In the last nine months of 2018, according to the United Nations, Palestinians – many of them children – were killed at the rate of around one a day while taking part in protests along Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza about their right to return to ancestral homes. They included medics and journalists. Most of the dead were unarmed and posed no danger to anyone, with little more than rocks in their hands and slogans on their lips. Yet Israel continued with an immoral and unlawful policy that sees soldiers of its military, which is under democratic civilian control, shoot, gas, shell and kill protesters, including those who pose no credible threat. [...]
The tensions between judicial and public opinion will be tested in the cauldron of Israel’s general election. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, unexpectedly called for early elections in December in what seems a transparent bid to head off possible corruption charges. The decision by Mr Netanyahu to dissolve the Knesset came days after the state prosecutor’s office recommended that Israel’s attorney general indict Mr Netanyahu on charges of bribery, which he denies. Mr Netanyahu is not only running for a fifth term in office, he is also running for his political life. His lawyers, it is reported, are arguing that a possible indictment be delayed; on the campaign trail Mr Netanyahu casts himself as an embattled leader persecuted by a leftwing elite comprised of lawyers, journalists and human-rights do-gooders. Echoing his friend Donald Trump, Mr Netanyahu has told reporters that Israel can choose its leadership only at the ballot box and not through legal investigations, which are a “witch-hunt”. Like the US president, the message from Mr Netanyahu is that democratic norms, those unwritten rules of toleration and restraint, are for the weak, not for the strong. Yet without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances are less mainstays of democracy than a mirage.
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