Israel’s ‘Globalists’ Join Unruly Protests Against Netanyahu’s Judicial Reforms

Leading figures in Israel’s financial, political, and social elite, some of whom have played prominent roles on the global stage, are joining the unruly protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms.

The latest is Jacob Frenkel, a recent chair of JP Morgan Chase International and former head of the Bank of Israel, joining a movement that has blocked roads and trapped democratically-elected leaders in their homes..

Frenkel told a crowd in Tel Aviv on Saturday night that the Netanyahu government is “destroying the Zionist enterprise from within,” the Times of Israel reported.

Meanwhile, nearby, dozens of demonstrators tried to block the city’s main highway.

Earlier this year, a senior official from the Bank of Israel resigned and declared that he would join the protests, supposedly because “Israeli democracy is in danger” — though the proposed reforms would enhance the power of the democratically-elected legislature to hold the judicial accountable.

As Breitbart News has reported, the newly-elected government is proposing four basic reforms, many of which parallel existing practice in the U.S.

One would allow politicians to approve the selection of judges — as in the U.S. Senate — rather a panel that is dominated by judges themselves. Another would allow government agencies to appoint their own legal advisers — a power that is taken for granted in the U.S. A third would require the full, 15-member Supreme Court to strike down legislation, rather than a smaller panel of as few as three judges. And the fourth reform — which Netanyahu may soon drop — would allow the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to override Supreme Court decisions with a majority vote. Such override powers exist in other democracies, but require a supermajority.

Israel’s elite has come out against the reforms. Part of the reason is cultural: the Israeli elite tends to be secular, and European in origin; the judiciary is similar. Since the “judicial revolution” of the early 1990s, in which the courts unilaterally asserted power to overturn legislation, the Israeli elite has seen the judiciary as a bastion of power against the growing electoral clout of more religious Jews, and those from the Middle East and Africa.

As such, there are fears — some of them justified — that secular Israelis who work in the country’s prosperous tech and finance sectors will not want to live in a country that could pass more ambitious religious legislation.

Netanyahu has attempted to quell such fears by reminding the public that his party elected the country’s first gay speaker, and he personally liberalized the Israeli economy as finance minister.

Nevertheless, Bloomberg News reports that Israeli hedge funds are “driving” the protests, which have stopped traffic, encouraged military reservists to desert, and even trapped the prime minister’s wife and elected officials.

Left-wing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including those funded by the U.S. State Department, are also promoting the protests.

And failed former U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City who once flew to Israel during a war to show his support, has also opposed Israel’s proposed reforms.

It is a classic clash between a “globalist” elite — those who favor a liberal worldview and reflect the preferences of the international business community — and a “nationalist” government, elected by the people. It reflects similar clashes elsewhere — in the U.S. over Donald Trump, and in Britain over Brexit.

In such cases, the “globalist” side claims that it is “defending democracy” — though it is quick to resort to the most undemocratic means, moving beyond non-violent protest to actively sabotaging the operation of the state.

More accurately, it could be said that “globalism” is associated with a set of liberal values that are sometimes at odds with populism — though the protests against Israel’s judicial reforms have themselves been illiberal.

The term “globalist” has occasionally been associated with antisemitism. In this case, however, the “globalist” elite is clearly opposing a democratically-elected government led by Jewish nationalists and religious parties.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.