This is Israel’s most dangerous moment since the Yom Kippur War
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Summary
Vivian Berkovich served as Canada's ambassador to Israel from 2014 to 2016, and was a partner at the law firm Heenan Blakey in Toronton. She also had a career that spanned commercial law, insurance, and a stint working in Ontario s finance minister ernie eve s office in the early days of the late 1980s. She joins us today from Telaview to talk about why she thinks that without judicial reform, Israel will no longer be a liberal democracy.
Transcript
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in just over a month israel will turn 75 now to be correct the modern state of israel will turn 75
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on may 14th 2023 any student of history will tell you that israel's existed in various forms for
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thousands of years jerusalem named its capital millennia ago but the modern state though it's
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very different from israel of the past even its recent colonial past where it seems every empire
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occupied it at one time or another hi i'm brian lily your host for the full comment podcast and
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help we stay with us through the next little while as we look into this country it's history and it's
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very interesting present because if you've seen the headlines at all there's a very good chance that
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israel's 75th anniversary will not be a happy anniversary for the political class an attempt
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to bring in some reforms especially judicial reforms have well resulted in protests outrage
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resignations and political fights like we haven't seen before want to bring in our next guest who
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will know all about this vivian berkovich served as canada's ambassador to israel from 2014 to 2016
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prior to that she was a partner at the law firm heenan blakey in toronto served on the board of
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cbc something i'll try and forgive her for she also had a career that spanned commercial law insurance
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and a stint working in ontario's finance minister ernie eve's office in the early days of the harris
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government she joins us today from telaview thanks for joining us vivian pleasure to be here brian
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thanks for having me so walk us through exactly what is happening now just try and be as
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bare bones as you can for for people that haven't been following this because the controversy has
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been bubbling for a little bit i remember watching a cnn anderson cooper interview with
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benjamin netanyahu seems like a couple of months ago now and it was just starting then but it wasn't
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where it is now and he talked about judicial reforms and i thought that's not something that
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normally gets people excited that's not the case here what's happening well he calls it judicial
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reform but the truth is um what he's trying to ram through the knesset the legislature here
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in record time is a complete remaking of the political social and economic arrangements in
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israel between its citizens so they call it judicial reform but it's much more than that
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and should his plans or the proposed legislation actually pass or be rammed through the knesset
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many myself included think that israel will no longer be a liberal democracy explain that to me
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then because um one of the reforms is allowing the knesset to override the supreme court in israel
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and that seems to be one of the more contentious ones that's something that we have in canada in the
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notwithstanding clause and netanyahu himself says it's mirrored on what canada and several other
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democracies do so is that the main sticking point that you're looking at right now so let me just deal
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with the dispense with the notwithstanding clause or what they call the override clause here very quickly
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um because that's actually the least of of the of the problems and the issues and you're quite right
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that netanyahu has taken to making comparisons between israel and canada and saying hey you know
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you don't call canada non-democratic and they do the same thing the proposed override clause here
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is absolutely it's night and day it's apples and oranges if you compare it to the canadian notwithstanding
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clause um and so park that for a moment because that's actually not the main issue um the main issue
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and i'll keep it really simple um are several chunks of legislation that are on on hold now netanyahu agreed
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the other day uh to pause the the legislative process and to pick it up again on may 1st when the
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controlling the judicial process sorry the judicial appointment process entirely okay so most
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countries have variations on various committees or representations or recommendations hearings um
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what is proposed here is that the parties in power will select judges um and that's of concern because
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they will be selected presumably only based on their partisan pedigree um but even more concerning is that
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the knesset will pass a law that will say the supreme court of israel no longer has jurisdiction to review
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any law they're basically going to turn the supreme court of israel into a kind of you know cartoon
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um it will have no power and so that means you will have a panel of politically appointed judges
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who will have very little power and you will have a knesset controlled by a majority and any law that they
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pass has absolutely no checks balances and is not subject to judicial review there is no senate in israel
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okay there's no upper chamber there's no second look so you will have complete absolute power vested in
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the knesset and when you look at the knesset today i got to tell you and what constitutes the governing
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i want to get into uh the composition of governments how they're chosen in israel and all of that in a moment but
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let's ask about the supreme court because i've even heard from people who oppose netanyahu's
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they are kind of out of control they do go too far
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absolutely is that fair is that accurate like i understand that
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they declare uh members of the knesset unfit for office that's not something you could do here
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uh well you might be surprised if you saw what they're putting in office here these days but
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um to your main point um yeah you're quite right that um the supreme court i think every single person
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in israel it's not a right left issue i think that it has become it's gotten out of control it's way
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beyond activist um and there are a lot of reasons for that having happened i don't want to say that
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you know supreme court justices you know were evil and power grabbing i think they were trying to do
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their best in a very complex environment without a constitution or a bill of rights and a really
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kind of crazy political environment so yeah i mean absolutely the supreme court and the justice system
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need um reform no question so does the educational system so does the social welfare system but the
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way in which this is being carried out um is just it's surreal you know we have elections in israel
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and i won't get into this detail but we have elections in israel then there's all this kind of negotiating
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to put together a majority coalition and that's done and every party makes their agreement with the lead
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party the people of israel did not vote on this proposed reform it was never put before the
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people of israel there was some talk about you know changing the way judges are selected and this
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but it was talk there's nothing specific and a few days after the coalition agreements are signed all of a
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sudden there's this super detailed reform plan that is dumped on the public and it's really extreme
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and the very heightened public reaction began immediately this is regime change this is not
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reform and let me i just want to add because i think it's very relevant you asked initially about
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the override clause um and i agree with you i think that the concept of the override clause in israel is
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is worse than menacing uh it's very unlike our clause in canada uh basically a bare majority of 61 out of
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120 knesset members could vote on anything and that would override any court decision but you know what
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they don't need the override because once they jam through the judicial appointment reform once they say
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hey court you have no power what do they need the override for it's it's redundant okay so i'll ask you
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to talk me through how judges are appointed at israel now and how it will happen after this reform
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because judicial appointments it's it's tricky everywhere um in the united states it can be
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we've got in in some instances elected judges in others very politicized appointments we like to think
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that we don't have a politicized judiciary in canada and then you look at how judges are appointed
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at the provincial level here in ontario the previous liberal government put in a system so that
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effectively no matter who's in power it's going to be liberal friendly judges who are appointed because
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of the way the system was set up so it's not as if this is new um public policy everybody wants to
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stack the courts in their favor unfortunately and it's done in different ways sometimes overt sometimes
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you know in hidden ways so what's the system now and in just briefly what will it be i know you
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mentioned it earlier but can if we can do a compare and contrast here yeah very briefly because um it's
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so complicated but right now there's a committee and there it's basically the main objection that the
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government has to the current appointments process is that the committee is just an insider's game
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it's all lawyers that sounds like ontario that's but it's a you know it's look i'm of the view that
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it's always going to be rigged okay no matter what it is everywhere there's always as you say
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it's politicized uh it's a matter of you know how publicly the how public is the politicization but
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whoever's in power is going to put their friends on the bench you know in a democracy though we kind
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of you know power we like to think kind of ebbs and flows and moves a bit and so over time you
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know things balance out that's you know we always have these pendulums in a democracy um what the
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government is saying here is that uh and it's all part very very very ugly identity-driven politics
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they started out with you know there's this leftist cabal this cliquey elitist kind of social group
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all in tel aviv the root of all evil and um and they want to control everything and they have
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controlled everything since the establishment of the state there are european jews and we've had it
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they control the judicial appointments too so look at who the judges are they're all you know european
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jews not true they're all left-wing not true um and they all choose one another so there is a committee
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and you know there are some politicians from various parties but there's a belief on the part
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of this government that at the end of the day it's the bench and their cronies that appoint and approve
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there's some truth to that they do hold the balance of power fine so change it but change it to something
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you know sensible um what they want to change it to is a committee that would be composed of
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politicians but uh the majority would would always stack the committee they would always the majority
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in government would be a majority of the committee so they don't they would always choose their own
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and you know what and you and i could both say okay that doesn't sound so crazy it's kind of that way
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everywhere um what's unclear is what are going to be the criteria to be appointed a judge of the supreme
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court do you even have to be a lawyer or if you are a rabbi is that going to allow you to be appointed
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a judge of the supreme court um what is the term for the politicians who are put on this selection
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committee is it just the term of the government does it go on for 10 years there are a lot of
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questions about how it's going to work um but we don't know the answers to those yet uh but if i had
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to guess i would i would guess that the intention is to stack it and to make the appointments for a good
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long time um and i would have very serious concerns about what might be the the threshold to even be
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considered to be appointed a judge of the supreme court of israel there should be standards there
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should be thresholds i absolutely agree um it sounds like you've got a a system in need of reform now
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with some bad reforms being put forward to fix it um i think that's absolutely right but i think
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there's more to this is about um the nature of the calling coalition government uh their view of
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democracy their views on religion and state they don't actually care most of this coalition government
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about having a liberal democracy they don't care about having a supreme court they would be much
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happier with a state run according to jewish law called halacha they really just they don't care and
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they will tell you that very openly um this isn't about judicial reform this is about changing
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everything about the nature and character of the state of israel so just one example the priority for
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the ultra-orthodox um who comprise 13 percent of the population now so of the nine million israelis
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20 percent are arabs 80 percent are jews 13 percent of that 100 are ultra-orthodox
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um and they almost like they're their own sort of autonomous society their number one priority
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well two priorities one is to have all of the allowances that the state pays them so that they
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can study religion full-time and not work they're insisting that they go up very significantly
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in tandem with that they have always refused to serve in the armed forces in the idf they've also
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refused to do national service you know kind of work in hospitals and with children or whatever
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their communities might need um and they are demanding that by law service in the idf
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be considered no more important than full-time study of religion
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and there are significant implications for that they're basically saying they want a permanent
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exemption from the draft and military service it's not sustainable are they effectively granted that
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exemption now they are effectively um and you know there are a few issues that kind of flow from that
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i mean i think that given their skills and lack of skills like basic skills because they don't learn
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things like math science or english and just kind of really basic words like life skills that your kids
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probably have um you know and for all kinds of reasons they are very very resistant to serving in
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the idf one being that most of them aren't even zionists they don't support the existence of the state of
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israel they believe only when the messiah comes can the state of israel come into being so you know
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they wouldn't really be probably the greatest assets as soldiers um but they can do community service
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they can give to the state and support the state in some way that is of real value and share the burden
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and they want exemption from everything because their view and they're not shy about articulating it
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is that you know we people like me we may think that you know it's the army that keeps us secure
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um and the state of israel flourishing but actually it's their prayer and devotion
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that accomplishes that so i mean we're talking about empowering a really extreme
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section or cohort of society and they're just one there are others
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how much of this is due to the fact that you've got the proportional representation system
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in in israel and you've got how many uh elections over the last several years let's see i've got a list
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here you've had elections in november 2022 march 2021 march 2020 september 2019 april 2019 so that's
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five that i count i may have missed one uh but if i'm counting i'm going into withdrawal now yeah we've
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had five in the last three years and then but before that there was a relative stable period that went
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back to 2015 yeah all those elections you've got the different attempts to form coalitions
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in and do the people that form the coalitions end up pandering to extremist elements of either side
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well netanyahu does they could does but particularly benjamin netanyahu because he's also listen he's
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destroyed his own party it's not what it was even five six years ago but yes um this man is determined
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to hold on to any power at any cost um and uh that requires him absolutely pandering to extremist
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groups it's what he did and that's why he's in power and you know it's really it's sadly tragically
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ironic because when netanyahu was minister of finance in the early 2000s he was absolutely brilliant
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and he said you know we can't sustain this economic burden with the ultra orthodox and he really
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slashed and burned all of their very extreme entitlements you know and he said all you guys do
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is you know have huge families you make babies and you don't work and you don't contribute and we just
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can't do this you know he used the metaphor of the fat man skinny man how the skinny man is carrying
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this ever fatter man on his shoulders um and eventually he's going to collapse which was his
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metaphor for the economy and he did that and you know here we are 20 years later and the same guy
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is undoing all of that hard work it'll destroy the cut that along with so many other things will
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absolutely destroy the country just can't it's just not sustainable
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and you and others have obviously when you look at the protests in the streets
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have turned against them i want to talk about that when we come back from our break because
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um the numbers of people the sheer size of the protests is mind-boggling for here in canada
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in this day and age so we'll talk about that when we come back after this break
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responsibly we used to have big political protests in canada i remember a protest against the
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mike aris government that vivian worked for many years ago having a hundred thousand people come out
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we just don't have that happen anymore but in israel right now which is a population far smaller than
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canada smaller than ontario they have had protests of 100 150 000 250 000 500 000 depending on the news
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source and the location and vivio and i want to ask you is that normal in israel or have these changes
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these reforms proposed by the netanyahu government just made people say okay now enough absolutely
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what you just ended with enough in hebrew it is adkan like no further um what's been going on for the
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last 12 weeks is extraordinary i go to every saturday night protest when i am in israel uh the first one
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was 12 weeks ago and it was on a really really rainy night which is unusual in israel i mean it rains
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sometimes but it was pouring and over 100 000 people turned out that first night in tel aviv you got
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to understand israelis are really tough um but they they are so weak and wimpy when it comes to weather
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so you know it's kind of joke that it's raining it was like a sea of umbrellas but you know uh it was
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quite extraordinary that night and that's what it started and the numbers in tel aviv initially it was
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just tel aviv and they just grew every week and every week um until uh week 12 which we've just
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passed and on saturday night uh the tel aviv demonstration was around 160 170 000 and sunday
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when frankly all hell broke loose um was over 200 000 tel aviv um and then there's the nationwide so
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saturday night was 160 ish in tel aviv they were saying i think five 600 nationwide um and sunday
00:25:08.900
was 200 250 ish in tel aviv and close to a million i heard the truth is though it was so chaotic
00:25:16.820
spontaneous last minute that you know we didn't even see like media or police drones in the sky on
00:25:23.660
sunday night which you see all the time on saturday like no one was prepared no one had time to
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to do anything it literally sparked within five minutes and the reason for this just i need to
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make it's such an important point is that there is a very entrenched perception that among israel
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many israelis that this is not about reform this is about regime change it's a velvet glove it's this
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kind of slide into a kind of tyranny dictatorship autocracy pick your poison very similar to what
00:25:59.880
we've seen happen in poland and hungary in recent years and i gotta tell you it's surreal to actually
00:26:06.820
you can kind of see it happening but you just can't believe what you see happening and i want to make
00:26:13.300
clear this isn't just the people although the people are very important this is all former heads of
00:26:20.080
the mossad some of whom are personally close to benjamin netanyahu all former and current governors
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of the bank of israel all ceos of major israeli banks all vcs all tech industry ceos physicians um
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i i could just go on and on and on all the heads of shin bet the israeli fbi
00:26:42.180
this is not like a bunch of wacky lefties which is what you know netanyahu he's been calling us
00:26:47.940
anarchists for months and leftists um that's not what this is this is a really broadly based
00:26:55.400
group of very significant leaders and regular folks who are freaked out and that also includes
00:27:04.000
aside from the president of the united states um you know ben bernanke um jacob frankel one of the
00:27:10.720
most preeminent economists who was also governor of bank of israel for some time who is now the
00:27:15.780
see the chair of uh jp morgan chase international um these people are and paul kahneman a nobel prize
00:27:24.760
winner who is also israeli these these this incredible stature of these people and they're
00:27:31.100
saying like what are you doing you're destroying the state because if you don't have a free and
00:27:37.640
democratic state everything falls apart here everything the economic miracle the tech miracle
00:27:43.800
everything i want to read part of the uh response that netanyahu put out in middle of the night
00:27:51.400
tel aviv time uh to comments by president biden calling on him to uh reconsider and he said uh this
00:28:00.280
is the quote from netanyahu statement in part he said my administration is committed to strengthening
00:28:04.960
democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government which we are striving to
00:28:10.700
achieve uh via a broad consensus israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of
00:28:18.100
its people and not based on pressures from abroad including from the best of friends it was a polite
00:28:24.000
thank you for your your views mr biden now go away uh i i can understand his desire to restore
00:28:32.460
proper balance i often think in our country the proper balance is off what i'm hearing you say is
00:28:39.400
that netanyahu is going too far for his own personal reasons but also for coalition partners did you used
00:28:48.700
to be a fan of of netanyahu um i would say i was an admirer not a fan there were things i admired about him
00:28:55.680
i mean my father and i used to have you know great uh great arguments uh because he was a pretty
00:29:01.140
hardcore lykudnik and i wasn't um but i recognized him to be a brilliant dedicated great hard worker
00:29:12.280
great patriot fabulous politician um all of those things i can recognize even if i don't personally
00:29:20.060
you know support or admire an individual um but this isn't about reform and this is not about
00:29:29.660
strengthening democracy by any stretch you know right i asked you if we could delay this the
00:29:34.900
taping of this so i could watch the top of the news tonight um and you mentioned biden and that was
00:29:39.300
the top story that's all that they were talking about for the first 10 minutes this isn't a little
00:29:44.000
kind of you know spat um what the generals on tv were saying um and most people here are saying and
00:29:51.240
thinking this country doesn't exist without u.s support militarily or in any way and the u.s is not
00:30:00.540
going to support israel if we become um a non-democratic kind of theocracy and many of the coalition
00:30:11.260
partners are there's a whole other chunk of them that we haven't even talked about that are
00:30:15.460
like criminals terrorists they're they're really bad people and um these are people he's putting
00:30:24.260
in responsible very senior cabinet positions running the country the u.s is looking at that and saying
00:30:29.040
like you know we support your military we we have your back at the u.n we we are there but we will not
00:30:37.980
support this we won't support a non-democratic israel
00:30:42.560
first time i um met very briefly benjamin netanyahu and and heard him speak was early 2000s it was in
00:30:55.160
that 2003 time frame so he was either foreign affairs or he just left that for finance and he
00:31:02.840
was touring canada and went to hear him speak in ottawa very impressive man unbelievably yeah in
00:31:09.700
terms of his ability to articulate issues you know since then he's been prime minister several times
00:31:17.300
and he has survived and changed and is so he's obviously a survivor does he survive this does israel
00:31:29.740
head to another election um does the international pressure force his hand i'm glad that you you had
00:31:39.360
the opportunity to experience um netanyahu in person i i've been in his company many times i don't think
00:31:45.920
i've ever encountered someone he's so charismatic he's so brilliant he's so articulate um he doesn't
00:31:55.420
have the highest eq in the world but he does have a way of connecting with a room right and with
00:32:00.000
individuals and he can disarm people quickly i i mean in a personal way i don't mean absolutely
00:32:05.980
charming due to his military background just walks in the room and charms you no he he owns the room
00:32:11.700
he wants like that's the charisma factor and and there are listen people here are so angry with him
00:32:18.700
and they're so disappointed like everyone people didn't support him like me you know he's done so
00:32:25.020
much for this country his family has done so much they've devoted their lives to this country his
00:32:30.480
brother gave his life his legacy up until a few years ago was absolutely brilliant and it won't be
00:32:36.780
anymore and that's really sad you don't wish that on anyone um to your question you know where does it
00:32:44.280
all go boy if i had the answer to that so let me let me offer this this thought um person after person
00:32:53.920
after person has gone on television and made public statements lately and these aren't you know um
00:32:59.960
shallow or or you know frivolous people uh these are really serious people like yossi cohen the head of
00:33:06.820
the mossad um like a man named nadav argaman who until i think a few months ago was the head of
00:33:13.620
shin bed the israeli fbi very serious people the heads former heads of the air force former heads of
00:33:19.800
the idf are coming out one after another publicly and saying this is not the same benjamin netanyahu
00:33:26.400
not only that i knew but who i knew a few years ago tamir pardo former head of the mossad
00:33:34.620
for seven or eight years who served and reported to benjamin netanyahu um he came out tonight and he said
00:33:41.580
uh he's he's got to be removed from office and this is extraordinary that these people are saying
00:33:51.520
this um a lot of people who knew him well say that there's much more to this than just clinging to
00:34:00.280
power or not wanting to you know go to jail because of his corruption trial that there was ever an
00:34:06.820
illustration for why israeli justice system needs reform it's that but these people are saying that
00:34:15.680
something has changed in him and that he has come to see himself as something of a kind of you know
00:34:24.180
this is his destiny no one else can lead the state of israel only him and he will stop at nothing
00:34:32.800
to hold on to power and i think that that's probably not an incorrect analysis i mean what he did last
00:34:41.180
weekend was just incomprehensible and that led to um sunday night when i was out on the streets and on
00:34:50.120
the highways with over 200 000 other people in tel aviv and we all had the sense and i believe strongly
00:34:56.040
that was the first day of what will become a civil war i think we'll look back in a few years and that
00:35:03.360
will be the day because everything changed an actual shooting war or uh i think there will be violence
00:35:09.720
yeah i do um there's been cracks in his coalition he will not this is we're way beyond that he won't
00:35:18.860
um he will not back down from this legislation even though he says he's he's going to sit for talks
00:35:23.780
i'm going to look for compromise consensus he says that on one side of his mouth and on the other
00:35:27.860
side he says something completely different the minister of justice today was saying ah you know
00:35:32.420
what we're just kind of like going to enjoy the holidays and we're going to come back we're just
00:35:35.680
jamming it through again um and that's consistent with how bb usually operates um so he he lost his
00:35:44.300
defense minister the other well fired his defense minister who uh yoav gallant was a member of his own
00:35:50.640
lakud party um called for netanyahu to reconsider got fired so if he's going to be firing people
00:35:58.300
within his own party that could speak to a fracture of the coalition if that happens who's there to
00:36:06.420
replace him you always have to ask and and i'm i'm hearing everything you're saying but who's the
00:36:12.000
alternative in in israel because sometimes the alternative is worse or sometimes it's better
00:36:16.960
who's the alternative in israel if you're asking me who's the alternative in israel i would say and i
00:36:21.140
believe me i'm surprised to hear myself saying this i would say at the moment benny guns okay who's in
00:36:26.260
the opposition um if you're asking me who's the alternative in the lakud party i'm going to tell
00:36:30.800
you there's nobody there's just nobody benjamin netanyahu has been ruling that party like a tyrant for
00:36:35.700
years um most almost all of the people who were any good and had integrity have defected left gone to other
00:36:43.360
parties what's left is not the cream of the crop um uh him firing people within his own party is
00:36:50.580
nothing new uh him talking out of both sides of his mouth is nothing new uh there's a lot of people
00:36:56.940
he's left you know under a lot of buses um and he's also very masterful you know the other side of him
00:37:02.640
the brilliance and the charisma and all the wonderful things that you and i spoke about earlier
00:37:06.800
um there's a ruth very ruthless side to him and um there is no one in the party now
00:37:14.920
who is a leadership contender uh what he did in firing gallant when the consensus among all of the
00:37:24.980
military all of the shin bet all of the former mossad and military etc is that israel at the moment is in
00:37:34.400
possibly the most precarious security situation that has ever been in since the state was founded
00:37:42.860
about a week ago they were saying since 1973 which is saying a lot because the country almost went down
00:37:48.460
that was an existential war militarily what they're saying now is ever that's how serious it is and the
00:37:55.860
one thing that everybody respects in this country is the idf it's the most respected institution
00:38:02.240
and when the head of the idf when the chief of staff when your minutes and when your minister of
00:38:08.260
defense are and the head of the shin bet are all saying we've got to stop the strife we've got to
00:38:15.460
pause this legislation that's tearing the nation apart because we are in a boiling pot of water
00:38:21.340
that's his job it's a sacred duty of the minister of defense so when he fired gallant
00:38:27.440
the lid blew off the pot here talk about tripping wires or crossing red lines that's a sacred sacred
00:38:36.320
weeks to the anniversary of israel's 75th yeah um i said off the top it may not be a happy anniversary
00:38:46.540
maybe it will be for for the people of israel but if they're this upset maybe not um obviously it won't
00:38:52.300
be for the political class how does this affect what should have been a an absolutely happy moment
00:38:58.580
deeply um there were a number of reasons that the but then yeah who said okay we're going to pause for
00:39:06.440
a month um and you know one is that passover which is an important holiday in the jewish calendar is
00:39:12.320
upon us next week um but more importantly probably the two most important days in the israeli calendar
00:39:19.320
are independence day and memorial day uh and it's very moving every year doesn't matter how many
00:39:26.900
times you experience it memorial day of course is when the country remembers fallen soldiers or people
00:39:31.920
who were killed in terror attacks and it's a very very intense heavy solemn day and it ends and moves
00:39:40.780
right into independence day which is a party like you've never experienced because it is the truest joy
00:39:47.400
like wow we're still here a year later he did the pause because of those two days because we are 75
00:39:56.960
and people are feeling we can't even celebrate but here's how extraordinary it is the ceremonies and
00:40:05.820
memorials on memorial day in israel every year are everywhere and so moving and there are military
00:40:12.440
ceremonies and there are bereaved families and everyone in this country is touched every single
00:40:17.680
school has a ceremony you know at night with parents and the community
00:40:23.120
it's a it's an incredible part of the national culture and everyone is saying this year
00:40:33.040
politicians stay away don't come to military ceremonies don't come to any of our ceremonies
00:40:39.520
we don't want you i mean that just gives me shivers and that tells you how torn apart things are here
00:40:46.780
so will it be happy i don't think so i don't i'm sorry to say vivian thanks so much for your time
00:40:55.640
today thank you brian's pleasure vivian berkovich is the former canadian ambassador to israel she is also
00:41:01.920
the host of the state of tel aviv podcast you can find that at state of tel aviv.com full comment
00:41:08.700
is a post media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was produced by andre crew with
00:41:14.180
theme music by bryce hall kevin libban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full
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