The masks are falling on Netanyahu’s cabinet of criminals

Last week, Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he has managed to form the next government, the most right-wing, religious fundamentalist government in Israel’s history.

But that declaration hinged on some unfinished matters that had to be sorted so that certain promised posts could be realized. Two laws, dubbed the “Smotrich” and “Deri” laws, named after the leaders of the Religious Zionism and the ultra-orthodox Shas parties, were passed today, with a parliamentary majority of 63-55.

The “Deri” law would permit Aryeh Deri to be minister of the interior, despite his being convicted of tax fraud this year and receiving a suspended prison sentence. Under previous law, he would be barred from a ministry  for seven years. The new law specifies that only a custodial prison sentence would disqualify a person from a ministerial post.

The second law, the “Smotrich” law, allows a minister to serve in several ministerial posts. This is important for Bezalel Smotrich since he wants not only the Finance ministry, but also a tailored new ministerial position inside the Ministry of Defense, which would provide him oversight over the occupied Palestinian territories, specifically the West Bank. Smotrich earlier sought to be the Defense Minister, but that seemed a step too far for Netanyahu since Smotrich represents the furthest right faction of his government, which ran together with the Kahanist Jewish Power faction. This way, Smotrich can have control over many Palestinian lives while not officially being Defense Minister.  

These laws, particularly the “Deri” law, also dovetail with Netanyahu’s own attempt to escape potential liability for his long-running corruption/bribery trial. If such exceptions can be made for Smotrich and Deri and cemented into law, this paves the way for the same being done for Netanyahu, when the need arises.

For Aryeh Deri, this is not the first conviction. He was convicted of bribery in the late 1990’s in the midst of his stint as Interior Minister and sentenced to prison. He returned to the parliament in 2013 and became a minister once again in 2015. This year, Deri accepted a plea deal and resigned from the parliament to avoid a designation called “moral turpitude” since the judge understood he would be stepping down from politics.

But Deri is back. So is Netanyahu. And the big winners of this election are Religious Zionism and their partners, the Kahanist Jewish Power. A leader of Jewish Power, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has himself been convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terror organization; but he is slotted to head the police ministry.

The Religious Zionism folks are having a feast of religious fundamentalist racism. This weekend, it turned out that the coalition agreement with Religious Zionism included a clause that would allow private business owners to refuse customers based on “religious beliefs”: “Private businesses could refuse to provide a service due to the seller’s religious beliefs, as long as an alternative can be acquired in geographical proximity at a similar price”, as reported by Haaretz.

This caught attention since two prominent leaders in Religious Zionism, Orit Strock and Simcha Rothman, boasted about it. Who the excluded in particular are, is open to interpretation. The initial assumption was LGBTQ customers. Asked in a Sunday interview about whether a hotel owner could refuse gays, Rothman replied, “If it goes against your beliefs and it hurts your religious sentiments, and it’s your private hotel, then the answer is yes, that’s the law.”

Strock took it further, to include the medical profession, suggesting that doctors should be able to deny treatment based on such religious beliefs. Regarding fertility treatments for unmarried women and LGBTQ couples, she said in an interview that “as long as there are other doctors who can provide the same service, it’s forbidden to force a doctor to give treatment that violates their religious beliefs.”

These amendments would, on the face of it, violate Israel’s anti-discrimination law. Netanyahu found himself under a storm on this and assured the public that such discrimination “won’t happen.” But one was left to wonder why it had been agreed to in the first place if it really won’t happen.

On the same day, Netanyahu also had to distance himself from his son Yair when the son suggested that the prosecutors and police who have investigated his father are guilty of treason and plotting a “coup” and deserve the death penalty. Netanyahu said he “loves Yair as a son with his own opinions” but hedged that he “did not agree” with Yair.

Netanyahu is now in a hurry to get the full list of appointments ready for tomorrow and swear the government in on Thursday – a few days ahead of the official deadline (January 2).

Overriding checks and balances

A top item on the agenda of this government is to pass a law called the “override clause” This would grant greater power to the parliament over the judiciary; so that if Israel’s Supreme Court overturned a law, the parliament could then override the ruling, treating the court’s judgment as a mere “recommendation.”  

Even the Likud party once had a tradition for checks and balances, and Likud founder Menachem Begin was a proponent of the separation of powers. But then, Likud also used to view the Kahanists as beyond the pale, and now they don’t. This is the context in which former Likud (Justice) Minister Dan Meridor says that Netanyahu has “legitimized racists in order to get immunity in his court case.”  Meridor says that “the deluge of legislation and appointments is the total opposite of democracy – any dictator rules.”

The masks are falling

It seems that the Zionist balance of “Jewish and democratic” is beginning to topple. This government is going to be far more Jewish than democratic. For Palestinians, of course, the “Jewish and democratic” has mostly just meant Jewish supremacy. How democratic is it for an expelled, occupied, besieged, or routinely massacred Palestinian?

But it has been very important for many Zionists to keep the trappings of democracy precisely because their state is actually an Apartheid state, and the democratic trappings veil that. Nonetheless, the self-declared Jewish state, which always discriminates against non-Jews, particularly Palestinians, on the basis of racialization and “religious beliefs,” has had its way. And when the fascistic forces of Zionism are allowed to celebrate their success, the masks fall, and it’s very hard to put them back on again.