Podcast: Why Netanyahu critic Ehud Barak calls Israel's government "clearly illegitimate"

TRANSCRIPT: Why Netanyahu critic Ehud Barak calls Israel's government "clearly illegitimate"

Ehud Barak:

Democracy should be capable of protecting, defending itself. Against those who are using the very tools that it provides, and the very freedoms that it bestows upon the people, in order to destroy it from within.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer. And today we are looking at the social and political instability that has rocked Israel for the past several months and shows little sign of abating. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled off the political comeback of a lifetime and returned to office late last year, he attempted to pass a series of controversial judicial reforms. The legislation would give the executive branch full control of the Supreme Court's composition and allow the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to overturn court rulings with a simple majority.

The move sparked outrage across the nation as hundreds of thousands of Israelis flooded the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In late March, Netanyahu blinked, promising to delay any such vote until after the Jewish holidays. But with the Knesset reconvening this month, both Netanyahu and the country he leads may be heading to a breaking point. To help me sort it all out, I'm joined by a man who has been in the hot seat himself and is an outspoken critic of Netanyahu. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. So good to see you, sir.

Ehud Barak:

Thank you for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

So much to ask about. And I want to start with the domestic political situation. Of course, the Knesset is back in session, and that means with it the status of this incredibly challenging judicial reform. And I'm wondering if you can talk to me about where you think that is going politically and the impact will have.

Ehud Barak:

First of all, I have to make sure that every one of us understand what is this reform. What they call reform was defined by our Supreme Court Chief, a lady named Esther Hayut. She defined it as a attempt to crush the independence of the Supreme Court and to push Israel out of the family of democracy. That's not just a reform.

And to mention to all the audience that in Israel there is no constitution, no two layers, the House and the Senate, something like this. No veto of the president, no filibuster, no checks and balances, nothing. The only thing that makes Israel a democracy, not a defacto dictatorship, is the fact that we have an independent-

Ian Bremmer:

The separation of powers.

Ehud Barak:

... higher professional, yeah, professional Supreme Court. That's all.

Ian Bremmer:

So before you answer then the question, since you've articulated that. One thing that of course the audience also needs to know about Israel is that it's not a two-party system, it's a multi-party system. Governments are fairly weak, they're fragmented, they're made up of lots of different parties. And in that regard, does it mean as much for any executive to have control over the appointments in the judiciary as it would in a country where the parties and the governments are much stronger?

Ehud Barak:

Netanyahu usually try to convince, especially in North America, that it just a slight modification. Make the Supreme Court judges elected by politicians, like in the United States, and having an override clause in the Constitution, like in Canada. But it's totally different. In our situation, the legislative branch is already fully enslaved to the executive one. There is not a single law in the Knesset that can pass if it's not supported by the government.

And the Knesset for years does not really oversee the actions of the government. So we have only two branches. And even the one, the judicial one, is extremely fragile, because it's based only on the independence of Supreme Court. There is no other mechanism to separate it or to put any checks and balances, that would make those thing important.

Now what we face is basically a regime change, which the government initiated the four months ago. Top down, well-prepared, everything legal, everything according to the protocol, we are defending democracy.

What political science department will tell you that democracy should be capable of protecting, defending itself against those who are using the very tools that it provides, and the very freedoms that it bestows upon the people, in order to destroy it from within. And against this, there is a spontaneous civil kind of resistance movement that comes cover all the leading groups of every aspect of our life.

Not just former judges but former generals, special forces, pilots in the air force, and cyber warriors. And shrinks, and academics, and social workers, and teachers. Everyone is against it. We already are over 400,000. It's equivalent probably of 15 million Americans going to the street every weekend for 17 weeks now.

Ian Bremmer:

Right. Again, we're talking about 5% of the Israeli population basically on the streets every weekend in response. It's staggering display of social force, this movement. Israel has seen nothing like this since its independence.

Ehud Barak:

Never. Never. We have never seen something like this. It's moving, inspiring. I am one of the people more harsh critic probably of Netanyahu and support this movement from day one behind the scenes. I did not expect it to be so powerful and creative. At certain point, Netanyahu decided to fire his minister of the defense, because the man, out of his responsibility, demanded that the cabinet will convene in order to discuss what he called apparent and imminent risk to our security.

Ian Bremmer:

But he's now back? That minister was never actually sacked?

Ehud Barak:

Yeah, yeah. He was fired. But the letter that makes it legal was never sent, because within few hours there were hundreds of thousands of people, including many opponents of this minister, in the streets say up to now. So basically it was blocked by the resistance of the protest, backed by the response to this regime change in the economic world and financial world. Mood is changed. Its prediction about Israel from positive to stable. And the Americans, probably behind closed doors, are telling Netanyahu "calm down."

Ian Bremmer:

So he delayed. He basically punted, right? He didn't stop the reform. He said he was delaying it. And now, are we not back exactly where we were a couple of months ago today? Or is it different?

Ehud Barak:

No, no, no. We are in a much worse situation. He delayed it. But he is already walking into this new kind of discussion under the president sponsorship. But in the discussion he walks basically with a loaded and cocked handgun to the temple of the democracy. In the meantime, when they refused to stop the legislature, they passed already eight different laws.

Each two of them makes Israel defacto dictatorship. And one of them even had been put on the table of the Speaker of the Knesset. Which means that tomorrow or next day or in two months, every working day of the Knesset, they can make it passing the second and third final reading within six hours.

So that's not a normal kind of negotiation. And what we the protest, argue that we cannot really make an open-minded discussion of the needed reform. No one denied that there are need to reform, that there need to correct any aspect of our life after 75 years. But there is no way to enter it with the handgun loaded and cocked. And that's what we in the protest understand.

Ian Bremmer:

So despite the protests, you got a delay, but my point is that the state of this judicial, so-called judicial reform today, is at least from Netanyahu's perspective, and his coalition government's perspective, intended to still go ahead. Is that correct?

Ehud Barak:

They're not going immediately back. They have to pass a budget. Without passing a budget in four weeks from now, government is a go out and do a new election. So he had to focus on this. He had to satisfy his supporters for this unholy alliance that he created in order to impose this legislation. Which basically is not coming for any vision of a better Israel.

It comes from his problem in the criminal court case and the joined hands with another already convicted minister with the ultra-orthodox parties who need their turf. Their part of money without participating fully in the burden of promoting the country.

So this unholy alliance, everyone needs his legislation, and there might be some problems around passing the budget. But it'll be renewed. It reminds me of Kaczyński in 2015. He had some two heavy protests, so he stopped for some two years, stretched it over more incremental strategy and ended up with defacto dictatorship. We are not going to go there.

Ian Bremmer:

This leader, he represents, you know, you call it an unholy alliance. It is of course a group of parties that together, do reflect the will of a large section of Israeli society. They won in a democratic election. They created a weak but nonetheless legitimate government. How is it that Israel, which has been described by many as the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East, finds itself in a position where this government, not just Netanyahu, but with all the coalition members, are in favor of a reform process that would deeply undermine the very institutions that it stands for?

Ehud Barak:

The regime change was basically hidden from the public when we went to the ballots several months ago. Bibi stated before, during, and after the campaign that he will be focused on four issues, or five issues. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the option to have a breakthrough with them like the Abraham Accords, the shortage of housing, and cost of living, which is very high in Israel. And the governance, the level of criminal activities, murders and whatever in the streets.

He doesn't do anything about it. There was no government in our history that destroyed... The economy's on the edge of an abyss. The security is a very sensitive, fragile situation. The trust between the fighting forces that he needs in order to keep our operational activities between wars basically vote no confidence in him and his government.

The relationship with the United States deteriorated with the Jewish community as well. So there was never such a distraction of value of wealths in four months. And so it was a kind of clever tactics, because you cannot come to the public and tell them, I want to save myself from a criminal court case and I need your support for this. No one will support it.

So basically it's a tricky behavior. And so I changed some of what you said. It's a totally legal government, but it's clearly illegitimate government. The activities is so blatantly illegitimate. We say in Hebrew, "there is a black flag waving over it." I always refer to Max Weber on charisma. And the building of institutions say that even absolute monarch reigning under the grace of heaven have certain invisible limits to his legitimacy. It started with King Charles, not the present one, the one some 350 or 370 years ago, and later on with the French monarch whose wife saw that if they don't have bread they probably try brioche and ended up both beheaded.

So I don't envision beheading anyone, but basically they're acting beyond their legitimacy. They have legitimacy to announce war, to sign a peace, to build infrastructure, to operate their priority. They don't have and cannot have the authority or legitimacy to change the rules of the game and the rules by which our democracy is acting. And the best example is the demands of the pilots. They basically said we have a contract with democracy. We are ready in a short call tomorrow morning without early notice, to come and to fly over the skies of the whole Middle East. Risk our life, some of our comrades.

At the service of and democratically practicing government, even if we dispute the policies, including the policy behind the mission, we have to execute. But we cannot and will not volunteer to serve any dictator or de facto dictatorship. And we don't look at nuances. We don't call it illiberal democracy.

Ian Bremmer:

So I want to understand, what do you think, how is it that ultimately this change in the way your country's judiciary runs, how is that ultimately prevented from being changed? What happens that stops this reform?

Ehud Barak:

Look, if Netanyahu will start next week or next month or two months from now, it doesn't matter. He will start to pass those laws. They will be immediately canceled by the Supreme Court. Even if the content of the law has to do with the way that the Supreme Court Judges are nominated, they will not hesitate. They will cancel it. They cancel any such law. Once they cancel it, it's a clear constitutional crisis with no constitution.

Because what I call the gatekeeper, the head of the Secret Service, the head of the police, the head of the armed forces, the head of the Mossad. They might get contradicting orders from their superiors in the government and the Supreme Court. And I'm confident that they will, before happen to know all of the personnel, they will follow the orders of the Supreme Court.

So the government will find itself paralyzed by trying to change the regime. And I don't know exactly what way it will develop. I always said the people to look at Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or the Trial of the 7, or how Milošević was deposed. But there is some... 11 years ago, two ladies at Colombia made a research on civil protest.

Ian Bremmer:

Disobedience, right?

Ehud Barak:

Disobedience. And Henry David Thoreau. They made it about civil protest. From 1900 to 2006, hundreds of them. They found the common denominators of those that which succeeded. If you can mobilize more than 3.5% of the overall population, which is about 7 or 8% of the adult population, and consistently, tenaciously, keep protesting, the government within a year will either capitulate or fall. That's exactly what will happen here. Bibi won't be able to turn Israel into the de facto dictatorship. We are not Hungary. We are not Poland. And we learned the lesson from both of them.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Israel is small, it's wealthy, and its people are educated, and they're not complacent. So those are obviously important things. So I think a lot of viewers in the United States, they're used to, whenever there are big demonstrations in Israel, they assume it's about the Palestinians. It's not about the Palestinians this time, but the Palestinian issue has not gone away. I'm wondering how you think about Israel-Palestine in the context of what is happening right now in Israel's own democracy.

Ehud Barak:

The Palestinian is most important, the biggest elephant in the room. A mammoth. And we have other two elephants. One of them is the relationship of religion and state. And the third one is the huge gaps in opportunities and result for Israeli kids from all sectors of the society.

And I think that all these elephants, however important, and they're not less important than the one we are dealing with, should be put on the shelf for the meantime. Because if Israel turned into the dictatorship, de facto dictatorship, none of this could be discussed even. Not to mention decided.

The right wing government led by this unholy alliance will try to kill the Palestinian authority. To encourage the Hamas and hit them because they're good so-to-speak enemy. So there is no way, and the same apply to the religion, the synagogue and the state.

You cannot decide all these issues. We need the newly emerging line. For 20 years people succeeded in following Arthur Finkelstein, the late Arthur Finkelstein, who said that in Israel, politics is not about right-left, capitalist-socialist, conservative-liberal. No, it's about two question. One inward-looking the other outward-looking. Inward-looking, are you first Israeli or Jew? If you first Israeli, you are left. If you are first Jew, you are right. Second, outward-looking. Do you love or hate Arab? If you love Arab, you are left. If you hate Arab, you are right.

Now a new and under this Finkelstein dividing line, the right wing wins, and it grows from year to year. But now emerge under this crisis, a new line between those huge majority, including the Catholics and Orthodox people, religious people and so on. Those who believe in the supremacy of law, in the values of the Declaration of Independence, which is our equivalence, so to speak, of Constitution and democracy.

And those people who are against democracy, against rule of law, against the Declaration of Independence. Under this new dividing line, we are the majority. We have to use it, to translate it into political movement, into kind of a crystallized constitutional moment, when we will have an opportunity either to define a constitution or at least to have a basic law. Heavily protected basic law about legislation, the rules of the game, the rules of the game, not the content, the rules of the game, should be protected, secure together with a charter of human rights and the rights of the individual.

Ian Bremmer:

Ehud, I think a lot of our views will be surprised that Israel doesn't have a constitution. Explain how that came to be.

Ehud Barak:

When Israel was established in May '48, announced, declared, Ben-Gurion, the then prime minister he announced that within five months, until the October of that year, we will complete a kind of writing constitution by the same body that was called the Knesset. And only after this constitution will be established, there will be election which will lead to the new legislative branch.

So we were, by October, we were deep into a war that had not yet been fully decided against five Arab militaries of neighbors. So Ben-Gurion decided to delay it. He delayed it with some kind of interim arrangements, and announced the Knesset ceasing to be the kind of convention for constitution, and becoming legislative body. It became very convenient and we faced huge, huge challenges immediately afterward.

650,000 Arabs left what became Israel during the war. And at the same time, in the two years after war, 650,000 Jews came from the whole Arab world into Israel, doubling the amount of the population. It was huge challenge and the very poor economy, still very weak army embargoed by both United States and Europe.

So we didn't have time to do it. And somehow out of common sense, and judgment, and certain humbleness, humility among the leaders, we operated without constitution based on common sense. You don't go to the extreme to challenge the very idea that we agree on certain arrangements. So it worked for 75 years and it should be corrected now. I hope the situation out of crises will enable it. I'm not sure even of that.

Ian Bremmer:

And the final question I want to ask on this, just to put a pin in it, is, as I said at the beginning, one thing that I understand about Israel is it's not run by one party, it's run by a number of parties. They have to compromise. And those governments do not last very long. Over the past five years, we've had so many elections in Israel, so many different coalitions. Isn't that ultimately also part of the strength of Israeli democracy?

Ehud Barak:

No, it's part of a weakness. Deep weakness. It's the most severe crisis since the establishment of the state. Five different election within less than four years is a kind of symptom of a malaise, a disease. And the disease all has to do with Netanyahu's kind of effort to get out of the corridor. This corals of his criminal court cases. This is a system where 97% of criminal cases ends with a guilty verdict.

And even if it's clear it's guilty verdict, you have to for sure leave politics forever. So he will do whatever it takes to get out of either. That's the only reason, only reason. Nothing with vision, nothing with the interest of the public, not with the security of Israel or it's economy, it's nothing. It's personal issue to get himself out of this court case that caused Israel to go see already five elections, and probably a sixth one in a year or so.

Ian Bremmer:

Before we close, you know, you did mention security and you said Israel's in a precarious situation in terms of security right now. And of course I understand what that means when you have the minister of defense and many of the soldiers and the generals and others that are saying, we're not going to serve in our military if this government proceeds with this reform. I get that.

But at the same time we have had the Abraham Accords. Israel has a much more open relationship, more constructive relationship with the Gulf Arabs today than they did 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. Also, now that the Iranians and the Saudis have concluded a China-brokered deal, and the Chinese have made clear that they don't want the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons.

The Saudis feel the same way. You could argue that Israel's security position in the Middle East, not its security position domestically, but in the Middle East, is actually quite a bit stronger, quite a bit more comfortable than it's been historically. Tell me your thoughts on that, please. Edhu.

Ehud Barak:

I think that is Israel until five months ago was exactly as you defined it. And it's still the strongest. It's by far the strongest country 1,000 miles around Jerusalem. We are the strongest militarily, strategically, technologically, economically. We are probably not the biggest economy in the region, but by far the most vibrant one. And if we keep properly the relationship with both sides of the political aisle, the United States, we remain also the strongest diplomatically.

Because basically the United States provide Israel with safety net in any international forum, from the UN Security Council to anything else. So basically we are stronger and remain so. But however, the Middle East remains a tough neighborhood. Much tougher than the Midwest, for example. And still there is no mercy for the weak, no second opportunity for those who cannot protect himself.

When I was in uniform most of my life, I used to say that we are a villa in the jungle. Inside your villa you can enjoy whatever. Your jacuzzi, or classical music, but you go out, you have to be ready to pull the trigger in a split second. Otherwise you won't survive. So this is a situation we are strong, but the damage to our security from the behavior of Netanyahu in the last four or five months is devastating.

Luckily enough, both the Iranians and the Hezbollah were the most dangerous ones. They both understand that if they will initiate something against Israel right now, we will unite on the spot and first hit them and then come back to our controversies. So they are enjoying the new situation, but they are not intervening in it. Some other rogue elements, small elements, try to make the fire higher around the temple mountain and the border in Ghajar in Lebanon.

But I hope it won't erupt. But having said that, in the last several years, if I think from 2015, the clash that Netanyahu initiated with Obama cost us a lot. It's probably the whole program is too short to go into it. But we lost when he came-

Ian Bremmer:

When he came to Congress.

Ehud Barak:

... To maker much stronger. His appearance in the Congress was a kind of appearance over reality. Because in reality, we had to come to terms with the de facto situation that the president of the United States already decided to establish this agreement. Doesn't matter. It caused a lot of damage. And probably heavier damage was caused by his encouraging of Trump to leave the JCPOA, without ever thinking that in spite of their wishes, will or fantasies, you had to prepare a plan B.

What happens if Iran, despite of America leaving it, will decide to come much closer to a nuclear threshold state? And when in 2018 the Iranians were 18 months far from becoming threshold nuclear state, now they're probably 18 days, probably minus 18 days.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. So last thing I want to ask you, Ehud. Israel just commemorated Memorial Day. And you are one of the most decorated veterans in Israel history. I'm wondering if you can talk just for a moment about what sacrifice means to you. And maybe if you have a story around that, that you'd want to share.

Ehud Barak:

Look, I spent 36 years in uniform. I lost many friends of mine. In a way I always feel as an adult that I'm escorted them moving around me. Those guys, I remember they smiled when they were 20 or 30. They were in many ways better than we are. And I will remember Archibald McLeish who said, "We gave you our this. It's upon you to give it a meaning. And it's upon us to give a meaning to the huge sacrifice."

So we paid a heavy price for deciding to come back to the political arena. Third time in our three-and-a-half millennial history, and we are ready to pay the price. We paid. But when you look at proportions... I just have two anecdotes to tell you. We lost in all the Israeli wars 24,000 people. 24,000 people at the amount, the number of Jews that in November '43 in 24 hours were executed, kind of went to heaven in Majdanek.

24,000 is the amount of prisoners of that were freed out of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After the breach, the American came there, 24,000 died within three weeks from the experience of having four years in the camp. So basically if you look at the proportion, we were in a better situation.

And last anecdote, few weeks before I left office as the prime minister, I was sitting in inauguration ceremony of new fighter pilots. So they walked there, the cadets who finished. And the next cohort that comes four months after them, walked in front of us, myself and I know the commander of the base or whatever. And I noticed a woman, a young woman, a girl, walking between those cadets. So I asked the commander of the base, who is this woman? What she flies and where is she from? He answered "In the next course she will be inaugurated in four months. She is flying F-16. She's one of the five best aces in the whole whole court, or course. Her name is... She's from a kibbutz in the north called the Warrior of the Ghettos, and her name is Roni Zuckerman." It sent shiver into my spine. I told myself, here is all our story in a nutshell. Here I sit the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense of independent strong Israelis. Stronger than any neighbor 1,000 miles around.

I am the grandchild of helpless and hapless Jews in the ghetto also that disappeared either in Treblinka or by typhus or something else during the war with some of their children. I'm sitting here and in front of me walking the granddaughters of Antek Zuckerman and Zivia, who came and fought the Gestapo for three weeks during Passover of '43.

It's now exactly eight years after the rebellion. And here I see her, and this young lady, she probably made a barrel roll 30,000 feet into the sky with her F-16 over the kibbutz named after the Warriors of the Ghetto, that her grandparents established here with other youngsters who kind of fled from the terror after the whole ghetto burnt.

Ian Bremmer:

Ehud Barak, thanks for joining us today.

Ehud Barak:

Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you did. Why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.

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