MK Avi Maoz, head of the Noam party, has expressed his staunch opposition to any plan to halt the judicial reform program. In a Knesset speech on Monday morning, he described how backing down would hand victory to the elites and turn voting into an utterly futile exercise.
"What we are about to see here is the completion of the coup d'etat whose aim is to turn democratic rule in the State of Israel, based on government by elected officials, into a dictatorship of the elites, which in a cynical use of words designed to mislead and conceal calls what it is doing 'fundamentally democratic,'" he said. "It no longer matters who you vote for, because what prevails is only what serves the liberal-radical leftist agenda which opposes the Jewish and Zionist identity of the state.
"The root of all of this is obviously [former Supreme Court President] Aharon Barak, who never stood for election in his life, and ever since the Likud party came to power has been doing everything he can to empty this [electoral victory] of all significance and to weaken government by elected officials as far as he can. The height of this revolution was the creation of Basic Laws given an elevated status, which was not the intention of the legislators, and the arrogation of authority by the Supreme Court to invalidate decisions made by the legislative and the executive, as well as establishing the opinions of legal advisers as binding on legislators, without any legal basis for doing so. Even seen in the light of their own values this was supreme hypocrisy and deception," Maoz stated.
"The judiciary, the Israeli media, and the outrageous politicians of the Left have never held themselves to the same standards they demand of the Right," he continued. "They demand norms of caution with regard to conflict of interest and making political appointments, and it is they who excel at nepotism and dealing with matters that concern them personally at the Supreme Court. Those who demand clean hands and pure hearts turned a blind eye and whitewashed inquiries into senior people as long as they held the 'right' opinions."
"Those who now rise up against the dismissal of a minister who conducted policy independently of the government did not open their mouths when the unspeakable Sharon, who led the plans to uproot and expel [the Jews of Gaza] acted as he did in order to evade the legal cases against him, and dismissed ministers who refused to go along with his treachery and betrayal of the settlements. Those who protest in shrill voices against the right of the government to replace unelected officials who prevent them from implementing their policies totally ignored the same when Mofaz and Sharon did not extend the tenure of the then-IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon, because he dared to express his opinion against the Disengagement and said that it would only strengthen terrorism."
Maoz stressed that, "One can find infinite examples of the hypocrisy of the left-wing and its representatives, but common to all the examples of their behavior is the fact that in their eyes, the revolution they are leading is perfectly fine and acceptable, since they have finally come to terms with the reality that the people are no longer with them and that they are a small and dwinding minority.
"From this podium, I call on the Prime Minister and to my fellow members of the coalition to continue what we have begun, to fix and restore the balance between the branches of government. If we back down, it will constitute the final proof that there is no longer any reason to go out to vote and that Israel has turned into a dictatorship in which the dictators are the elites of the Supreme Court, the media, and all those holding senior public positions."