An article published by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on Monday decried the “panic attack” over Israel’s passing of the reasonableness bill, calling it a “modest judicial reform that probably won’t make as much difference as either side claims,” and slammed President Biden for sticking his nose in Israel’s affairs. WSJ states in the article, entitled Israel’s Supreme Court Panic Attack, that “the new law barely begins to reverse the judicial revolution of the 1980s and 1990s, in which Israel’s court claimed unusual new powers…’Reasonableness’ in Israel started at the local level as a common-law import but became an all-purpose tool to invalidate government appointments, military decisions and policies of national significance. This gave the court enormous discretion, with often arbitrary results. For example, the court found it was unreasonable for a caretaker government to bind future governments by appointing midlevel officials. But it found it was reasonable for a different caretaker government to offer a final-status peace deal to the Palestinians.” “Compromise will take time, and time may demonstrate that the new ‘reasonableness’ law has changed little. The justices haven’t lost their substantial power over the appointment of new justices. The court can still hear almost any case, even on a strictly political question in which no petitioner has been directly harmed. The court retains the power it seized in the 1990s to strike down legislation, and it can still block administrative actions for every reason except unreasonableness, for which there are many substitutes. In other words, the judiciary hasn’t really been reformed, and democracy isn’t dying in Israel.” “President Biden’s running commentary on this internal Israel debate is unseemly and looks aimed at toppling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The two ought to be working together to expand the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia and to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Israel’s judicial debate is far down the list of urgent problems in the Middle East.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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