Former Israeli attorney general warns of effort to dismantle Israel’s last democratic safeguards

Former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit addressed on Thursday (today) the attacks on the judicial system and statements by coalition members against the High Court of Justice and its president, Justice Yitzhak Amit.

“I can understand this politically, but not substantively,” Mandelblit said on Kan News on Reshet Bet. “The government’s responsibility is to the entire country.” He added that public leaders should “think a thousand times” before they speak. Mandelblit referred to a remark by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich against Supreme Court President Amit, saying the minister should weigh his words carefully because he is taken seriously.

Mandelblit accused the Knesset of having “become the long arm of the government” and warned that there are efforts to destroy the few remaining checks on Israeli democracy, which would lead to the closure of the media and the Supreme Court – and to the silencing of dissent: “The strategy is a single authority; the definition of that is a dictatorship.”

Earlier, Menachem Mazuz, who also served as attorney general, was interviewed and he condemned remarks by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called Justice Amit “a violent brute” and added, “We will run him over.”

“I think all citizens of the State of Israel should be worried in such a situation,” Mazuz said. “This is not only unprecedented; it is utterly unacceptable – certainly not in a democratic country – that government ministers, like common criminals, lash out at the president of the Supreme Court with threats that include violent threats.” Mazuz argued that this was not an isolated or exceptional incident, and that such daily verbal attacks are leading to a deeply troubling confrontation.

Responding to criticism that the High Court intervenes in every government decision and thereby silences the voice of the people, Mazuz said the claim is demagogic, noting that the High Court intervenes in only a small minority of petitions out of the thousands filed each year – but those cases gain prominence amid inciting rhetoric.