Save this storySince 1977, when Menachem Begin, a founder of the Likud party, became Prime Minister, Israeli leaders liberal enough to entertain a peace process with the Palestinians that could end the conflict have controlled the government for just eight years. But they always had a not-exactly-stealth weapon: Israelis across the spectrum feared alienating Washington—its military technology, its diplomatic shield, its annual billions in aid, and what has been loosely called its “values.
This approach sounds conscientious, but it buys into Netanyahu’s framing—that judicial “activism” was widely distrusted—and wrongly suggests that the coalition’s drive to reform the courts is something that Netanyahu can finesse and U.S. regional policy can wait out. Most in the protest movement and a majority of the public, including many Likud voters, oppose the proposals to limit the independence of the judiciary.
In all, the budget reserved about four billion dollars for coalition funds, which favor theocratic priorities—about ten per cent of the entire budget for 2023 and, coincidentally, roughly what Israel gets yearly from the U.S. in aid. And the judicial package has not been shelved. After the budget passed, Netanyahu said that it would “return.
Urging “consensus,” in this context, seems wistful. “When the U.S. buys into this negotiation, it allows Bibi his Dr. Jekyll, while Mr. Hyde rampages on,” Nitzan Waisberg, a leader of the protests, told me. The uncertainty and the unrest have also contributed to instability in the economy. Economic growth slowed to an annualized 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, down from more than five per cent last year.
All this implies that a clear U.S. warning that sustained security coöperation depends on Israel remaining democratic and, correspondingly, open to a peace process with Palestinians would matter. It would also be consistent with U.S. interests. Biden’s national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that he is working to lay the ground for U.S.
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