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Democracy Dies in Broad Daylight

Posted on March 25, 2026 | Leave a comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Absent from any discussion on the future of Iran is democratization, and with good reason. Iran, from ancient times until today, has no history of democracy or even democratic aspirations. Some Iranians may yearn for freedoms as Westerners understand them but democracy as “rule of the people” is utterly foreign to them. It is also because democracy is increasingly difficult to sustain, as we are today experiencing in Israel.

The struggling Washington Post publishes on its masthead the self-serving but hopeful phrase “democracy dies in darkness.” Maybe, but in Israel where we always strive to do better, democracy is dying in broad daylight. Israel’s claim to be the “only democracy in the Middle East” has become increasingly farcical. Sure, Israel has elections, like Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan have, but true power is not wielded by the elected officials but by an unelected power structure that barely tolerates the government, humors the legislature, runs roughshod over people’s individual rights, and is beyond accountability. Oh, and all the while accusing the government of being a “threat to democracy.” Talk about people who need to buy a mirror and take a gander at themselves.

Let us count the ways that the instruments of the deep state – the Supreme Court, the police and prosecution, and elements of the media – undermine democracy, especially because they cannot win elections. Sadly, this is only a partial list.

The police and prosecution eavesdropped on thousands of Israel citizens not accused of any wrongdoing, and without any court approval. They gathered and still retain personal information on many of them in the hope of finding something incriminating that the authorities could use to blackmail them into framing PM Netanyahu for something, anything. Nothing will come of this.

Attempts by the government to investigate these crimes have been thwarted by the Supreme Court, which is attempting to cover up its involvement and that of the “fired-but-still-reigning” Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara. She, in a remarkable exercise of judicial malfeasance, has been granted 23 adjournments in order to delay appointment of a committee to investigate the mass eavesdropping, thus delaying the case to the point of meaninglessness. In this and other areas, the AG and the Court are hoping to run out the clock past the next elections where they pray (if they pray at all) that a friendly left-wing government will sweep away all these charges. The Supreme Court has protected her from rightful termination for misconduct in office, even though no statute gives it the authority to do that.

The legal establishment has waged lawfare against the prime minister for well over a decade, with evidence fabricated, witnesses threatened, prosecutors suborning perjury, and the witch hunt dragging on for years. It has perfected the system of neutering disfavored politicians, appointees, or bureaucrats by holding over their heads bogus investigations facilitated by tendentious and false leaks to the media.

Meanwhile, the AG’s son was credibly accused (it is caught on camera, after all) of shamelessly stealing another soldier’s bullet proof vest, even refusing to return it after no charges were filed against him because of collusion between the AG and the Military Prosecutor’s office. Who knew that her self-proclaimed immunity extends to her son as well?

The former Military Prosecutor was credibly accused of fabricating evidence and leaking it to the media, a video that besmirched our soldiers’ names across the world. She was forced to resign after accidentally being outed by an employee undergoing a routine polygraph, but this only happened after the Military Prosecutor informed the Court that the results of her investigation did not expose the leaker. This was quite understandable, as she was the leaker, and was granted the right to investigate herself, which the Court willfully permitted until she was otherwise exposed. Her case is now pending, but (as above) it is pending its way towards quiet disappearance in the mischievous murkiness of the deep state.

The AG and the Supreme Court have asserted powers unknown to comparable officials in any functioning democracy. They fabricate their own laws and simultaneously void or thwart laws passed by the Knesset, Israel’s elected legislature, which has been successfully marginalized as a substantive branch of government. They operate under the risible legal theory spawned by Aharon Barak that “everything is justiciable,” something also unprecedented in legal annals. The AG and Court have arrogated themselves the right to pass judgment on every legislation, every policy, every initiative, and every appointment, even when they run afoul of no law but simply reflect the priorities of the government elected by the people.

Thus, the Court functions without any limits on standing, allowing every malcontent to sue the government even when he has suffered no personal injury but simply because he doesn’t like the government’s policies – for which they, not he, were elected to promote. Judges routinely ignore conflicts of interest, sitting on cases involving relatives and occasionally even cases in which they have monetary interests. Apparently, there is no equivalent in Hebrew for the English concept of “judicial restraint.”

For example, the law is explicit that the State Comptroller can investigate anything and everything. Nothing is beyond his purview. Yet, the High Court illegally ordered the State Comptroller to halt his investigation of the failures of October 7, because, apparently, they did not like where his investigation was heading. (He allegedly was finding fault with their preferred heroes and little fault with their designated villains.) But no existing statute justifies this Court decision.

Similarly, Ronen Bar, the failed head of the Shin Bet who ruled out any possibility of a Hamas attack on October 7, also refused to be fired. And when even the Court could not prevent his dismissal, his successor, David Zini, appointed by the only body authorized by law to appoint the head of the Shin Bet – the government – had numerous obstacles placed in his way, had his assumption to office delayed for months on the most specious grounds, has been politically, journalistically, and legally harassed since assuming office, and the denizens of the Deep State are actively seeking to depose him even now.

Indeed, every government appointment is scrutinized not for legal disqualification but for crass political purposes: will this person advance or impede the interests of the deep state? If the latter, the appointment will be delayed indefinitely, to the point of meaninglessness.

The same pertains to government decisions. Consider, for example, the government’s ordered closure of Galei Tzahal, the Army radio station, announced months ago to occur next week. Not too long ago, a conservative Galatz director balanced the left-wing hosts with an equal number of right-wing hosts. Had he fired the left-wing hosts, the court would have overturned his decision as a “threat to free speech.” When he was replaced, a new director dismissed all the right-wing hosts, who were deemed a “threat to democracy.” But Israel is the only country in the world whose army runs a radio station, much less a partisan, anti-government, and too frequently anti-army radio station. No law prevents the defense minister from shuttering the station; it is a branch of the military like any other branch. But the Supreme Court, acting in its role as High Court of the Deep State and defender of the radical left, has now estopped it, hoping to drag out the proceedings past the next elections and rendering the decision moot. Safe prediction: Galei Tzahal will not be closed anytime soon.

Just as the Court insists that the government subsidize the left wing Galei Tzahal, it is even more undemocratic, if not unconscionable, that the public pays for Reshet Bet, a leftist radio station. Israel TV’s flagship Channel 12 is also government subsidized, and its leftist news division is relentlessly anti-government. Any attempt to reform it by balancing its commentators between right and left, or by letting it privatize and compete in the free market with other networks, is aborted as a “threat to free speech” and a “threat to democracy.” Even the non-astute citizen can grasp that any endeavor that weakens the leftist, secularist segment of society and strengthens the rightist, traditional segment of society, is immediately depicted as a “threat to free speech and democracy.”

To be sure, even a left-wing media has its place. But that place need not be eternally subsidized by the taxpayer, especially those who find its offerings and commentary repugnant. The government should get out of the media business, period. It should be obvious that these left-wing, government-subsidized outlets could not survive if they were forced to compete in the marketplace; that is why the Deep State protects them like an etrog. Forcing taxpayers to subsidize only leftist media is a travesty.

Similarly, two years ago, the Government cut off all ties with the radical left newspaper Haaretz and even ordered the cessation of its subsidized distribution to various government ministries. This is understandable, considering that its publisher has called Arab terrorists “freedom fighters” and one of its columnists recently termed the State of Israel “the greatest danger to world peace of any country.” (If all Tucker Carlson did every day was read the lies from Haaretz, he would not have to concoct his own lies.) Haaretz is one of the most anti-Israel, anti-Jewish publications in the world. Naturally, the Court ordered the Government to resume its subsidies.

This has nothing to do with free speech. Not a few public officials call for the closure of privately funded, right-wing Channel 14. Those who think that cannot happen should recall the closure of Arutz-7, the first popular right-wing organ. Those who think that the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria by a leftwing government is impossible should recall Gush Katif. Those who think that the left does not still pine for a Palestinian state should recall the delusions of Oslo that are all alive and well in the febrile minds of the unrepentant dreamers of a secular, progressive, state of all its citizens, non-Jewish Israel. It is delusional to think that the Hamas invasion or the wars with Iran and Hezbollah has disabused the radical left of its fantasies are starry-eyed as it is to think that the legal establishment that investigates itself and mysteriously never finds any wrongdoing will ultimately be brought to justice.

Elections have been rendered meaningless as real power is held by the courts and unelected bureaucrats who cannot be fired or replaced without permission of the elites. The only virtue of elections is that it enables a right-wing government to be a partial brake on the excesses of the Court, the exact opposite of how a democracy is supposed to function. A left-wing government buttressed by a left-wing Court would be catastrophic, an unchecked behemoth that will undoubtedly oppress right wing and religious Jews who will lack any recourse.

It goes on and on. The AG wants to cancel Itamar Ben Gvir – an act devoid of merit, legal precedent, or statutory authority. Surely, the Election Commission will find some way to ban him in the future. The Court is compelling the IDF to integrate women in combat into mixed units, which will inevitably result in yeshiva students refusing to serve in the tank or artillery corps, a suicidal triumph of rigid, radical feminist ideology over Halacha, efficiency, and battlefield success. The Court demanded years ago that Gazans be allowed to approach the border unhindered and unchallenged, itself one of the proximate causes of the colossal failure of October 7, and one which will also be covered up. And not content with its domestic and military interventions, the Court has ordered that mixed prayers be allowed at a sub-divided Kotel, a mockery of Jewish law and all that is holy. If they feel so strongly about it, maybe the Court should order the same at Al-Aksa.

And do not be surprised if the Deep State cooks up a way to disqualify PM Netanyahu from running in the next election, on some pretext, with the goal of so dispiriting the right wing that people see no purpose in voting, the only way the left can win in Israel. By the time it happens, it will be too late to respond, and the elites know whatever turmoil erupts will die down as soon as a left-wing government is in place.

The problem is that currently there is little hope of changing the system regardless of who is elected in the fall. The elites have carved out for themselves an infrastructure of power that is impregnable through ordinary democratic processes, short of a revolution. The judges cannot be impeached, essentially appoint their replacements, they shield corrupt bureaucrats who serve their purposes and harass honest ones who do not. There are no checks or balances on them. And in a fashion quite evocative of North Korea, the most undemocratic party in Israel – the one that aspires to deprive most of the citizenry of basic rights – calls itself the Democrats. It has no faith in the demos – the people who actually vote – but only in the crats, the ruling class.

Eventually, there will be a constitutional crisis, in which the government and the people who elected it – the majority of the country – simply refuse to enforce the Court’s arbitrary dictates or the AG’s capricious predilections. In a real sense, that crisis is already upon us, obscured only by the necessities of an existential war.

We should not be concerned with democracy in Iran, a pipedream even for optimists. We should be more concerned about the fate of democracy in Israel, dying a daily slow death before our eyes, in broad daylight. And we should pray for the day when “Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her repentant ones with righteousness” (Yeshayahu 1: 27), may that day come soon.

Iran Away

Posted on March 12, 2026 | Comments Off

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

We could be on the brink of a profound historic change in the Middle East that will set it on the path to peace, prosperity, goodwill, harmony, tolerance, and mutual respect for all countries. Or not.

The unprecedented cooperation between the United States and Israel – a melding of the militaries, to a great extent – reflects several positive developments. It is an achievement for both President Trump and PM Netanyahu, two leaders routinely vilified by large segments of their population and the world, who both perceived threats to their countries and rather than just shrilly warn against it and make idle threats, acted in a bold and audacious way. We can even forgive Trump’s claim of credit for killing the Ayatollah, notwithstanding there weren’t US planes over Iran at the time of that initial attack. Such is the way of the showman.

It also should not be overlooked how these two leaders unflinchingly defined evil as evil and went to war against it. This is not to be taken for granted in a world where evildoers wage psychological and propaganda warfare in order to blur the distinction between good and evil, if not to declare such notions completely obsolete. The obliteration of the distinction between objective good and objective evil plagues Western and secular society and is one of the catalysts for the unrest on college campuses and the moral muddle that afflicts so many young people.

This collaboration ultimately reflects the commitments of both nations and their citizenry to a world that is ordered on moral grounds as well as to a repudiation of the Jew hatred that is gaining strength in the United States and animates so many people in this region.

Nevertheless, fighting side by side should not obscure the fact that each nation went to war for different though equally valid reasons. As such, it is likely that the United States will want to end the war sooner than will Israel.

Israel embarked on this campaign as a classic war of self-defense. The threat from Iran was not “imminent,” but rather constant. Israel has been in a continuous state of war with Iran since the early 1980’s with the creation of Hezbollah. Iran, through its various proxies in the region and their tentacles across the world, has been plotting Israel’s demise since then, murdering Jews and Israelis wherever we may be found. A state does not have immunity because it masks its malevolent actions behind the subordinates it funds, trains, and dispatches. The unremitting menace of Iran had to be confronted; it took decades of terror but finally the battle was joined.

The United States went to battle against Iran not because it perceived an imminent threat, even though Iran has engaged in terror against the US since 1979 – kidnappings, murders, assassination plots against American leaders and politicians, etc. The US war with Iran is a classic preventative war, a war meant to be fought on terms favorable to the attacker to ward off a genuine and tangible future menace. Forty-seven years of chanting “Death to America” eventually, from Iran’s perspective, reached the wrong audience (i.e., President Trump), who took those threats and Iran’s nuclear and ballistic weapons program seriously. Iran has paid and continues to pay a heavy price for that verbal indiscretion and its malign designs against civilization. Its new leader may also be supreme, which does not necessarily mean durable.

Both grounds for initiating an aggressive attack – a present threat with actual hostilities or a preventative war – are inherently moral and legitimate but engender two different objectives. The US is interested in destroying or at least impeding the Iranian program for the foreseeable future, thus removing even a longer-term threat from America’s horizon. That is one reason regime change in Iran is desired by the US but is not indispensable to its mission.

For Israel, regime change – a shift to an Iranian government that may not be enthusiastic Zionists but at least does not consist of obsessive Jew haters and fanatical mass murderers – is a primary goal of the war. It pays to recall that Iran’s deposed Shah was friendly to Israel relative to the region, but not overly warm. Relations on the surface were cordial but the Shah rarely deviated from the Arab consensus at the time. He sold oil to Israel but also had ties with the PLO, condemned the Israeli “occupation,” and called repeatedly for full withdrawal. Like Turkey, another non-Arab but Muslim state that had ties with Israel but not necessarily warm ones, Iran under the Shah had relations with Israel that were benign only in comparison to those of the psychopaths that overthrew him.

The Shah’s son and putative heir is certainly friendlier to Israel but we should not overestimate his standing or popularity in Iran. Again, the few who remember his father’s autocracy favorably do so only when compared to the horrors and monsters that followed him.

This bespeaks the current dilemma facing Israel and the United States. The second reason why regime change is not indispensable to the US military mission is because regime change cannot be effectuated by a foreign army, certainly not from aerial bombings alone, and not from an army of thousands trying to impose its will on a nation of 91,000,000 people – not all of whom are amenable to change.

The conventional wisdom in the West is that Iranians overwhelmingly reject the rule of the Ayatollahs and their monomaniacal, virulent interpretation of Islam. The vast majority of Iranians, we are told, yearn to be free of the rule of the mullahs would like nothing better than a secular Iran within a Muslim framework, such as existed under the Shah’s rule, the better to pursue a good material life. Polls, apparently, show that rule by the mullahs is supported by perhaps 10% of the population, which is not that much, even if in raw numbers it is larger than the population of Israel.

And what if the polls are wrong? What if it is not 10% of the population but 20% or 30% – in other words, tens of millions of fanatics, and that percentage – granted, a minority – is still the only portion of the population that is armed? Under that scenario, regime change becomes less and less likely.

Assuming that 30,000 protesting Iranians were murdered by the regime in the last few months, and myriads more arrested, and many not arrested, that means that barely .001% of the population took to the streets. That is a sobering figure. Policy should not be based on projection – how would we feel if we lived under such a tyranny? – but on reality. A true mass movement of Iranians to overthrow the regime and restore some sort of normalcy has not yet materialized, perhaps because it presently can’t, or perhaps because it does not exist. We can wish for its existence but we cannot wish such an opposition into existence.

The allure of radical Islam should not be underestimated as it has taken root in much of the world and threatens much of the rest. Iran and Turkey have fallen under its sway but each Arab country – even moderate ones – must try to suppress the radicals who live among them, and they do so with varying degrees of success. Europe is overrun with radical Muslims, including large sections of Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and elsewhere. And radical Islam is a growing menace in the United States as well, even when the face of it has a pleasant smile. Note that the extremists – several of whom sit in the US Congress – are mostly able to preclude any responsible discussion of its dangers by accusing all skeptics and challengers of Islamophobia.

The entire world view of the radical Muslim is permeated with the imperative to propagate Islam even at the cost of one’s own life. It thus becomes difficult to see how this regime – and whoever survives to lead it – can surrender. Even the Nazis surrendered when their ideology collapsed and Germany was overrun. Do the Iranians have a Gorbachev who oversaw the demise of the Soviet Union rather than annihilate his own people? The opposite seems to be the case. Mass murder of their own civilians – not to mention of the infidels across the globe – is the price they joyfully pay to spread their understanding of their faith.

In this, the Iranian leadership is more akin to Imperial Japan, which would not have surrendered to end World War II absent the US atomic bombs that destroyed two major cities with the threat (hollow, as it was) of more to come. Japan would have fought to the last man, a volatile combination of religion and nationalism.

For Israel, regime change is an obvious desideratum, because the survival of this regime in any form will only make it more extreme, if such a thing is possible. For the US, regime change will require a greater commitment of troops and resources than even the Trump administration is willing to provide. What then lies ahead?

As Yogi Berra said, it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. It is more likely that the regime will somehow survive than that Reza Pahlavi will show up one day and be crowned the new Shah. But the most optimistic yet still realistic scenario envisions someone from the military – not the Revolutionary Guards – seizing power and quashing the radical mullah movement. This doesn’t transform Iran into a Western democracy but it might enable its decent citizens to remodel their country into an exporter of oil and spices and not terror. The fear that any new radical leader will be decapitated should be a deterrent to normal human beings but might not be applicable in the context of radical Islam. Nonetheless, the present is thus an opportune time for such a military leader to assert authority, especially as the Iranian military will otherwise be totally devastated.

Until that happens, Israel should destroy as much of the Iranian infrastructure as possible, including the oil installations, despite American objections. A poor, weak, and bankrupt Iran poses a limited threat in the short term, and such would also starve its proxies of the funding and support they require to wage their relentless war against Israel. We should be calling every day for the professional military – those not beholden to radical Islam – to step forward and save Iran from devastation.

We should also realize that even the complete defeat of Iran – including regime change and the opening of a Chabad House in Tehran – does not mean an end to Israel’s enemies. New foes are already on the horizon – Turkey, Qatar – just as the possibility of new alliances with other Arab nations exists as well. Then again, a defanged Iran could also mean that those Arab nations that drew close to us because they feared Iran will have less incentive to ally with Israel. Who knows?

The book of Shoftim (Judges) states several times after our enemies were temporarily defeated “and the land was quiet,” for forty years, even for eighty years. If only! In every generation we can weaken Amalek but full victory awaits the coming of Messiah. That is encouraging – along with a more sensible leadership that, one hopes, has purged itself from failed conceptziyot, a military whose feats with G-d’s help astound the world, and a resilient and brave civilian population that cannot be cowered and intimidated by wicked enemies but grows ever stronger and more faithful with each new challenge.

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Tagged history, iran, Israel, middle-east

The Judictatorship

Posted on March 18, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The Judictatorship by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying much of the US Pacific Fleet and killing 2403 Americans. The commanding officer was Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. How long did it take President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fire Kimmel, relieve him of his command, and demote him in rank? It took all of ten days, until Admiral Chester Nimitz was designated Kimmel’s replacement. No one called on FDR to resign. Less than four years later, the war in the Pacific was over and the Americans were victorious.

How is it that those responsible for the catastrophe of October 7, 2023, were not held accountable? How is it possible that the Chief of Staff, head of Southern Command, head of military intelligence, and head of the Shin Bet – all abject failures in their assigned tasks – continued to serve well beyond what should be normal, given their performance? How is it that the incessant reports of the tatzpataniyot, the female military observers, were ignored – and who ignored them? Why do we not yet know the names of their commanders who disregarded their warnings – and are they still serving in their roles? Why weren’t they all dismissed within ten days?

Surely the answers are multifaceted and laden with political implications and personal considerations, but one factor stands out above all others: we are living in a judictatorship – a judicial dictatorship – in which unelected judges and the elite legal establishment effectively govern the country and hamstring our elected officials. Gali Baharav-Miara is nominally the Legal Advisor to the Government (yoetzet mishpatit lamemshalah), not even an Attorney General (tovea klali), but functions as the head of government. Ronen Bar, Shin Bet head, is to be fired this week but the firing may not stick because the Legal Advisordisapproves. Bar even asserted weeks ago that he will not resign until he can designate his successor, this too with the support of the Legal Advisor. His adamance and the government’s prior hesitation to act recalls the era of longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who could not be fired because he had dirt (true or not) on everyone. Is the Shin Bet threatening the Prime Minister? Gali Baharav-Miara cannot be fired because, well, she cannot be fired, as she presumably disapproves of her firing and the Supreme Court will back her up. This is not normal and it is not how democracy functions.

The irony is that the Legal Advisor to the Government does not at all advise the government on anything. She doesn’t advise as much as she dictates. She often refuses to represent the ministries when she disagrees with their policies, leaving them without representation except when she approves private representation for them. She must approve any government hiring and any government firing. She sits in judgment on any proposed legislation, killing those she disfavors before the Knesset, ostensibly Israel’s legislature, can vote on them. She determines the extent of enforcement of laws that the Knesset has passed, disregarding those she frowns on and over-enforcing those she supports.

It should be obvious to any impartial observer that we are no longer living in a democracy. The people’s rule is illusory and the people’s vote is ultimately meaningless when a right-wing government is elected. The Prime Minister is effectively emasculated, forced to look over his shoulder at the Legal Advisor, barred from major decisions because of the legal charade that has been hovering over him for years. Even if he wanted to act decisively – not at all clear – he cannot.

The Legal Advisor is buttressed by a Supreme Court that allows no limits on its authority, no limits on its jurisdiction, almost no limits on its appointment of successor justices, and no limits on its encroachment on the Knesset’s authority. Statutes mean nothing. The Court, and the Legal Advisor, have the last word – and usually the first and middle words – on everything that transpires in society. They decide who serves in every major position in government, they dictate police and military policy, they encroach on purely halachic matters, they superintend every government decision and Knesset law, they delight in providing every legal right to our enemies and withhold them from Jews. And they are unelected and unaccountable.

In the name of democracy, there is no democracy. And note the deft linguistic trick pulled off by the Israeli left and anti-Netanyahu crowd: in the name of “democracy” they trample on every democratic norm, and then they accuse anyone who points this out of being “a threat to democracy.” George Orwell could not have said it better. It is worth recalling that Communist and Socialist countries labeled themselves “Democratic Republics” or “Peoples Republics.” Yair Golan even named his new party “The Democrats,” notwithstanding his disgust for the people’s opinions and his contempt for democratic norms, including repeated threats to use violence to attain his political objectives.

To them, the biggest threat to democracy is the voice of the people, who cannot be trusted to elect the right people to govern them. It demonstrates that democracy can be destroyed while purporting to save it if the radicals have the courts and the media on their side.

Certainly, democracy means more than government by the people, and the essence of liberal democracy is majority rule with protection for minority rights. But that, too, does not happen here. Extracting confessions via torture is acceptable if a scapegoat is needed and fits the bill, like Amiram ben Uliel. Homes of civilians can be bugged and their private lives eavesdropped upon if the target is their bête noire, PM Netanyahu, and the decades-long obsession with finding some, any, criminality to pin on him. They would appreciate the crack of Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet Secret Police, “show me the man and I will show you the crime.” Ongoing efforts to hold these domestic spies accountable have been repeatedly thwarted by the Legal Advisor, who found time to shield her son from credible accusations of theft on an army base.

Who doubts that there are two or three tiers of justice, one for the elites and the others for religious Jews, settlers, Haredim, Ethiopian Jews, Edot Hamizrach, et al? It is why the radicals can block highways at will and take selfies with the police, while Haredim or settlers or Ethiopians who protest are beaten, shot with tear gas, and sometimes just shot. Left-wing protesters who oppose the government and shout “democracy” can riot at will notwithstanding the commission of crimes; right-wing protesters who peacefully oppose left-wing governments’ insanities (Oslo, Gush Katif expulsion) are jailed without trial. Perhaps the latter forgot to yell “democracy” loud enough.

We are an unruly people, difficult to govern under the best circumstances, but the alternative and more powerful government run by the judictatorship threatens our very freedoms and renders our elections superfluous, if not pointless. Every government action requires its permission, every appointment requires its approval. The Legal Advisor’s control over all legislation is without any statutory authority but is a right given to the L.A. by the Supreme Court, which has no authority to convey such rights. That too is a clever trick, bypassing the legislature and elected government. And we can be sure that the legal establishment’s role in the October 7 Hamas massacre will not be investigated, and not just the Court’s insistence that the IDF modify its open fire rules at the Gaza border to allow the enemy unfettered access.

The loudest voices calling today for the defense of democracy are those that are systematically tearing it down. It should be no surprise to anyone that the same playbook is used in the US, where in the last decade free speech was denied dissenting voices on the grounds of protecting free speech, election fraud was defended on the grounds that democracy was endangered, and the head of government was investigated and prosecuted for years. The greatest paradox is that the more Trump and Netanyahu were persecuted, the more popular each became with the electorate who saw the rigged system and the unfairness of it all.

It is fair to ask: who exactly is running our country? Who will challenge a court system and legal establishment that is running amok, disobeys written laws, and fabricates others as it suits them? It is shameful but not unexpected that any attempt to reform the judicial establishment is met with threats of violence and national suicide, all of course to protect democracy and freedom.

If democracy in Israel is in danger, it is from those who are screaming that it is in danger, and from no one else. They use the term “democracy” to deflect from their disdain for democracy and they use it because their exclusive goal is not democracy but power. It is all about power. And they want to use this power to narrowly define Israel as a secular state, rooted in Western progressive values, with a Jewish flavor but little Jewish substance, and thus impeding our spiritual growth and national destiny.

The people of Israel do not want a secular, progressive state. They want a Jewish state, rooted in Jewish values, tethered to tradition, to Jewish history, and to our eternal and divine mission. That is what we vote for – repeatedly – only to be thwarted by the judictatorship and its minions in the media.

Let us declare that the jig is up. We will no longer be deceived or even moved by the cries of “democracy!” from the most anti-democratic forces this country has ever seen. We are on to them and their semantic games. Their shrieks “democracy!” should be met by us with derisive laughter and mockery – and arrests, prosecution, and incarceration if they violate the law.

No one elected the Legal Advisor or the Supreme Court to anything, much less the sovereign of Israel. Beware the politicians who support judicial reform, but “not this” and “not now.” If so, then what? And when? To the question, what reforms would you support, the answer always is silence. They too are the tools of the deep state.

Make no mistake about it. It is the deep state that is most responsible for our failed and botched response to the Hamas invasion of October 7. The deep state that operates through the Legal Advisor and the Supreme Court, the deep state that has sought to undermine the Prime Minister since he was first elected years ago, the deep state that protects bureaucrats and their awful decisions and leftist politicians and their disastrous policies, the deep state that cut the Prime Minister out of the intelligence loop, the deep state that spies on him and his associates, the deep state that scorns democracy even as it wraps itself in its mantle.

In the name of true democracy, they need to be reined in, and the sooner the better. A government that cannot fire unelected bureaucrats – no matter their incompetence or malfeasance – is subservient to them and has forfeited its legitimacy. Only determined government action will protect democracy and hasten the demise of the judictatorship.