Fmr US Amb to Israel: Judicial Reform Compromise “Difficult”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, in Israel, after pausing his controversial plan to overhaul the independent judiciary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the country will, “Overcome” what he calls a great debate. Protesters are still gathering, though, with the bill set to return to parliament next month if no compromise is reached. Netanyahu’s plans are testing the U.S.-Israel relationship as well. The former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, joins Walter Isaacson now to discuss how it does impact their alliance.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Christiane. And ambassador Martin Indyk, welcome to the show.

MARTIN INDYK, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Thank you, Walter. It’s really a pleasure to be with you.

ISAACSON: You were in Israel last week, part of a delegation from the United States and you stayed in extra couple of days because you wanted to attend the demonstrations. As somebody who’s been in the ambassador from the United States and Israel twice, that seems slightly unusual. Why did you do it and what did you say and see?

INDYK: Unusual indeed, because I don’t think I’ve been in a protests and demonstrations since I demonstrated for a Soviet jury 50 years ago when Natan Sharansky was in trial. But I am so concerned about the way in which this effort by the Netanyahu government to promote a judicial restructuring and curb the independence of the Israeli Supreme Court. So concerned about the effect on Israel’s democracy and therefore its effect on the U.S.- Israel relationship, which is where I lived as a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. That I really wanted to see it firsthand and also lend my voice to those who were protesting.

ISAACSON: You’ve talked about the effect it will have on the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Why will it have such an effect?

INDYK: Well, the U.S.-Israel relationship is often referred to as a special relationship. What makes it special is that it’s not only based on common interests, strategic interests in the region, but it’s also based on common democratic values. And that is something that the Israelis have been very proud of. Touting effect that the only democracy in the Middle East. But the bipartisan support from Israel which is long been strong, deep, broad really depends on the fact that Americans see Israel as a fellow democracy in a dangerous part of the world.

ISAACSON: Let me read a tweet that you came out with and what you said, soon pausing the legislation will not be enough to restore normalcy. The revolt is turning into a revolution. What does that mean? Now that he’s paused, can he just stop this or is this something deeper than just the judicial changes?

INDYK: Well, if Netanyahu concedes to his opposition, he risks his coalition and he’s coalition could fall apart. If he if he doesn’t, as I was saying, the opposition knows the way back to the square. And will, you know, pursue civil disobedience, widespread demonstrations, shutting the country down as they did yesterday. And so, given that, I think it’s going to be extremely difficult to work out a compromise.

ISAACSON: You’ve known Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu, as you call him for decades. I mean, you’ve really dealt with him for a long time. Tell me why he’s doing this.

INDYK: Well, this is not the Bibi that I knew. I worked with him when I was ambassador to Israel in the 1990s during the Clinton administration. I worked with him again when I became Barack Obama and John Kerry’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations back in 2013. And I have known Netanyahu to be a particularly skillful politician, very good at playing the complicated game of maintaining his coalition. That’s why he’s the longest serving Israeli prime minister in Israel’s history. But this Netanyahu, this new prime minister has forged a coalition of the far right and orthodox religious parties. And this has seemed to upset his balance and his normal skill at calculating how far he can go. He seems to have been completely caught unawares by the opposition that this judicial restructuring generated.

ISAACSON: You say that he’s created this coalition of the far right, the extreme religious parties. Is some of the onus on the centrist that, you know, you’ve known for so long, like Benny Gantz and Tzipi Livni and others who did not work with him and try to form a centrist government.

INDYK: Well, I don’t think it’s fair to blame them. You referenced Benny Gantz, who — lead to centrist party. He was prepared to join Netanyahu, joined his previous government on the basis that they would rotate the prime ministership. Netanyahu went first and then did everything he could, successfully, to undermine the relationship and force the government to fall apart. So, Gantz was humiliated by Netanyahu. And I think it’s not unreasonable that he doesn’t want to be humiliated again. The others, and it’s not just the centrist parties, there are right wing parties and factions that also refused to join with Netanyahu. Partly because he’s undermined their trust in him and partly because he’s under indictment for — on charges of — he’s being prosecuted on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust.

ISAACSON: Are those charges part of his personal calculation of why he’s doing this?

INDYK: Indeed, I think that it’s hard to explain it any other way because the one piece of legislation that he has insisted on, he agreed to defer the other package of laws designed to curb the judiciary. But the one that he insisted on and the one that caused this blow up in the last few days was the one that would enable him to stay in court. And thereby try to ensure that that court, the Supreme Court, when it faced an appeal if he was convicted, would not send him to jail.

ISAACSON: When he was running, was this part of his platform? Did the people vote for this?

INDYK: It wasn’t part of his platform. His platform was focused on basically deterring Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold and making peace with Saudi Arabia or expanding the Abraham Accords. The Likud members of his party was surprised when this suddenly became the issue that he started to push.

ISAACSON: Well, other than Defense Minister Gallant, we haven’t had a whole lot of push back though from within his own party. Why not?

INDYK: Well, I think that there — they have been, for a long time, fearful to challenge him. Netanyahu has very strong control over the Likud rank and file. He’s popular amongst them. And so —

ISAACSON: Does that remind you of Trump at all?

INDYK: Well, increasingly so. A smarter version of Donald Trump. But, you know, Netanyahu’s agenda here of trying to impact the court has a certain resonance when it comes to Trump’s activities as well.

ISAACSON: When you were in Israel, you met with your — one of your successors, Tom Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. And I saw that this morning he was saying, making a real point of saying, Netanyahu will come visit Washington. This is going to happen. He’s invited. Why would the ambassadors say that?

INDYK: Well, Ambassador Nides is doing a fantastic job in really difficult circumstances. Up until now, the White House has avoided setting a date for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Why is this important is because it’s customary for every newly elected Israeli prime minister to make his first visit to Washington within weeks of being sworn in. And yet, no date has been set, it’s more than three months now. And this is because the president, I think, wants to send a signal to Netanyahu that he needs to clean up things first before he comes.

ISAACSON: So, what you’re saying is that the interesting thing about what ambassador Nides said was not that, of course, he will come, but the fact that they did not set a date. So, this is not something that — it’s what we might call a southern invitation of come by at some point?

INDYK: Right. Exactly. At the appropriate time. And the appropriate time hasn’t come yet until Netanyahu cleans up his act. Now, the president has intervened twice, personally, with Netanyahu to get him to back off. And I suspect — I haven’t spoken to the Ambassador Nides in the last couple of days, but I suspect that there may be some kind of understanding that now that Netanyahu has heeded the president’s call to back off the legislation that they’ll look to set a date for him to come visit. But I think that it will depend in part on how things go in the negotiations that are now going to take place under the leadership of President Herzog. He’s going to try to bring the opposition government together to try to work out a compromise before the Knesset convenes again in one month.

ISAACSON: You’re writing a piece, I think, today even that will be published tomorrow in which you’re not optimistic that negotiations can resolve this in a month. Why not and what then?

INDYK: Well, I think the two sides are very far apart. The government coalition of far-right religious parties and orthodox religious parties want to curb the judiciary in order to stop the court from intervening and preventing the annexation of private Palestinian land in the West Bank. And in order to give up the religious parties’ Yeshiva students exemptions, prominent exemptions from joining the Israeli army, from being conscripted. So, they have a high stake on this. On the other side, the opposition feels its power. It succeeded in backing the prime minister down. It’s defending Israel’s democracy and trying to reclaim the country for the future that it cares about. And it knows the way back to the streets and the reservists know how to threaten not to serve, and the high-tech community knows how to threaten to take its capital and entrepreneurship out of the country.

ISAACSON: This was huge, what happened, in Israel. Taking to the streets, shutting down the economy for a while. Do you think this may be part of a global trend where people are pushing back against authoritarianism?

INDYK: You know, you mentioned that I was in the demonstrations. That’s what impressed me most, was that this was a huge manifestation of secular Israelis demanding that the democracy be protected. The chant was democrazia (ph), democrazia (ph). And I was surprised and heartened by the commitment to democracy. That was — so, I was strongly manifested there. So, I hope it will be a demonstration and a clarion core to all of us in in democracies that are threatened to stand up for our rights.

ISAACSON: You say that the demonstrators you’re with, these huge crowds, were secular Israelis, for the most part.

INDYK: Uh-huh.

ISAACSON: Why is there been and how bad is the divide now in Israel between the secular political parties that want democracy and the religious right?

INDYK: What’s happened recently is that secular Israelis have become increasingly concerned by the growth in numbers, the demographic numbers which suggests that the orthodox Israelis who — whose birth rate is much higher than secular Israelis will eventually, in 20 years or so, become dominant and. And what concerns secular Israelis is that the orthodox Israelis, you know, often — they’re poor. They depend on handouts from the state for their schools and for their children. And so, this — and they don’t — many of them, vast majority had done serving the army, either where there’s supposed to be universal conscription. So, secular Israelis feel like they’re threatened with becoming a minority, but bearing the burden of paying the taxes and serving in the army. And so, that sense of inequity has been fueling this on the one side. On the other side, the growing numbers and zealotry has enabled them now to form a government of the right and far right. And so, they have a majority, democratically elected, and they feel that they have the legitimacy to advance their agenda, which includes, as we’ve been discussing, curbing the independence of the Supreme Court. So, both sides — I think, one side feels increasingly threatened. The other side feels increasingly empowered. And that’s made it far more difficult to reconcile these different tribes.

ISAACSON: Your trip to Israel was part of a group called the Middle East Investment Initiative which tries to help economic development in the Palestinian territories and with Israel’s blessing. To what extent, do you think, this whole situation we face now makes it harder to have an Israeli- Palestinian peace?

INDYK: Well, it’s important to understand that while all of this is going on inside Israel, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been growing fairly dramatically in the last three months. I think it’s 88 Palestinians have been killed, 16 Israelis have been killed and increasing violence. And we’re heading into — Ramadan has already started. Passover is about to start and Easter. And that is the period of usually high tensions and high friction between Israelis and Palestinians in the holy sites in East Jerusalem where they come into contact. And so, there’s a real concern, independent of what’s happening inside Israel that Israeli-Palestinian conflict could erupt again. In all of intifada, the Palestinian authority, is probably doesn’t control any of the cities outside of Ramallah. These Palestinian militant youth who don’t remember the last intifada attitude (ph) by what happened there have access to weapons and a target rich environment of settlers. And so, the — that – – their activity is increasing, the terrorism, and the Israeli army is responding to that. And so, it’s kind of feels like all the vectors are pointing in the wrong direction here. And Israel, meantime, is preoccupied with its internal divisions. And while it’s trying, we’ve got Netanyahu who doesn’t want to blow up, so he’s trying to calm things down there and make some concessions here and there to the Palestinians. Those who have been disavowed by his far-right ministers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir who are inciting settler vigilantes to take action against Palestinians. So, the combination is very disturbing.

ISAACSON: Ambassador Martin Indyk, thank you so much for joining us.

INDYK: Thank you, Walter.