Joel Rosenberg of ALL ISRAEL NEWS addresses the judicial reform debate on CBN’s Faith Nation

The debate over proposed judicial reforms in Israel has been going on for several months. More than 29 weeks of protests have filled the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and many other cities since the beginning of the controversy.

Protest activities rose to an unprecedented level just ahead of the first reading of the Reasonableness Standard Bill and immediately following its passage in the Knesset on Monday.

Media coverage of the conflict has been continuous across many platforms, however, there is still a widespread lack of clarity over the reform issue despite the immense coverage.

The courts have “been handing down decisions that are not consistent with the democratic views of the Israeli people,” began ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg during an interview with CBN’s Jenna Browder on Faith Nation.

Rosenberg's interview on CBN provided viewers with some context for the debate and shed light on some of the historical issues leading up to the current controversy.

He explained how the contentious judicial reform proposal grew out of concern by Israel's more conservative players that Israel's High Court justice system was turning to the left.

Describing judicial activism as “a runaway train," primarily because Israel lacks a Constitution.

“The question is, what should the law say that the courts are allowed to decide? Israel doesn't have a Constitution. So that makes it complicated,” Rosenberg said.

Regarding the Reasonableness Standard Bill, which was passed into law by the Knesset on Monday, Rosenberg said the situation is further complicated by a lack of legal standing.

The Supreme Court in Israel appointed itself the right of judicial review of government decisions based on the concept of 'reasonableness,' Rosenberg explained.

“The Supreme Court has just decided it can decide if a law is reasonable or a government decision is reasonable or not but there is literally no law in Israel that says the Supreme Court can decide what's reasonable.”

He also said the standard of reasonableness itself is nowhere defined by law, making it a “vague standard.”

The lack of a clearly-defined legal standard or legal standing has led to the current situation of massive public debate over the laws.

“This is a huge debate,” Rosenberg stated, “but I think it’s an important one.”

Rosenberg also addressed concerns about the potential erosion of the Israeli government's democratic nature as a result of the judicial reform.

“There is a genuine fear in Israel that this whole overall judicial reform package, of which the reasonableness standard is just one slice of it, is going to fundamentally alter Israeli democracy,” Rosenberg told Browder.

Critics of the reforms say they will “end democracy in Israel," leading to a dictatorship dominated by the religious parties.

“I don't think that's a fair argument,” Rosenberg commented. “I think the opposite is true.”

He said the court system has been “hijacking the democracy of the Israeli people” by using the vague standard of reasonableness to overturn government decisions.

The problem, Rosenberg emphasized, is the lack of legal standing.

“This either violates this law or it violates this administrative code or whatever. That's how courts should decide in the absence of a Constitution,” he argued.

Rosenberg also said that much of the protest movement is currently motivated out of concern for the nation and an uncertainty about how the reforms will affect the political system.

However, he added that part of it is motivated by the opposition's disdain for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Some people hate Bibi Netanyahu,” he said of the prime minister. “They just want to get rid of him at all costs.”

During the interview, Rosenberg also addressed the problem of reservists’ refusal to serve, following an announcement that 10,000 Israel Defense Forces' reservists would not report for reserve duty to protest the Reasonableness Standard Bill.

Calling the move “dangerous and unreasonable," Rosenberg noted that the military does not decide law in a democracy.

“If you are serving in a military in a democracy, and the democratically-elected government passes a law, it’s not a military officer or combat soldier – or fighter pilots – it’s not their province to say, ‘I’m not going to serve.’”

“When a military says, ‘I won’t obey the orders of the democratically-elected government’, that’s a risk to democracy,” Rosenberg warned.

Watch Rosenberg's entire interview on CBN’s Faith Nation here.

ALL ISRAEL NEWS will provide a full analysis of the Reasonableness Standard Bill once the text of the bill has been released.