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The failed 2020 Democratic nominee for president, who isn’t even familiar with his own country’s Supreme Court system, nevertheless weighed in on Israel’s judicial system.
By: WIN Staff – worldisraelnews.com
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg published an op-ed in The New York Times Sunday warning against judicial reform, saying Israel was “courting disaster” that could “imperil the future of the Jewish homeland.”
Bloomberg opened with the disclaimer that he has “never gotten involved in [Israel’s] domestic politics or criticized its government initiatives,” but that it was “due to my love for Israel, my respect for its people and my concern about its future are now leading me to speak out against the current government’s attempt to effectively abolish the nation’s independent judiciary.”
The judicial reform is “imperiling Israel’s alliances around the world, its security in the region, its economy at home, and the very democracy upon which the country was built,” Bloomberg said in the oped.
The billionaire noted a “disturbing sign” where some have already begun pulling money out of the country while “re-evaluating their plans for future growth there.”
“As the owner of a global company, I don’t blame them,” he wrote.
“Companies and investors place enormous value on strong and independent judicial systems because courts help protect them — not only against crime and corruption but also government overreach,” he said.
Bloomberg does not mention, or does not know, that a broad swath of companies in Israel stipulate in their contracts that any potential litigation must take place in overseas courts because the local legal system is heavily influenced by the whims of individual justices, vague and fluid notions of “reasonableness,” and a notorious lack of adherence to contractual obligations.
“The extraordinary rise in Israel’s economic standing over the last generation may be Mr. Netanyahu’s greatest achievement,” Bloomberg wrote. “Yet unless he changes course, Mr. Netanyahu risks throwing all that progress — and his own hard-earned legacy — away.”
Bloomberg further warned that Israel imperils its close ties to the U.S. and other Western nations if it continues on the path “that mirrors those of authoritarian countries.”
Israel, he noted, is in “one of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods”.
“The more divided it is at home, the weaker it appears to its enemies,” Bloomberg said. The move “could even imperil the future of the Jewish homeland.”
The failed 2020 Democratic nominee for president, who isn’t even familiar with his own country’s Supreme Court system, had no reservations about calling on Israel to “pull back and slow down” in righting its court system’s historic wrongs.
President Isaac Herzog said on Monday that he was optimistic about the possibility that the current Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition parties could agree to a compromise on the contentious issue of judicial reform.
“We are closer than ever to the possibility of an agreed outline,” Herzog said during an emergency meeting with some 100 local politicians, which he hosted at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.
“There are agreements behind the scenes on most things,” he added. “Now it depends on our national leadership, the coalition and opposition, who will manage to rise to this great moment, who will understand the situation and the terrible alternative behind the door, and who will put the state and its citizens above everything.”
Notably, Opposition leader and Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, who is head of the National Unity party, have repeatedly said they will refuse to engage in negotiations until the coalition agrees to freeze all legislation for at least two months.
