The Uninvited Backbone of Israel's Anti-Reform Movement

by Steve Apfel 

• In the war of words over Israel's judicial reform, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the disputants, the word "democracy" appears to have suffered a bit of a roughing-up.
• "... Biden was wrong to intervene in the debate over Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms.... otherwise, Israeli officials may start commenting on Hunter Biden's plea deal." – Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Twitter, July 31, 2023.
• So, the Biden Administration delivered an "either-or" threat: stop the judicial reform or break our special relationship. The break had actually already begun with President Barack Obama, who became quixotically committed to a policy to finance and enable Israel's self-declared arch-enemy -- "Death to Israel" should probably qualify one as an arch-enemy -- unlimited nuclear weapons, billions of dollars to manufacture them; ballistic missiles to deliver them, and loose change for Iran's mullahs to continue "exporting" their Revolution into Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Latin America.
• "... the lawyers were all on one side, and they were all working to help Hunter Biden. The were all working to hide a blanket immunity agreement from the judge..." -- Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Fox News, July 28, 2023.
• "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America," then-presidential candidate Barack Obama declared a few days before the 2008 presidential election, somehow neglecting to say what he was planning to transform it into.
• FBI agents, in an illegal "state action," attempted an end-run around the First Amendment, dishonestly colluding with Facebook and other tech companies to censor news reports about Hunter Biden's 2020 election-altering "Laptop from Hell."
• Team Biden, in the person of Antony Blinken, had reportedly called Mike Morell to get what ultimately turned out to be 51 former intelligence officials to sign a letter falsely alleging that the Hunter Biden laptop had "all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation." That letter, it turned out, was the real disinformation.
• It was countered immediately on Fox Business by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. "Let me be clear," Ratcliffe said, "the intelligence community doesn't believe that because there is no intelligence that supports... that Hunter Biden's laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It's simply not true."
• What it all comes down to is that one party seemingly decided that Obama's promise to radically transform America was too important to trust to the electorate.
• Now Blinken and Biden are supposedly qualified to give Israel's coalition government a lecture on judicial probity and democracy?

President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are supposedly qualified to give Israel's coalition government a lecture on judicial probity and democracy? (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)


In the war of words over Israel's judicial reform, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the disputants, the word "democracy" appears to have suffered a bit of a roughing-up.

Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, proclaimed that "Only Biden Can Save Israel Now." Meanwhile President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have extend their not-so-clandestine attacks on the proposed reforms of Israel's judiciary – and intruded, uninvited, into the internal affairs of a fellow democracy -- right on the heels of a free, fair and uncontested election. Friedman wrote in his open letter to Biden:

"... Mr. President, this Jewish democracy urgently needs another airlift to save it from being destroyed from the inside. It needs an urgent resupply of hard truths — something only you can provide.... something very important could break in Israel and in our relationship with Israel. And once it's gone, it will never come back."

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