https://news.yahoo.com/steep-cost-ron-desantis-vaccine-142915131.html
But in Florida, unlike the nation as a whole — and states like New York and California that DeSantis likes to single out — most people who died from COVID died after vaccines became available to all adults, not before. As the governor’s political positions began to shift, so did his state’s death rate, for the worse.
Proponents say the current "reasonability" standard gives judges excessive powers over decision-making by elected officials. But critics say that removing the standard, which is invoked only in rare cases, would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions, make improper appointments or firings, and open the door to corruption.
Protesters say Netanyahu and his allies want to change the law so they can appoint cronies to government posts – and particularly so that they can fire the country's independent attorney general, according to Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. Supporters see Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara as a bulwark against the overhaul. The measures "make it more difficult to conduct oversight" over arbitrary decisions of elected officials, said Yohanan Plesner, the institute's president. "This is one chapter of a broader plan and program of the government to weaken the checks and balances."
With a relatively weak system of checks and balances, the judiciary plays a large role in checking executive power in Israel. In the US for example, Congress has two houses that operate independently of the president and can limit his power. But in Israel, the prime minister and his majority coalition in parliament work in tandem.
It is a tussle over when judges can overrule the government
Movement for Quality Government, a nonprofit organization, already announced it would challenge the law in the Supreme Court.
The group said in a statement that the measure is “unconstitutional” because it “fundamentally changes the basic structure of Israeli parliamentary democracy and the nature of the regime, while de facto abolishing the judiciary and seriously damaging the delicate fabric of the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances in the State of Israel.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-752271
Amidror said that the argument made in Tablet is “very wrong.”
“A strong Israel can make its own decisions, and when Israel is not strong it cannot make decisions,” he said.
Nagel said that the idea that the US uses aid as leverage to pressure Israel is “total nonsense.”
In negotiations ahead of the last MOU between Israel and the US, Nagel recounted, “I said that ‘if you’re conditioning this aid, I don’t want it.’ The only condition is that we give them a list of what we’re buying so they can authorize it once a year. They have control over what we buy.”
“We seek America’s advice on almost everything because they are important to us, not just because we get aid from them,” he said. “They support us in a million other ways, in the UN, in Congress, in the world. They’re our main ally.”
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-protests-explained-netanyahu-1814850
The Israeli economy, the IDF, Israeli society—they have all been targeted for direct attack by a dangerous prime minister and a sick coalition," protest organizers said, according to Haaretz. "But Israel will not become a dictatorship. We, Israeli citizens, will give our lives to save the country, and we will win. In the coming days and months, we will all be called to the flag, and we will report for duty.
The Israeli government and the bill's supporters say the legislation is overdue although the plans go further than many would like. The bill proposes stripping the Supreme Court's ability to overrule the government or ministerial decisions it deems to be "unreasonable."
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s111a4mhq3
"It is unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority,” said a statement from White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre. “We believe that for major democratic changes, you need to work for consensus. We urge Israeli leaders to work toward a consensus-based approach through political dialogue.”
https://nypost.com/2023/07/24/israeli-parliament-approves-key-part-of-judicial-overhaul/
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday brushed aside President Biden’s last-minute plea and oversaw the passage of a major judicial reform law that limits the ability of the country’s courts to strike down government decisions.
“Given the range of threats and challenges confronting Israel right now, it doesn’t make sense for Israeli leaders to rush this — the focus should be on pulling people together and finding consensus,” Biden insisted Sunday.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/374609
The Knesset plenum on Monday afternoon approved changes to the reasonableness standard, passing the bill with a majority of 64 Knesset members.
As the bill passed its second and third Knesset readings, opposition MKs yelled, "shame!" and "destruction!"
The reasonableness standard is an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary, and allows the court to rule against the validity of elected official's decisions that in a justice's opinion are beyond the scope of what a reasonable authority would undertake. It passed its first Knesset reading earlier this month, and is now being prepared for its second and third Knesset readings.
After 29 weeks of protests and mass public opposition that have roiled the country and divided its citizens, the Knesset gave its final approval Monday to a law that prevents the courts from reviewing the “reasonableness” of government and ministerial decisions, the first major bill of the government’s judicial overhaul to pass into law.
The bill passed its third and final reading with 64 votes in favor and 0 against, as the entire 56-member opposition boycotted the vote in protest.
The chorus of American leaders who regularly promised Israel’s leaders we would be with them (no matter what they did) invited Netanyahu and the thugocracy he assembled around him to do their worst. The Israeli leaders knew there was no price to pay. They knew that American aid would keep on coming. They knew American leaders would apologize for or cover up their crimes, block the U.N. from taking action against them, and maintain the myth that they were democratic when becoming less and less so.
A relatively minor change to the relationship between the courts and government has been greeted on the left by wailing that this is the end of Democracy in Israel and that this is equivalent to the destruction of the Temple.
I asked a secular Jew and he said simply the Chareidim are in control of Israel and they will destroy the country because they know nothing about running the country
I asked an Arab Israeli whether he was upset and he said "Why? Nothing will change for me!"
The argument boils down to the view that Democracy needs total agreement for decisions and even though the secular Left is a minority/ if they don't agree nothing can be done. In addition they insist that Israel is a secular country and therefore religious Jews can not override the secular. In other words the truth is always with the secular - otherwise it can't be a Democracy!
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/21/ukraine-grain-harvest-00107212
A people so moved by the produce of its land will not easily consent to part with either.
Pele Yoetz (47) י שהרחיב ה' את גבולו לא יתראה בפני גויי הארצות, כי קשה כשאול קנאה שמקנאים אמות העולם על ישראל, והמעט שרואים תחשכנה עיניהם מראות ונדמה להם הרבה, ולכן יהיו האנשים והנשים צנועים ולא יתראו עשרם ותכשיטם בפני הנכרים, וכשבונים בתים יעשו מבחוץ באפן שיהא נראה כסכה בכרם. וכן ראוי להשמר אפלו מישראל ממראית עין ולחוש מאד לרעת העין הרע כי רבה, וכל שכן בפני הנכרים. וידוע כמה שמדות וגרושין ורעות רבות עברו על נפשנו מחמת קנאת הגוים מתוך שלא היו נזהרים שלא להתראות, כמובא באברבנאל שבגלל כן נקרא שמו אברבנאל שהיה לאשתו טבעת טובה עד שכל רואיה אמרו ''בראבו אניליא'', וזה גרם גרוש ספרד, ויעקב אבינו אמר לבניו: למה תתראו (בראשית מב א). וראוי לנו לכף את ראשינו כאגמון ולקבל הגלות באהבה ולהיותנו נחלים על שבר יוסף שאפלו אם נחת שלחננו מלא דשן, אוי להם לבנים שגלו מעל שלחן אביהם ואיך נשיר על אדמת נכר. וכתיב (הושע ט א) אל תשמח ישראל אל גיל כעמים. ואמרו רבותינו ז''ל (ברכות לא א) שאסור לאדם שימלא שחוק פיו בעולם הזה, שנאמר (תהלים קכו ב) אז ימלא שחוק פינו ולשוננו רנה אז יאמרו בגוים הגדיל ה' לעשות עם אלה. אבל עתה ראוי שנהיה דוויים ונשברי לבב ונדכאים בזכרנו את ציון ורעות רבות שגרמנו ורב טוב שאבדנו, וראוי שנעלה את ירושלים על ראש שמחתנו ונכנע מאד, ובזה יתעשת האלקים לנו ויחיש לגאלנו ויבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו אמן:
