Let's call a spade a spade.
It is truly outrageous that the Supreme Court is trying to force PM Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Police Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Their claim is that Ben Gvir has taken “too much control" of the police, though they have not presented any concrete examples of illegal behavior. They also accuse Ben Gvir of “changing the status quo" on the Temple Mount, a heinous crime indeed, at least in their minds.
Ben Gvir and the Prime Minister responded with something that used to be obvious in a democracy: only the Prime Minister can fire a minister. There is no law that grants an unelected court the authority to decide who sits around the cabinet table. That authority belongs to the voters.
And that brings me to something else, something that happened to me today.
I was in Kiryat Malachi and met a woman police officer. She asked me, genuinely confused, why the Supreme Court thinks it has the power to fire Itamar Ben Gvir. She didn’t understand it, and neither do many Israelis.
Let’s remember - we are heading toward elections in October. If the public thinks Ben Gvir is reckless or unfit, there’s a mechanism for that. It’s called a ballot box. That’s how democracies work. So why does the judiciary feel the need to intervene before the people get their say?
Here is something else to consider.
The President of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Amit, who basically chose himself for the role, earns roughly 120,000 shekels a month, nearly double the salary of the Prime Minister and far more than any police officer patrolling our streets. The justices live in a protected, insulated world. They don’t break up riots. They don’t respond to terror attacks. They don’t knock on doors at 3 a.m. And they certainly don’t worry about whether their pay check will cover the rent.
Itamar Ben Gvir, for all the controversy surrounding him, focused on something very important (and unglamorous) in his position as Police Minister - he worried about the people carrying the burden of Israel’s security. He pushed to raise police salaries - for men and women who risk their lives daily and who, for years, earned wages that were embarrassingly low. Some earned less than cleaning staff in government offices.
And that is the real divide in this story. On one side stand the judges - unelected, insulated, well-paid, and far removed from the daily dangers faced by ordinary Israelis. On the other side stand the police officers, soldiers, and citizens who carry the weight of security on their backs, and the elected officials chosen to represent them.
When the Supreme Court tries to decide who may or may not serve as a minister, it is not protecting democracy, it is overriding it. If Ben Gvir deserves to be removed, the public will do so at the ballot box. Until then, the will of the voters, not the preferences of a legal elite must remain sovereign. That is what is called democracy.
David Jacobs lives in Hashmonaim.