In light of the turbulence shaking Israeli democracy, and the law altering the composition of the committee for selecting judges, Prof. Yedidia Stern, President of the Jewish People Policy Institute, was interviewed by The New York Times and offered his analysis.
“The changes would politicize the process of picking judges and would encourage the selection of more extreme justices to the Supreme Court”. He sa
He explains that Politicians and their representatives will now control six seats on the nine-member committee, meaning that the selection of justices would likely become a matter of political horse-trading, he said.
He argued that by engaging in so many divisive actions at once, Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition was seeking to overwhelm an already war-weary and distracted Israeli public, in an attempt to dispel an effective response.
“They have managed to exploit the war — and the energy it has drained from the public — to create tectonic changes in Israeli democracy,” he said. “I don’t think we can say that Israel is no longer democratic. But if this goes through, it will be a far weaker democracy.”