“I cannot overstate the danger of letting those who think differently from disciples of Aharon Barak exert any lasting influence.”
Tel Aviv, April 14 – Members of a narrow slice of the electorate with effective control of political and cultural institutions continue to voice concern that they face disenfranchisement, reports indicated Tuesday.
Left-wing Israelis, who could muster no more than a dozen seats in March elections for the 120-seat Knesset, but who boast prominent representatives in the High Court, the judicial system in general, the State Prosecutor’s office, the news media, the entertainment industry, the literary establishment, the Third Sector of NGOs and civil society organizations, and other nuclei of hegemony, warned again today that they stand at the brink of total erasure.
“We must fight the antidemocratic forces that threaten the very foundations of our system,” declaimed President of the High Court Justice Miriam Hayut, whose inner circle of other liberal judges have controlled the body for decades, despite comprising a group whose ideology overlaps with perhaps five percent of the population. “An independent judiciary, in my view, means a court system independent of, that is to say unencumbered by, such notions as rule of law, a sovereign legislature, majority rule, and other anti-democratic ideas. I cannot overstate the danger of letting those who think differently from disciples of Aharon Barak exert any lasting influence on this institution.”
Leading media and entertainment figures echoed Hayut’s message. “Our dominance of broadcast and print media will disappear overnight if we submit to other viewpoints,” cautioned Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken. “The very project of a democratic Israel lies in jeopardy if the will of the electoral majority gains more than blatantly token representation in mainstream cultural outlets. We stand at the vanguard of democracy, protecting it from harmful attempts to draw any link between the expressed will of the voters and actual policy. If that protective effort falters or fails, we die, or something? The point is it would be very bad, like the worst thing, almost as bad as conceding religious belief has some positive attributes. By which I mean Jewish religious belief. Other systems are fine. What were we talking about again?”
Board members of the HaBimah Theater added that Israel stands a hairsbreadth from the genocide of anything to the left of just right of center. “If we don’t secure full government funding for content that no normal person would pay to see, that undermines everything on which this country was built, that’s the same as having us lined up and shot,” stated Zillu Tashoah. “Without people of what I and my narrow cadre of allies see as the right views in power, there’s hardly a point to democracy.”
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