Control or Extinction: Yariv Levin is Dangerous to Israeli Democracy
Plan A of the Minister of Justice is, of course, his control over the Supreme Court; Plan B is the extinction of the court. Much like Benjamin Netanyahu, who is willing to impose unimaginable costs on the country in the name of continuing his rule and his war against half the state, so is Levin, with his all-out war against the court.
Do you know those couples who are separated, on the eve of divorce, and then start a world war? Who doesn't know these destructive types? Usually, one of them is a destruction machine - hurting the wife, hurting the children, getting into huge legal expenses, forgetting about Hamas, forgetting about Iran, there is an enemy in his life, and until he is destroyed, he will not stop.
And the price? Terrible. And victory? There are no winners in this war. And the big losers are the children.
So in this parable, Yariv Levin is the man raging with fury, with only the destruction of the enemy before his eyes: the Supreme Court. And the children? The children are us, the public. A public that stands on the side and listens to the Minister of Justice of the State of Israel - who has already stopped four appointments to the Supreme Court - saying simply: "After we win the elections, there will be no more need for reform because the Supreme Court will be destroyed."
No middle ground
This is Yariv Levin's Plan B: the extinction of the Supreme Court, the spearhead of the Israeli justice system, and the helmet placed on the head of Israeli democracy. Plan A is, of course, his control over the Supreme Court. And these are the options he presents, to the applause of voters in the primaries, before the public: his and the government's control over the composition of the Supreme Court, or the extinction of the institution.
True, the Supreme Court is far from being error-free and immune to criticism, there is no question. There is something to talk about. And there is also something to fix. But Yariv wants to destroy. Levin does not understand. He does not understand how it is even possible to imagine a third way, one that does not lead to its destruction (in each of his scenarios the important institution will be destroyed) or to his control over it.
This obsession has been talked about a lot, but every time anew a person stands amazed, truly stunned, by the level of hatred, contempt, and political violence of Levin. Much like Benjamin Netanyahu, who is willing to impose unimaginable costs on the country in the name of continuing his rule and his war against half the state, so is Levin, with his all-out war against the court, not willing to stop the war until total victory: the destruction of the enemy.
Let us just remind Levin that his patron, and the one who gives him his monstrous power, has not yet defeated Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the terror in the West Bank, and the Houthis - and has imposed on Israel a political, social, international, economic disaster, and a disaster of rampant antisemitism in the world. But he does not stop.
"Total victory," he promised, and if the price is the destruction of Israel - it is a price worth paying. And if the price is leaving Israel without a bodyguard for its crumbling democracy? It is a price worth paying for the total victory of Yariv Levin.
Obsessive brainwashing
The horrifying fact that countless Likud voters believe that this is the right move and that the destruction of the Supreme Court is a solution, and also a worthy punishment, teaches how far the obsessive and systematic brainwashing of Levin, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, against the judicial system has gone.
From their point of view, let the Supreme Court be destroyed and let Israel be left without it. The meaning, for sure, is not understood by them; and if it is understood and they are indifferent to it, then apparently they too believe that the destruction of the Israeli justice system is a justified price for what started as a reform and has now turned into a continuous journey of revenge and persecution.
Four more years of Benjamin Netanyahu could impose internal destruction on Israel, and that is the least of the evil; four more years of Levin's war against his estranged and hated one could leave the children without parents at all. Without a Supreme Court. And then perhaps Yariv Levin will win, but not the Supreme Court, but the entire State of Israel. And as mentioned, in his and Benjamin Netanyahu's lexicon, the words "destruction" and "victory" are actually synonyms.
