Shiloh Musings: Israeli Supreme Court, When "Independent" is UNJUST

So what is the big hullabaloo between Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked and Supreme Court President Miriam Naor all about?

One of the big issues in Israel is that the Supreme Court is very much "friend brings friend." It's a Leftist bastion that easily preserves its ideological purity. Breaking that monopoly is an aim of Shaked and her party, Jewish Home aka NRP. It's also important to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and many others in Israel's Right and Center, which is why she got that portfolio.

On one of the Israeli newscasts about the issue, I heard someone who wants to preserve the status quo shouting that it exists to preserve the "court's independence." Now, if you don't know what they mean by "independence," you may think they have a point.

The dangerous thing that the pro-status quo people mean by that is that they do not make their decisions based on the laws passed in the Knesset.  And remember that the Knesset is made up by representatives of political parties voted in by the citizens of the State of Israel. The justices in the Israeli Supreme Court consider their "consciences," their ideologies to be the sources of their decisions. They do not make their judgments by interpreting the Laws, but by bending them into their concept of their Leftist Utopian vision.

If Ayelet Shaked gets her way, then the Knesset will appoint justices more representative of Israel's population and not the Leftist elite of today which considers itself the overseer of Israeli Law and values, even going against laws which they don't like.