Preet Bharara:

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned in Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Today, we’re going to talk about the political turmoil in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary has spurred sweeping protests. Late last month on a Sunday, protestors and strikers brought life in Israel to a near halt. Planes were grounded, hospitals stopped providing non-essential care, malls and banks closed. The next day, the Prime Minister backed down saying that he would postpone the parliamentary vote on the proposed overhaul, but despite that concession, the protests have continued. To discuss the political crisis unfolding in Israel, I’m joined by Ambassador Martin Indyk. He has twice served as US Ambassador to Israel, both times under President Clinton. And under President Obama, he served as special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. And now, he’s the Lowe Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ambassador, welcome to the show.

Martin Indyk:

Thanks very much Preet. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Preet Bharara:

So as I just mentioned, I want to talk about the protests going on in Israel. So we’re recording this in the early afternoon of Thursday, April 6th. The news has just broken that dozens of rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, and I’m sure you’re getting a lot of inquiries about it and it’s of great concern. What can you tell us about what that is and what that means?

Martin Indyk:

Well, it’s most unusual, a surprise. There’s been a lot of tension in the last couple of nights in Jerusalem in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the third holiest mosque in Islam in the old city of Jerusalem. And there’ve been confrontations between young Muslims in the mosque. They’ve locked themselves in the mosque and Israeli police who are rooting them out of there and beating them up as they go inside this third holiest mosque, so it’s really increased the tension. Normally when this happens, we see rockets being fired by Hamas out of Gaza, the territory which Hamas controls in Gaza in a kind of solidarity move. And two years ago, that produced an 11-day war focused on Gaza between the Israeli armed forces and Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

This time, there have been a few rockets out of Gaza, but today, that is Thursday, second day of Passover and with Ramadan continuing, we had rockets, some 30 or more rockets out of Lebanon. The Israeli defense forces have announced, number one, that there will be retaliation, and number two, that they came from Hamas. It’s not been previously known, at least publicly, that Hamas had positions in Lebanon and the ability to fire rockets from Lebanon. Normally, the concern is about Hezbollah, which has something like 150,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon targeted at Israel. So this is a bit of a surprise. It certainly ratchets up the tension considerably, and Israeli retaliation into Lebanon risks a wider war between Hezbollah and Israel that could come out of this.

Preet Bharara:

What is the scale of the retaliation do you expect and that you also might think would be appropriate?

Martin Indyk:

Well, the Israeli calculations in this regard is always about how to maintain or reestablish, in this case, their deterrence. And so they want to do enough to get the message across that it’s not worth it to fire rockets into Israel, but at the same time, not too much because they’re not interested in having an all-out war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which could be very problematic for Israel with a lot of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. So they’ll use their air force I guess, and they’ll go in and hit targets, Hamas targets I guess, and we’ll see. There hasn’t been any Israeli casualties as a result of the firing off of these salvos from Lebanon, and so that makes it possible for them to retaliate in a way that perhaps avoids the escalation, but it’s not a highly accurate arrangement, especially when we’re dealing with a new actor here in Lebanon.

Preet Bharara:

Right. So we’ll follow that and watch that as it unfolds, but the principle reason I wanted to have you on was to talk about this plan that Prime Minister Netanyahu has had to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, which has caused massive protests, and as I mentioned in the intro, just a short while ago, Netanyahu postponed that plan. So before we talk about what the change of heart was about and whether it’s permanent or temporary, could you just explain to folks who haven’t been following it what the overhaul is and why it’s so controversial and upsetting to so many Israelis?

Martin Indyk:

Sure. So this is a series of bills, legislation, that have been submitted to the Knesset by the governing parties to try to curb the independence of the judiciary. Now, it’s important to understand that Israel doesn’t have a constitution. It has some basic laws that have some standing more than normal laws, but that’s about it. It has a Declaration of Independence but that doesn’t have standing as a constitution, just a set of principles that have been adhered to in the past. But the Supreme Court has been quite activist in asserting and protecting individual rights and striking down legislation on rare occasions, maybe once every two to three years, that impact individual liberties.

The Supreme Court has also been protecting the rights of Palestinian landowners in the West Bank, which is legally occupied territory, occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War. And normally, the law that applies there is military law, occupation law, but the Palestinian landowners have been able successfully to apply to the Supreme Court for protection.And the other thing that that Supreme Court has done, which has this far right religious government concerned, is that it has asserted the principle of equality in service in the Army, and therefore, the need for the Yeshiva students of the religious parties to serve in the Army, and that remains a highly contested issue.

So as a consequence of this, what’s seen by right wing religious parties as an activist court that’s interfering and preventing them from protecting or promoting their interests, they’ve introduced this legislation to try to curb the judiciary. The most important one, which was the one that was put on hold that you referred to, was a legislation that would enable the government effectively to pack the court with its own appointees, and with mandatory retirement for Supreme Court judges in Israel at the age of 70, there are two judges that will retire in October, I believe, of this year. And so if the legislation passes, the government will have the opportunity effectively to put their own people in the court, and thereby enable it to protect the other legislation, which is also on hold at the moment, designed to curb other parts of the independence of the court.

Preet Bharara:

Right. Did Netanyahu miscalculate? Were these protests and their size foreseeable or not?

Martin Indyk:

Yes, I think it was a major miscalculation. I have spent many hours with Netanyahu over the years. He was prime minister when I was ambassador and he was prime minister when I was special envoy for president Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, so I know him quite well and this, it’s most unusual for him. He’s the most skilled politician in Israel. That’s why he’s the longest serving Prime Minister in Israel, which is no mean feat, given it’s all about maintaining disparate parties in coalitions. It’s not like our system of government at all and he’s a master of that game. And yet, first, he lost control of the commentary, he’s usually the master of spin, and what he was doing became portrayed, I think accurately but he would disagree, as a threat to Israel’s democratic values, as a threat to individual liberties, as an attempt by the government to establish an illiberal democracy along the lines of Hungary or Poland or Turkey that have all curbed the independence of their judiciaries. So that was his first miscalculation.

But I think the major miscalculation was that it would provoke a full-fledged revolt of secular Israeli civil society. And the hundreds of thousands of people that have come out in the streets, mostly in Tel Aviv, but not just there, all over the country, for 13 weeks in a row really was unexpected. And it became so profound that it was impacting the military, and this ties us into what we were discussing about Lebanon, because Israel has a standing army but it depends on its reserves, and the reservists who were very much part of this secular revolt started to stand up and say they weren’t going to answer the call to serve. And this was particularly alarming when 95% of the pilots in the squadron that is responsible for Israel’s long range aircraft that would be used for an attack on Iran for instance, they all said they wouldn’t turn up for duty.

And so it was really impacting the military capabilities of Israel, sending a very bad signal to Israel’s enemies that it was deeply divided and this was impacting its military capabilities. And then the defense minister stood up and said he was so concerned about this that he’d then called on Netanyahu to pause the legislation, and he was fired by Netanyahu and that brought out an incredible response. So now, we have a different kind of-

Preet Bharara:

Was that firing a mistake?

Martin Indyk:

Oh, it was a huge mistake because it precipitated basically a shutdown of the country. What he did was he not only lost control of the narrative and lost control of the streets, but he also lost control of security. He poses himself as the protector of Israel’s security, especially against Iran. Now he’s firing the defense minister who has a lot of credibility, a former general, because he stood up and said, “What you are doing is affecting our security.” So on all counts, he really screwed it up.

Preet Bharara:

Can you explain what, if any, relationship there is between Netanyahu’s 2019 indictment on corruption charges and his interest in pushing this overhaul of the judiciary?

Martin Indyk:

Well, certainly, one can draw a connection between packing the court with friendly judges and the prospect that if he is convicted, he’s currently in court on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, if he’s convicted, that will go to the Supreme Court. He’ll take it to the Supreme Court. He can do it directly, he doesn’t go through other courts, and if he’s got favorable judges, then he can assume that he’ll get off. So that looks like the logical connection. Whether he needs this in order to protect himself from going to jail is not that clear, but it certainly looks like it. And once that happens – and it’s happened. I mean, people now have clearly in their minds that he’s doing this for personal gain, personal protection – then it really reinforces this sense that he’s up to some corrupt practice using a legitimate majority which he gained legitimately through elections for illegitimate ends.

Preet Bharara:

Is part of the issue that Netanyahu has gotten away with a lot of things, he persists as a formidable politician even though he’s had setbacks, even though he’s been indicted? Does he, like some other leaders, begin to get too arrogant for his own good or is that not a fair statement?

Martin Indyk:

I think it is. Over the recent years, he engaged in behavior that, again, I found surprising. These charges that he’s on for activities while he was Prime Minister, designed basically to control the media and give his wife and him cigars and champagne and jewelry. The Bibi that I worked with over the years was extremely careful about those kinds of things, and so I think there is a hubris here fed by his wife and son, who have more extreme views than him. But he tends to be a narcissistic personality like someone else you know very well, and his wife and son seem to reinforce that and that’s, I think, affected his judgment.

Preet Bharara:

I want to talk about Israel and the United States. So last week, President Biden publicly said of Netanyahu’s government, “They cannot continue to go down this road.” How extraordinary a statement is that and how does that land, not just with Netanyahu but with the Israeli population generally?

Martin Indyk:

Well, it’s most extraordinary for Joe Biden. He’s been very careful to adopt the approach of speaking truth to Netanyahu in private but not putting that out in public, but I think what happened this time blew his fuses. And the reason, as far as I can figure it out, is that Biden is an old style Zionist. He became a Zionist in the era of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan and Ben-Gurion and the founding fathers and mothers of Israel, and so it’s deep in his system, even in his DNA to be supportive of Israel. But he, as we know from his public speeches and statements, considers this time in world affairs as an inflection point between democracies and autocracies. That’s the great battle of his time as president in his view. And here, Israel, beloved Israel in his mind, is going in the direction of autocracy.

And the special relationship between the United States and Israel is underpinned not just by common interest but by common values as democratic states, and that has always been the case. And the reason why Israel has always enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support, because it’s an embattled democracy in a difficult part of the world. And yet here it is, under Netanyahu’s leadership, heading down a path towards illiberal democracy, and I think that Biden became very concerned about that. He sent him a private message. He had a phone conversation that was, I understand, quite difficult. But then after Netanyahu put the legislation on pause, responding to what Biden had said in private, Biden went out publicly the next day and put it out in public as you said, and he added a few other things. He had two goes at the press, and the second time, he said that Netanyahu needed to fix this problem, he needed to back away, and essentially, he wasn’t welcomed in Washington until he did. Now, that is applying real pressure to Netanyahu.

Preet Bharara:

So do you think he backs down or he persists?

Martin Indyk:

Well, he’s got a problem now. I just want to explain why it’s a problem for Netanyahu in particular. It’s not just that it looks like he’s damaging the US-Israel relationship, which is critical to Israel’s survival and wellbeing. If he can’t come to Washington, he can’t advance the two issues that he said during his campaign and when he was sworn in were his priorities. That is Iran and Saudi Arabia – normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Neither of those things can be achieved without Netanyahu coming to Washington, sitting down with Biden, working out a joint strategy, and going to The Hill and talking to his Republican mates and ginning them up to pressure Biden to do his bidding. And so he’s got a real problem on his hands now, that if he goes ahead without a consensus, he’s not going to be able to pursue those other objectives which he said were his priorities.

Preet Bharara:

Right. Final question for you. I must ask this given events in the United States as you know, and as everyone in the world knows. Donald Trump, former President of the United States, which just indicted by the Manhattan DA’s office. He will remain under indictment likely throughout the campaign season leading up to 2024. Are there any lessons at all that we can draw from the Israeli example, of a leader of a country being under indictment for a long period of time and what that country went through? Do you have any advice or observations about what America is about to go through?

Martin Indyk:

Of course, Netanyahu is a sitting prime minister and Donald Trump is a past president, hopefully not going to get reelected, so the situation isn’t quite comparable, but there’s no question that it affects the way in which the Prime Minister of Israel is viewed by his people. As we were discussing before, it looks like the actions he’s taking as prime minister are self-serving and designed to keep him out of court, or out of jail I should say, starting with the coalition that he put together of far right extremists, which he’s never done before. But that was to enable him to get back into government, to try to use his office to protect himself. And so I guess that’s the parallel here, that Trump is trying to get back into office and part of the explanation, whether it’s true or not, I think it probably is but whether it’s true or not, the assumption is he’s doing it to try to protect himself, and that is highly problematic in our leaders.

Let me say one other thing that I think is interesting in parallel here. As we know, January 6th, our democracy was threatened, deeply threatened, and we did not come out in the streets in the hundreds and thousands to protect our democracy and stand up for it. Israelis did when their democracy was threatened by a government that was trying to pass laws that would curb the independence of the judiciary and reduce the checks and balances in their system, and they came out week after week after week. I think it’s really quite inspiring that so many people in Israel care about their democracy and were so effective in expressing their commitment to democracy that they forced the government to at least put the legislation on pause.

Preet Bharara:

I think that’s a very fine note to end on. Ambassador Martin Indyk, thanks for joining us on the show and thanks for your insight.

Martin Indyk:

Thank you, Preet. Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara:

For more analysis of legal and political issues making the headlines, become a member of the Cafe Insider. Members get access to exclusive content including the weekly podcast I co-host with former US attorney, Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider.

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the hashtag #askpreet, or you can call and leave me a message at (669) 247-7338. That’s (669) 24PREET, or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tadasciore. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The editorial producers are Sam Ozer-Staton and Noa Azulai. The audio producer is Nat Wiener, and the Cafe team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Jake Kaplan, Namatha Shah, and Claudia Hernandez. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preep Bharara. Stay tuned.