for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. They want to prevent Palestinians from being able settlements in the occupied West Bank. They want to prevent Palestinians from being able to establish an independent country there. And, you know, the Supreme Court often blocks their way. Ultra conservative religious parties are in this

coalition, and they want special exemptions for ultra orthodox Jews. And they want to pass laws that might, for instance, allow the segregation of men and women in the public sphere. The one body that stands in their way on that would be the Supreme Court, too. You know, the Supreme Court is really, in Israel's system of government, the only major check on power. They're the one that is there to protect certain freedoms and protect minority rights. And so that's how we could understand why this government wants to put a limit on that. The images of the protests have been really stunning. I mean, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets. Are the protests in direct response to just this judicial action or attempt to overhaul the judiciary? Or is it maybe just the point of boil of a very volatile government? Yeah, it's really the latter.

I mean, when you do talk to people, and it's hundreds of thousands of Israelis, and you have grandmothers and you have retired people and people who have never protested in their life, and they say they're scared of dictatorship. They are scared of the judiciary being tampered with. But they say even more than that. They're scared that their way of life is in danger. They're scared that an ultra-religious government could impose restrictions on their secular way of life. Military reservists even refused to show up for duty and thousands of them threatening not to serve, saying that they have a contract with Israel as a democratic and Jewish state.

And if the democracy part of that mix is in peril, then they don't want to serve. I mean, that's in a country where the majority of people are required to serve. It's just it's extraordinary. Franco, it's an understatement to say that the U.S. has significant interests in Israel. The U.S. is arguably Israel's closest ally around the world. I imagine that it's been a pretty intense time at the Biden White House. And how is this president addressing the situation? Dr. Michael McBride Yeah, I mean, the White House,

the administration, across the administration has been, you know, very concerned about this and increasingly vocal about the reservations to this plan. There's been lots of calls at all different levels. And Biden himself in calls with Netanyahu, you know, has stressed that, you know, shared democratic values have to be at the core of the U.S.-Israel relationship. As noted, Biden has expressed, quote, unquote, concerns. You know, and if that in diplomatic speak doesn't kind of raise some alarm bells, this weekend, the White House putting out a statement stating that it was deeply concerned and said there was an urgent need for compromise. So a lot of things. But at the same time, as you note, the relationship is so important that the White House has also had to walk kind of a fine line. Much of that, those statements have come from

officials. And even this weekend statement came from a spokesperson. It didn't come from President Biden. Had it come from the Biden, it would have had carried more weight. But I think it just shows how careful President Biden is kind of walking this fine line. But clearly, clearly, the administration and the White House are very concerned about this and watching it very closely. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about it when we get back. And we're back. And, you know, I'd like to ask you specifically about Netanyahu. He, to me, is someone who has been a world leader for many years. I think he's one of the world leaders that is probably pretty well known in the United States.

But I'm fascinated about his political evolution. And as someone who now, as we sit here today, seems to be the face of this far-right governing coalition, but he didn't enter politics as a far-right ideologue. And I'm curious sort of what happened along the way to get Netanyahu to this point. Yeah, Netanyahu is a fascinating figure. I mean, he came on the scene many decades ago in Israeli politics. Basically, he was called Israel's first American politician. And they use that term because, you know, he was just so slick on television. At the beginning of his career, he was seen as someone who was a very good spokesman, a very convincing spokesman for Israel in a world where Israel is constantly

threatened and trying to defend itself also in the International Court of World Opinion. He was Israel's longest-serving prime minister. He was in power for more than a decade, then taken out of power two years ago, came back to power just at the start of this year. But he always was right-wing, traditional conservative right wing, but his parliamentary coalitions always tended to include a more moderate party, whether that was a center left politicians who were his foreign ministers, defense ministers. And so he was kind of, you know, in the middle navigating between the right wing and his center flank. The longer he's

been in power, and the longer that we may get into this, that he started facing corruption allegations, and is now on trial for that, more and more of his own right wing allies just abandoned him. And so it came to a point where he really – his only chance for coming back to power and he won elections and came back to power at the start of this year was making a deal with some of Israel's most far-right politicians in order to shore up and to consolidate the right-wing vote to make sure that he could come to power. And that's the government that we see today. I'm glad you referenced it because it does seem like important context, especially for a leader who's trying to change a judicial system that he himself is being tried for corruption charges right now. Yeah, he is on trial for corruption for relationships with media moguls, including a Hollywood producer. The allegations are that he received expensive gifts, champagne, cigars, and jewelry for his wife.

And in exchange, he sought favorable coverage in media, in newspapers, et cetera, in exchange for using his power as prime minister to help these media moguls with their business. Now, this trial has been dragging on in court. Witnesses are taking the stand. But Netanyahu's interest is to make sure that he doesn't go to prison. And so if you think about it, bring the conversation back to the judicial overhaul that he wants to impose. court judges, those same justices would eventually rule on his case if he is convicted and he appeals. Now, he is bound at the moment by a conflict of interest agreement, which is that he's not supposed to get personally involved. And he's even gotten warnings from Israel's attorney general that he, by getting involved

in this, it's illegal. He is not within the bounds of the law. And Netanyahu has feared that the judiciary could even declare him, because of this, could declare him unfit for office and remove him. And that's why just recently, last week, I think it was, Israel passed a law taking away the power of the judiciary to be able to depose him. Franco, do you get a sense of how intensely this conflict could impact the U.S.-Israel relationship? Is it to that level that there could be longer-term repercussions here for the two countries?

That is a huge concern, not only internationally, but also domestically. I mean, there's a lot of concerns of Jewish American leaders about this who are watching it very closely and have started to speak out and raise their own concerns. It also comes right as President Biden is about to host the second democracy summit in the United States. And Daniel was just talking about all the concerns, you know, about authoritarianism and dictatorship if these things were to happen. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that President Biden has been pushing against. And with, you know, different levels of support. I mean, I think it shows the challenges that Biden has, you know, trying to, you know,

spread democracy or defend democracy across the world. It's, you know, it's not as easy as he'd like to be. I mean, this is a major issue if, you know, if, you know, Netanyahu speaks, I mean, should he speak? Will he be invited? This is something that came up last year when there were invitees who were definitely not seen as the greatest champions of democracy. And this could be a question again. And it's, you know, been a really tough thing for Biden to kind of manage. And all this happening at the same time, I mean, it's really, really complicated. And I think that's also why you are seeing President Biden in the White House try to get so involved, though, you know, delicately and carefully.

Danielle, what is the next pressure point in this? It's my understanding that they've paused any changes to the potential vote for the judicial plan. But what are the next pressure points here? I guess I'm looking at three things. The first is, will President Biden invite Netanyahu to the White House? He hasn't been invited yet. And that's been a major issue in the media here, and even reportedly Netanyahu telling some of his own ministers, you know, forbidding them from traveling to meet U.S. officials in Washington until he gets that invite. The second thing I'm looking at is, yeah, will the judicial overhaul actually go through? Netanyahu has paused it.

He says he'll pause it for a month to enable dialogue with the opposition. We'll have to see if he discards that and tries to focus on something else. He's going to have to try to keep his coalition together. He needs to stay in power. And I guess the last thing, the last pressure point is protests. Will the protesters, hundreds of thousands of them, continue to go out into the streets and block roads and highways like they have been doing for months? Danielle Estrin, our Jerusalem correspondent, thank you so much. You're welcome. That is it for us today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

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