Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) on Thursday told a conference headed by former Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch that “there are some who want to cause the public to believe that any regime model that does not align itself completely with the leftist parties’ agenda does not satisfy the basic demands of the democratic system. But it isn’t so.”
The conference, titled “Democracy in Israel: Directions and Trends,” took place in Zichron Yaakov, a town that only a week ago endured the largest of the wave of fires that plagued Israel. Shaked “informed” those who have been regularly eulogizing Israel’s democracy, that Israel’s democracy is stronger than all of them.
According to Shaked, the attempt to divide the political left and right in Israel, and the will to determine that one side seeks to promote Israel as a Rabbinical Jewish state, or as a nationalistic mutation, while the other side is seeking to promote true democracy will not succeed. Neither will the attempt to define as “destroyers of democracy” those who consider separation of the three branches of government to be the foundation of a well-functioning democracy.
“I am saying here in the clearest way possible – a judicial branch that intervenes in the legally created product of the legislative or executive branches is not adhering to the democratic model and it is our duty to bring it back on track.”
Shaked also stressed that Israel’s democracy is “part of a larger fabric of a Jewish and Zionist State.” Conceding that this means there are complexities in the Israeli system of government, she urged her audience to “talk about them, rather than attempt to turn this complex term the political legacy of one camp or another.”
“It’s too important an issue to be turned into a partisan battering ram,” Shaked said.