Israelis are out on the streets over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plans. Since returning as Prime Minister, Mr. Neyanyahu has shown a willingness to go to any length to pass these laws that will, in effect, remove the only check on executive power.
The judicial overhaul was not demanded by any segment of the electorate. Yet, in a pattern that has been documented in democracies around the world, it is a think tank — in this case, the Kohelet Policy Forum — that has been working behind the scenes to push for, and literally draft, the Bills aimed at clipping the wings of the Israeli judiciary.
Founded in 2012 by Moshe Koppel, an Israeli-American computer scientist who shifted from New York to the West Bank, Kohelet’s stated objective is to “secure Israel’s future as the nation-state of the Jewish people” and “to broaden individual liberty and free market principles in Israel”. Known for keeping a low profile, both Kohelet and Mr. Koppel hit the limelight earlier this year when Israeli protesters converged at its Jerusalem office, blocking its entrance with sandbags and barbed wire. It has since become common knowledge that Kohelet is the brain behind the judicial overhaul legislation.
Naturally, once its role in national law-making became clear, the spotlight shifted to its donors. It has emerged that Kohelet is a part of an influential network of right-wing think tanks and lobbying groups funded by libertarian Jewish American billionaires. It draws inspiration from, and is part of, a set of neoconservative hubs that includes the likes of Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, to name a few. Two of its biggest donors are Arthur Dantchik, 65, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a privately held financial services firm, and Jeff Yass, 67, Mr. Dantchik’s partner at Susquehanna. Mr. Yass, whose net worth is $28.5 billion, is the 48th richest man in the world and a high profile Republican contributor.
Just as the Heritage Foundation was instrumental in introducing ‘Reaganomics’ into American public policy and turning it into economic ‘common sense’, Kohelet has been trying to perform a similar role in Israel. A senior member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party has said the judicial Bills that have plunged Israel into crisis were not even discussed internally in the party before being tabled in Parliament. And the recently passed Bill that scuttled the Supreme Court’s power to review government decisions on the grounds of ‘reasonableness’, was by no means the first to be drafted by Kohelet before being muscled through the Knesset.
State of Jewish people
Kohelet was also the key driver behind the Nation-State law passed in 2018, which, for the first time, specifies Israel to be a nation-state of the ‘Jewish people’ where Jews alone have the right to self-determination. This law also downgraded the co-official language status of Arabic. At the same time, Kohelet’s international wing was instrumental in dredging up justifications that made it easier for Donald Trump to change long-standing U.S. policy and assert that Israeli settlements in the West Bank did not violate international law.
In other words, Kohelet, apart from being a conduit for channelling the ideas of the American far-right into Israel, has also been active in shifting the American policy towards Israel in a manner that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for American lawmakers to criticise Israel even for abuses documented by independent bodies such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. According to democratic rights activists, Kohelet has been working with its U.S.-based allies to recast any criticism of Israel as “anti-semitic” – a tactic believed to be responsible for the removal of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Supported generously with millions of dollars from American Jewish billionaires, with staff strength of over 120, and a pool of politicians ready to run with its programme, Kohelet is also pushing for gender segregation laws. Secular Israelites are desperately looking to rally support from liberal sections of the Jewish diaspora as Kohelet presses ahead with a mission to reshape Israeli society in the stereotypical image of the ultra-right — orthodox in culture, neo-liberal in economics, majoritarian in politics, and authoritarian in governance.
