ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Who is actually doing the burning?
Jonathan S. Tobin
July 27, 2023

…Even the passage on Monday of the first part of the package, which would stop the court from ruling on issues merely on the basis of the judge’s arbitrary ideas about what is “reasonable” rather than on the laws, is being treated as the end of democracy. As such, it has provoked more mass demonstrations, blockages of highways, potential strikes that could devastate Israel’s economy, and, even more dangerously, large-scale refusals to serve on the part of military reservists who oppose the government’s policies. Considering that this provision was, at least at the start of the debate earlier this year, the least controversial element of the judicial reform package and one that even many in the opposition conceded was necessary, it illustrates how deep and bitter the polarization has become. READ MORE

JNS Melanie Phillips: Why compromise is unlikely in Israel’s crisis The protesters won’t stop until they bring Netanyahu’s government down.

CAMERA Alex Safian: Is Judicial Reform a Threat to Israeli Democracy? If you believe certain prominent outlets and pundits the recent Israeli elections foreshadow the demise of Israeli democracy and the rule of law, all because the new government has called for fundamental legal reforms to fix what it views as vast overreach and power grabs by the Supreme Court and by other elements of the legal system.