Bibi Does Putin One Better

Israel's government has established the principle that court rulings can be ignored

Against some fierce competition, Israel’s Netanyahu government has been competing pretty hard for the Gold Medal in Elected Autocracy. This week it struck what may be the winning blow in a unanimous Cabinet vote announcing that the Supreme Court can be ignored. Trump appoints rubber-stamp judges, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan jails them, and under Putin they certainly fear assassination. But Netanyahu’s solution may be the most elegant of all.

And it sets Netanyahu up for an effort to steal the October election. Netanyahu, like Trump, is not one for conceding.

Here’s my interview on this matter with the BBC:

At first glance, the latest outrage appears narrow. But unpack the government’s actions and it becomes clear that there is a fight to the finish against the ideals of liberal democracy set in place by Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence.

What follows is the detailed report, and it is not for the faint of heart.

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