The flood of controversial laws rammed through the Knesset by the coalition in this final week of legislation before the election season begins has generated fury and outrage among the opposition parties.

The contentious measures affect deep changes to the checks on government power and to the regulation of the press, while creating ever greater societal discord over the suppurating wound of ultra-Orthodox draft evasion.

Some of these laws have ideological motivations, some have illiberal motivations, and some are simply politically expedient for the coalition’s political alliance ahead of the upcoming elections.

If you look closely, however, a common theme appears to unite the different components of the coalition’s legislative blitz: preserving right-wing power by buttressing public and political support for the right-wing bloc in the Knesset, and unshackling the government from legal restraints on wielding power.

This, therefore, is the source of the opposition’s anger and of its accusations that the coalition’s raft of far-reaching laws is based around its political survival.

The most important and controversial of the measures passed this week include a law stripping the attorney general of any ability to restrain the government; a law politicizing broadcast media regulation and enabling the formation of media owners to amass ever-greater influence over the media market; a law banning the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers; and a quasi-constitutional law establishing Torah study as a foundational value of the state.

A law restoring the Haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate’s control over kashrut licensing, with the vast powers of patronage that it entails, was another key kickback to the ultra-Orthodox parties.

Throwing off the legal shackles

The law neutering the attorney general’s powers has been an ideological goal of the political right for many years now. Justice Minister Yariv Levin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and numerous others have long railed against the ability of the attorney general to stymie government decisions and legislation if they deem it to be incommensurate with Israeli law, or in other words, illegal.

The ability of the attorney general in Israel to issue binding decisions on the legality of government action, which can thwart government policy........

© The Times of Israel