“Ours is the noble kind of corruption. The democratic kind. Theirs is the fascist kind.”
Jerusalem, February 9 – A proposed reform of Israel’s judiciary system and other elements of its legal apparatus has that system’s megalomaniacal establishment worried it will no longer enjoy hegemony over the country’s elected officials beyond the powers granted to it in explicit legislation, instead subjecting it to the decisions and discretion of the megalomaniacal group implementing the reform.
Judges, Bar Association officials, and left-wing political figures continued to decry Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin’s proposed reforms to the courts, prosecutor’s office, and the process by which judicial appointments occur, as the former group feel threatened that the latter group seeks to remove those institutions and processes from control by the former group and arrogate for themselves the capacity to manipulate, bully, or otherwise shape judicial policies to suit the latter group’s ideological agenda instead of the former group’s ideological agenda.
“We cannot abide the damage is will do to the integrity of the courts,” declared Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid. “When our political fellow-travelers enjoy stewardship of that crucial institution of state, that is welcome and proper, but if someone else’s political fellow-travelers seize stewardship of that crucial institution of state, that is wrong and undemocratic. The very legitimacy of the justice system is at stake. Everyone knows things are only legitimate when our side does them.”
Defenders of the status quo point to the problematic implications of the proposed reforms. “Bibi is under criminal investigation and faces court action,” explained former Chief Prosecutor Menachem Mazuz, now a judge. “You can’t have the country’s most prominent criminal suspect spearheading a restructuring of the justice system. That’s a recipe for corruption totally different from when Supreme Court justices bend rules and procedures to benefit one another or their small circles of family and friends to keep them out of trouble the hoi polloi face for the same things. Totally different. Ours is the noble kind of corruption. The democratic kind. Theirs is the fascist kind. It’s the difference between night and day. Just to be clear, ours is the day kind, the light and good kind. Not the dark, bad kind. That’s those other people. Not us.”
Former President of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak also warned against the nefarious machinations of the Levin-Netanyahu reform package. “I once described the Court as a family,” he recalled. “You’re very particular whom you allow into your family, who would be a good fit. That’s exactly how things have been done since before my time, and they want to change that system. You can’t just corrupt that tried-and-true methodology with some fascist notion like accountability to the expressed electoral will of voters. What kind of democracy could tolerate that?”
From PreOccupied Territory, here.