If the actions of business aren’t material collectively, why would government care? We’re not talking hundreds of thousands of jobs, but more likely a few thousand. I’m sure it’s disappointing to discover you don’t have pull you thought you did as a small business community. Such is life. The counterparty with the least to lose usually wins.

If you think about now, you're right. If you look forwards and can say that some percentage of these companies might be giants in the future, then it's worth paying attention to.

If Israel loses its tech entrepeneurs that will be a very big deal for Israel. This is something like 18% of the economy and it's doubled over the last decade.

It should go without saying that the 5 million Palestinians living in (Israel+Palestine), who make up 30% of the combined population, did not live in a democracy even before these changes.

That isn't accurate. 2.6M are Israeli citizens, they vote etc. Discriminated, yes. But there are laws against that and they are enforced.

3M are in the occupied territories which are technically not a part of Israel so they "technically" don't live in Israel. This is terrible I agree. But this goes both ways. Thanks to the fact that they're not a part of Israel they can become an independent state at some point.

In fact, a lot of what's going on right now is because of the rift within Israeli society which is torn apart about this whole mess.

I'm not diminishing the plight of the Palestinians, but their situation is not a sign that Israel isn't/wasn't a democracy. It is pretty easy for democracies to end up abusing a minority of their citizens. That is one of the central flaws of democracy, tyranny of the majority.

Does anybody have a demographic breakdown of political sentiment in Israel?

It would be interesting to see some polling. I have friends in Israel who are super involved in protest, and that’s all I hear when I talk to them. But I have also spent a lot of time hitchhiking or cycling in Israel, and that outrage just isn’t shared by most of the ordinary people I meet, whether they be non-religious, Orthodox, Haredim, or Druze, or whether they be a resident of Israel proper or a West Bank settler. I start to wonder if the outraged Israelis are a bit like the hipsters in my own country: loud on social media, nearly insignificant in the real world.

Ordinary people being complacent is more of a sign (and a root cause) of an autocratic country than not if you ask me. I live in Hungary and it's the same here.

Strongmen can get voted in and tilt the scales to stay in power. In the face of that, it is rational for the minority in disagreement to acquiesce, so I am not sure the causality runs in the direction you suggest.

It's a process. People put up with one overreach or blatant corruption here or there and ten years later they're stuck with a permanent mafia state. It's what you get when you have apathetic people who don't pay attention or take any part in politics. The crooks take over, which itself breeds more apathy ("it sucks but what can I do").

The "ordinary people" vote for this every four years.

Isn't the outrage very visible in the streets of Israel (recurrent mass-protests)? I consider that different than outrage limited to social media.

I'm not very familiar with the issue, but in any case, a majority rule that ignores strong oppositions from minority voters can be dangerous for democracies. It is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner (old saying, not mine).

actually polling shows that like 67% of population against reforms. even within likud voters, like 60% are against (likud used to be liberal-right party)

Based on the videos I’ve seen of the protests, Israelis are on par with the French for the… spiritedness of civil disorder.

The country is neither fascist nor a dictatorship.

However, the legal overhaul does curtail the court's ability to assert a more libertarian, liberal agenda. The government is pushing a religious agenda that will change the nature of the country, and that causes significant consternation to the largely secular population that makes up the hi-tech nation.

Its missing two salient points to be fascist: the myth of national rebirth and the accusations against 'internal enemies' (although it seems this point is missing a bit less).

Still, Israel is about as authoritarian as France/Hungary and a bit less than Turkiye. Hardly the worst but still.

If you listen to political rhetoric from the ruling party and the far right coalition parties, anyone who doesn't agree with them, their crazy ideology or sing high praises to the supreme leader, is a traitor. This has been the case for a decade now, getting worse and worse. How long before they pass "anti-traitor" laws, making political dissent illegal? With the supreme court unable to protect citizen rights, there is literally nothing to stop such laws.

But judging from some comments here, that's a "liberal agenda".

Yes, I sort of know (that what I heard from an Israeli traveller in Lisbon). That's why I said 'although it seems this point is missing a bit less', but it was poorly formulated (english is hard sometimes).

No but its moving there, you don't need to be political expert to see it. Its also not a matter of past few months. Its a country in quite an unique situation which I don't fully comprehend so can't comment much, but West bank situation is beyond sad and I don't see any hope for improvement.

How is it moving there? By making supreme court justices be appointed by elected officials (like most other democracies) as apposed to being a self selecting group.

To be clear — the judicial reforms do not seem like a good idea, if for no reason other than the mass discontent about it. But there are plenty of functioning democracies where the judiciary is subservient to the elected legislature. Perhaps even most of them.

The problem these startups have is that the government has been democratically elected, but the demographics are swinging religious populists into increasingly permanent control.

That's democratic! But it's the consequence of ultraconservatives having 12 children when liberals have 2. Let's use a more precise term for what they don't like.

This is incorrect analysis.

Our democracy has one house and no oversight other than judiciary. Once you handicap judiciary the current government can do literally anything.

E.g. in the US the president appoints the judges but the senate has to confirm. The congress holds the money and war declaration. We don't have any of that separation so one crazy party (which we have right now) can literally do anything with no oversight.

Your analysis is wrong. From a democratic majority point of view, the current government had a very narrow majority(49.9% of cast votes) but since then it lost in all polls almost 15% of its support. The majority of Israelis clearly oppose the legistlation, and they are very very angry about it.

So why would a democratic government insist on passing laws that cost it its chance to win the election and are going to be overturned by the next government, and risk a heavily antagonistic policy against the current coalition's interests, by the next likely govermnent?

In a democratic framework it makes no sense. The only way it could make sense is if the current coalition is planning to break the democratic system, and engineer unfair elections, and unfair political system, like in Turkey and Hungary. And all the coalition's rethoric and other actions hint in this way like a giant flashing neon sign the size of a skyscrapper.

So as pretty as your theory may sound this is a completely different scenario.

you actually give too much credit to coalition with regards to long term planning. It comes to serve their immediate goals, which are interfered with by supreme court :

- supreme court been standing in the way of multiple laws that tried to free from army yeshiva students because it violates principle of equality

- supreme court tends to stand in a way of mid/low level corruption in form of appointing to different professional positions in ministries and state owned companies people without any qualification (the only qualifications been relatives or "mandate harvesters")

- judicial advisors to government/ministries who can prevent doing illegal/stupid things

religious parties want to free their students from conscription. for coalition to stay in place they need votes of religious parties. right in general been unhappy with a supreme court for many years and for past 15 years or so they claimed that it doesn't represent population.

right now stars got aligned and they decided to legalize laws in order to take some power from supreme court / select their own judges in order to advance their agenda.

it's as simple as that.

yes, it may lead to unfair elections/etc, but it's just immediate interests of involved parties

Voilà. It's almost as if democracy with universal suffrage is only a good idea under rather specific demographic conditions.

Religion is older than democracy and will likely outlive it

> Religion is older than democracy and will likely outlive it

Hard to say. I think religious indoctrination is harder to maintain over time in the face of technology. Eventually it will run out of shadow and won’t have enough compelling answers for life’s questions.

This is only true if the technology isn’t being used to reinforce religious belief.

What modern equivalent is trying to answer life's real questions? Advertising? Big tech? Consumerism? Capitalism? I'm not religious but I have to admit at least they focus on what's important rather than buying stuff.

Meditation and yoga. But they do not encourage breeding

> But there are plenty of functioning democracies where the judiciary is subservient to the elected legislature

I'd be interested in learning about any examples. I don't know enough about global politics to even hazard a guess

The UK, maybe.

https://consoc.org.uk/the-constitution-explained/the-judicia...

> The UK is traditionally thought to have one such system, as under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty the UK Parliament is the supreme source of authority: whatever the democratically elected representatives decide upon is law, and if expressed in an Act of Parliament cannot be overturned by the courts.

And maybe more broadly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty. But it seems like it's sort of on the way out everywhere.

“Lefty liberal lawyers” overturn the government all the time in the UK

I know it is a formality, etc, but from the same source

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/relations-with-othe...

Royal Assent

When a Bill has been approved by a majority in the House of Commons and the House of Lords it is formally agreed to by the Crown. This is known as the Royal Assent. This turns a Bill into an Act of Parliament, allowing it to become law in the UK.

"The last time Royal Assent was refused was in 1707, when Queen Anne refused to assent to a bill to settle the militia in Scotland, and the last time the monarch made an in-person appearance to provide assent was in 1854."[1]

[1] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2013-09-17/uni...).)

> But there are plenty of functioning democracies where the judiciary is subservient to the elected legislature.

true but there aren't a lot of functioning democracies where those reforms are being pursued by a leader who had to already abdicate his position as PM after being indicted for bribery and fraud, while also still being subject to more trials.

If someone like that starts to question the autonomy of the judiciary democracy isn't the word I'd pick for it. Context does matter

I don't think that's why he left his position; he left because he was voted out. Now he's been voted back in. Seems pretty Democratic to me.

Uh… fascism is traditionally pro-business. It’s political instability which is bad for business.

Facism can also come with lack of rule of law which is undesirable for capital.

Many things can be said about fascism but I don’t believe “lack of a rule of law” is one of them.

When it comes to ownership? Think of dictatorships in the past.

Pro-business only when it's run by them and their friends. There are plenty of examples from Nazi-Germany and modern day Russia where businesses had their existing owners/management replaced by party members/political insiders.

If your business have enough impact (ie if you were an industry owner in Nazi Germany), you automatically became insider (yes, even Jews for a time).

Small business though, it was better to be friend with small local powers.

I remember reading about one case where a small busines owner's establishment was vandalized because people wrongly thought he was a jew. His reaction was to clear up the perceived misunderstanding by joining the party. It actually turned out to be profitable for him at first because of the connections he made, but, he was also obliged to continue working with them as well. Even when he didn't want to, because he owed his success to party. The whole thing read like a mafia story.

Krystal Nacht being a prime example