Mandelblit: Looming constitutional crisis will end Israel’s place in ‘family of nations’

Former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit says that a looming clash between the government and the court system will end Israel’s place among “the family of nations.”

If the law giving the government complete control over judicial appointments passes, he says, “the court will issue a restraining order against it, and if the government does not accept the ruling of the High Court of Justice, the State of Israel has finished its story as part of the family of nations,” he says during a conference at the University of Haifa.

“The price for that will be devastating and I believe and hope that we won’t get there,” he adds.

Mandelblit, once considered a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says that sidelining the judiciary “will bring us to situation where he will no longer be a democracy. We will become a dictatorship. If the legal advisers are appointed by the government and the judges are appointed by the government — what remains of the Declaration of Independence? It will just become a piece of paper we can throw in the trash.”