Israeli democracy is facing its biggest challenge since the founding of the state, after the Knesset passed the first law in its package of legislation designed to cripple the judicial branch.

Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss what comes next in the battle between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which appears determined to move forward with its “radical and extreme” judicial overhaul, and the protest movement that has been battling the move for the past 30 weeks.

Plesner looks ahead to the Knesset session in the fall and, before that, the upcoming petitions against the law in the Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice). He also reacts to Netanyahu’s refusal to state – in response to a question he was asked on both CNN and Fox News – that he would abide by any potential Supreme Court ruling striking down the reasonableness law that was passed last week.

“I think it’s despicable and a new low,” he says of Netanyahu’s remarks. “Israel is a democracy and the basic character of democracies is the rule of law, human rights, an independent judiciary, and everyone in the land – including the politicians – obeying court decisions. And Netanyahu was elusive. I think this is very bad.”

The fact that the prime minister “is conveying such a message is extremely reckless and disappointing,” he adds.

Plesner, a military reservist in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, also discusses the “heartbreaking” choice by his fellow soldiers to suspend their service due to opposition of the overhaul, as well as his recent call to the United States and American Jews not to give up on Israel.

To American Jews who insist that internal Israeli affairs are none of their business, he counters that “of course it's your business if Israel ceases to be a Jewish and democratic state, and it turns into a religious ethno-nationalistic state – this will end the relationship between Israel and the majority of Diaspora Jewry.”

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