They won’t be. A sensible response to this (and many other things done by Netanyahu and others) would be to put away the chequebook and stop paying for this, but that’s not something that the USA will ever consider doing.
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Perhaps they will consider it. From the Daily Beast story that I posted:
Strikingly, some stalwart supporters of the traditional U.S.-Israel relationship, like former U.S. ambassadors to Israel Martin Indyk and Daniel Kurtzer, have said what was previously unthinkable: That the U.S. must consider stopping the provision of military aid to Israel.
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You know that the very first place they’ll go if that happens is Russia and China, who will happily fill the void.
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(Yes and)
“If you stop sending us billions in military aid we’ll just get one of your geopolitical rivals to give it to us instead” doesn’t seem like much of a threat, especially since Netanyahu has been telling the Biden administration (and earlier, the Obama administration) to pound sand on every one of their policy goals for quite a few years now. Frankly it’s pretty surprising that support for the Israeli government (which, despite what Netanyahu would have people believe is separate and distinct from support for Israeli people) has been as bipartisan as it has been after all the stuff Netanyahu has pulled.
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No. People with different electoral systems know how they work, in practice, and in their specific situation. They vote accordingly.
What happens is that people are okay with a little bit of authoritarianism if it only hurts they don’t really care about: LGBTQ+, Palestinians, or Jews. Whatever is the version that works for you. And they vote for parties that will make those deals. So Likud have done deals with dreadful parties, people whose fundamentalism denies that Palestinian people can have their human rights denied because they are not human according to their interpretation of the law so it’s not possible.
People voted for this. They knew what they were doing. They did it because the alternative of trying to work for peace rather than defeat and humiliation was work they were not prepared to do.
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So it’s unlikely that the Courts are going to do a surprise sueball in Small Claims Court or something to take remedy for new liabilities?
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By Tuesday, more than a dozen Supreme Court petitions had already been filed demanding that the court strike down the law eliminating the Reasonableness Clause. Courts commonly rule on their own standing, but this case will very likely thrust Israel into full-blown constitutional anarchy.
The next phase of the crisis is expected to unfold rapidly: The Supreme Court may well rule that Netanyahu’s law is illegal, and the government will declare the court ruling invalid.
Israel, within weeks, will be suspended over the abyss. Whose orders will the police obey? Ben Gvir’s, when they are beyond judicial review? Or those of the rule of law? On Monday, an Israeli television channel reported that Mossad Director Dadi Barnea had assured his agents, in an abruptly convened general staff meeting, that his organization would obey the rule of law, but what does that mean in practice?
No one really knows. Netanyahu is engaging in a form of shock doctrine, the tried-and-true method used by leaders to overwhelm the public sphere and impose their will. This was felt in the dread that descended upon the Monday night crowd, where no one was cheerfully passing fruit around.
Instead, it felt like a Rubicon had been crossed.
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The comment about the “huge” mandate of 64 seats dropping to 52 led me to look it up. The Knesset has 120 seats total.
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I’m reminded of Bush claiming a “mandate” in 2004 with 50.7% of the vote.
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Thank you for posting all these.
Ridiculous to think the Bibi government thinks this could work as messaging. Most Israeli Jews have family in the diaspora and will hear both messages.
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