‘Shocked’ – Fiercely pro-Israel advocates slam proposed judicial reform

Calling the proposed changes “not a reform, but a coup,” Tishby said that the laws create a “danger to the national security of the State of Israel.”

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Two major pro-Israel advocates known for their successful efforts to promote Israel in the United States are speaking out against potential reforms to the country’s judicial system.

Philanthropist Miriam Adelson and actress Noa Tishby,  Israel’s first Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism and Delegitimization, are offering rare public criticism of Israeli politics, saying that they are opposed to the push to pass legislation which curbs the powers of the Supreme Court.

Adelson, who along with her late husband Sheldon was a founder of the powerful AIPAC Israel lobbying group and a major donor to Israeli institutions and causes, wrote in a recent op-ed in Israel Hayom that she was concerned by the speed of the judicial reform legislation.

“Regardless of the substance of the reforms, the government’s dash to ratify them is naturally suspect, raising questions about the root objectives and concern that this is a hasty, injudicious, and irresponsible move. A good deal is reached through cold-eyed circumspection,” wrote Adelson in the right-wing, pro-Netanyahu newspaper, which her husband founded.

“Bad motivations never bring about good outcomes,” Adelson added.

In what she called the “most difficult text I have ever written,” Tishby penned a column for Hebrew-language Ynet warning that the judicial reform could have disastrous consequences for Israel and its relationships with diaspora communities.

Tishby, who wrote a bestselling book defending Israel and is one of the most prominent pro-Israel voices among Israeli expats, claimed that “Diaspora Jewry and Israel’s supporters in the world are shocked” by the proposed judicial reforms.

“With great pain they look and see how the country they fiercely defended — in Congress, in the media, on the networks or to foreign governments — is changing its face,” she wrote.

Calling the proposed changes “not a reform, but a coup,” Tishby said that the laws create a “danger to the national security of the State of Israel.”

Tishby added that she believes the judicial reform gives opponents of Israel ammunition to claim that Israel is “an apartheid, tyrannical, dark, bigoted, religious fanatic, undemocratic country.”

Pro-Israel advocates “argue the opposite and give our Supreme Court as an example of an inspiring liberal democracy,” she wrote.

“Let’s not give our enemies the chance to say, ‘I told you so.’”

AntisemitismJudicial reformMiriam AdelsonNoa TishbyPro-Israel activism