Public consensus is needed for a fundament change such as Israel’s judicial overhaul program, US President Joe Biden told The New York Times on Saturday in his first comment on the pending reform which critics have warned could weaken the country’s democracy.
“The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary," Biden said in a statement he gave upon request to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman after he was queried about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan.
"Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”
“Building consensus on new proposals is the best way to ensure not make sure not only that they are embraced but that they endure.”
US President Joe Biden
In reporting on the Biden comment Friedman wrote that “this is the first time I can recall a US president has ever weighed in on an internal Israeli debate about the very character of the country’s democracy.”
“Although it’s only 46 words,” Friedman wrote, "Biden’s statement comes at a crucial time in this wrenching Israeli internal discussion and could well energize and expand the already significant opposition to what Netanyahu’s opponents are calling a legal coup that would move Israel into the camp of countries that have been drifting away from democracy, like Turkey, Hungary and Poland.”
Biden's statement to Friedman echoed the warnings issued by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his trip to Israel at the end of January.
“Building consensus on new proposals is the best way to ensure not make sure not only that they are embraced but that they endure,” Blinken stated in Jerusalem.
In speaking of consensus, both Biden and Blinken appear to back a proposal to place transfer oversight of the the judicial reform process to Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Concerns regarding the reform process led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, have prompted proposals that Herzog leads a non-partisan process with representatives from all political camps in Israel.
Democracy remains one of the critical shared values that form the basis of the US-Israeli relationship. But the Biden administration has not been alone in warning Netanyahu about the outcomes of the overhaul process.
French President Emmanuel Macron privately warned Netanyahu about his judicial overhaul program when the two met in Paris earlier this month, in a comment that was reported by Le Monde.
Macron told Netanyahu that if the judicial overhaul plan moved forward in its current form, France would be forced to conclude that Israel has broken away from a common understanding of democracy.
At issue in particular are portions of the reform that would weaken the judiciary’s power to protect minority rights in Israel.
Netanyahu has argued that the judiciary is badly in need of reform and that changes under consideration would help streamline the court system and bring it more in line with countries such as Canada and Great Britain.
The corporate and financial sector has not been swayed by Netanyahu’s argument, with the Bank of Israel and the financial institutional giant JP Morgan warning that the reform will have a negative impact on Israel's economy. A number of corporations have also begun to pull their money out of Israel in advance of the reform’s potential passage in the Knesset.