By David Israel, JEWISH PRESS – 6.3.23
Only 4 weeks remain until the end of the Knesset’s winter session, which is also the deadline for the passing of the first two amendments of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial reform: changing the composition of the committee to elect judges, and preventing the High Court from revoking constitutional laws.
And while the mainstream media outlets in Israel have been bombarding their audiences with reports on a massive, nationwide resistance to both bills, a Direct Polls survey published Monday morning offers an entirely different picture.
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Direct Polls pointed out that the mainstream media do not feature surveys that ask direct questions about the different components of the reform.
They don’t ask, “Are you in favor of changing the composition of the committee for selecting judges?” or “Are you for or against the involvement of the High Court in invalidating laws and by what majority?” or “Are you for or against limiting the tenure of the president of the Supreme Court?” These are all issues that the reform authors plan to touch on sooner or later, so why don’t the mainstream pollsters ask the public about them?
According to Direct Polls, it’s because the answers to these questions would show a clear support of more than 60% for the vast majority of the proposed changes.
However, this most recent poll also shows some movement in the opposition camp: 1. Benny Gantz’s National Camp party gains three mandates, one from Likud, and two from Yesh Atid, which is getting weaker, contrary to some mainstream polls; and, 2. Benny Gantz’s rise as the best fit to serve as a prime minister among center-left voters. For the first time in a year and a half, Gantz is tied with Yair Lapid for the job, as Lapid loses more than 10% who switched to Gantz.
Why is Gantz rising, and why at the expense of Lapid?
Supporting Judicial Reform
Direct Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of the public thinks that the justice system needs reform.
? 40%, mainly from the right, support the reform in its current form.
? An additional 4% would support it without the override clause.
? And 34% are “in favor of the reform, but only with agreements and changes that will lead to wider support in the Knesset.”
That’s a total of 78% support for changes in the judicial system, against only 22% who oppose any change and insist on leaving the system as it is.
Among the group that supports the reform “only with agreements and changes that will bring broad support,” 62% are National Camp voters, meaning at least 7 mandates that would join in supporting the reform in addition to the 64 mandates the coalition already counts on.
Chaos and Negotiations
Words like negotiations, debate, and agreement are the hot words these days with center-left politicians, as opposed to Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Merav Michaeli (Labor). But a significant number of commentators and broadcasters who support the “chaos strategy,” according to which the worse it gets, the better, are creating a heavy smoke screen that hides the political realities from the Israeli public and the politicians: the true data show wide support for the reform through negotiations.
Gantz, who has become the grownup in the left-of-center room, is being rewarded by the voters to the tune of three potential mandates. But it will all come down to the March 27 deadline, when all the deals, agreements, and amendments will shine through. If Lapid is reading truthful polls, he, too, probably realizes he must cooperate or suffer humiliating consequences.
Also on TV
Meanwhile, Israelis are voting not only at the ballot boxes, but also in front of the groove tube, and there, too, the swing to the right is evident. So far, according to Direct Polls, their gung-ho anti-reform campaigns have cost the mainstream TV channels an estimated NIS 50 million, as the right-wing Channel 14 has established itself in second place among the nightly news show, leaving News13 and Kan 11 in the dust.
The sample was compiled by Shlomo Filber and Zuriel Sharon through Direct Polls Ltd., for Now14 News, on March 5, 2023, among 1,118 adults (18+) from the entire population in Israel. The statistical sampling error is +-3% with a probability of 95%.
A very good article in the Judicial reform.
If you find it difficult to read, skip to part III.
https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2023/03/israels-judicial-reckoning/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&_kx=-gM5aTsfnqBkEupLINGxwmtd7W-FXt1T1rReShAM87A%3D.L87CGh
@John & Peloni I agree wholeheartedly. I listened to the whole thing on Amazon Audible.
@John Galt III
I totally agree with your assessment of Bibi’s book. It is a remarkable read which relates so many policy victories which were unthinkable twenty years ago.
I am reading “Bibi My Story” and I am on page 617 with 40 pages to go. It’s a terrific book if you want to know what Bibi has done for his country:
1) Made Israel into an economic dynamo
2) Ended the corrupt Socialist Labor union’s stranglehold
3) Privatized many corrupt government industries
4) Opened up oil and gas drilling and production
5) Got many Arab nations to realize that Iran, not Israel is their enemy.
6) Built desalination plants – making Israel the leader in the world in water technology and management.
7) Fought off the totally corrupt Israel judicial/police/attorney general team over and over with their frivolous lawsuits over cigars, dry cleaning, take out food orders, submarines and my favorite when he was accused of collaborating with the owner of Yediot Ahoronot newspaper when in fact it never stopped publishing anti-Netanyahu articles and editorials.
He accomplished all these things and many more because he had a mission and a plan. He stuck to his plans and his mission and every time, he won. He won against the corruption of and evilness of the LEFT every time and they hate him for it.
8) Now he will reform the banana republic corrupt judiciary and LEFT hates that reform just like Ben Gurion hated Begin and Jabotinsky or Golda Meir hated Begin. Both Ben Gurion and Meir thought and said it would be the end of Israel if the Right got into power. What they meant was that their corrupt systems and graft would be thrown in the dustbin of history.
Israel’s Left is corrupt and pathetic.
Go Bibi!!!!
– Mark Twain
@dreuveni
Yes, I too was unaware that the deadline was just a couple of weeks. Pass the bills. This explains why the obsessive need by the Left to inject any delay in the process, even for only a week. Ignore the opposition. Pass the bill, without change and without delay.
Never trust polls. They tell more about those conducting the polls than it does about those who are being polled. Of course it should never have been a mystery as to the voter’s support for judicial reform given the details included in the last election, just a few months ago. Not only did the Right surge with an emphasis on election reform, but the Left didn’t even address it. The only poll which you can trust is the one taken at the voting booth, and this is not even true in the US.
Many thanks for this article. I was not aware that the law has to pass by March 27. This makes all the calls for delays much more plausible. After delaying, the call will be, “You idiot! You missed the end of the winter session! Your bill is gone!”