Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the passage of Israel’s first judicial reform bill, election results in Spain and Cambodia, and new drone strikes by Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the passage of Israel’s first judicial reform bill, election results in Spain and Cambodia, and new drone strikes by Russian and Ukrainian forces.
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Netanyahu: 1, Supreme Court: 0
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secured a major legislative win. On Monday, the Knesset passed a ruling that struck down part of Israel’s reasonableness standard in a devastating blow to the country’s opposition and democratic judiciary.
Under the standard, Israel’s Supreme Court could scrap executive branch decisions and appointments if deemed “extremely unreasonable.” The standard was last invoked in January after Netanyahu appointed parliamentarian Arye Dery to be a cabinet minister. Dery’s appointment was rejected on the grounds that he had a criminal record, including charges of tax evasion, corruption, bribery, and fraud.
By putting the reasonableness standard to the chopping block, Netanyahu and other members of his ruling Likud party can now appoint or dismiss anyone they’d like without having to answer to the country’s highest court. What that means is that Israel may see a slew of controversial executive branch additions and firings in the coming months, such as potentially sacking Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara. Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed interest in ousting Miara after she said in March that the prime minister had violated a conflict of interest law that forbids him from governing during his corruption trial; Netanyahu has been under investigation since November 2019 over charges of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery—all of which he continues to deny.
The bill’s passage on Monday is Netanyahu’s first win in a monthslong effort to enact sweeping judicial change after nationwide demonstrations in January stalled his larger reform package. Already, thousands of Israelis have gathered on the streets to protest the bill, demanding greater accountability for their elected officials in what some experts have coined Israel’s Arab Spring moment. Rights groups have said they will petition the Supreme Court to strike down the new law; foreign leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have called on Netanyahu not to move forward with more judicial reform; and the nation’s largest union, Histadrut, announced on Monday that it will begin negotiations to kick-start a labor strike in protest.
“This is the destruction of Israeli democracy,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid. “We will not give up. We will not surrender. We will not let them turn Israel into a broken, undemocratic country, which is run by hatred and extremism.”
Tuesday, July 25, to Friday, July 28: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meets.
Wednesday, July 26: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dedicates the new U.S. Embassy in Tonga.
Wesley Simina is inaugurated as the president of Micronesia.
Wednesday, July 26, to Thursday, July 27: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits New Zealand.
Thursday, July 27: French President Emmanuel Macron visits Vanuatu.
Thailand’s parliament meets for the third time to select a new prime minister.
Biden holds talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Thursday, July 27, to Friday, July 28: Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts the Russia-Africa Summit.
Friday, July 28, to Saturday, July 29: India hosts a G-20 environment ministers’ meeting.
Sunday, July 30: The Central African Republic holds a constitutional referendum.
Ballot box headaches. Spain’s inconclusive election on Sunday sparked celebrations among many voters, who feared a far-right government takeover was imminent. Instead, the center-right People’s Party secured first place with 136 seats, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party won 122 seats, and the right-wing Vox party barely scraped by with 33 seats. To govern, a party must hold 176 seats in the country’s 350-seat legislature. Now, Spanish voters must wait to see if a coalition government can form, which could take months to negotiate, or if a runoff election will have to be scheduled.
On the other side of the world, Cambodians suffered through another rigged election on Sunday, which declared (to the surprise of no one) a landslide victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party. Virtually all opposition parties were barred from running. The 70-year-old leader has been at the seat of power for 38 years, making him Asia’s longest-serving head of state. However, last Thursday, Hun Sen signaled that his son, Gen. Hun Manet, could be primed to take over the long-held spot as early as next month.
Strikes on Moscow. Russian authorities accused Ukraine of targeting Moscow with two drone strikes on Monday. At least two residential buildings were destroyed, but no serious damage or civilian casualties were reported. The Kremlin labeled Kyiv’s assault a “terrorist attack” and accused Ukraine of launching 17 drones at Russian-occupied Crimea.
That same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retaliation for a Russian strike on a historic, UNESCO-protected Orthodox cathedral in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Monday, which killed at least one person. Odesa has been the target of numerous attacks in recent days following Russia leaving the Black Sea Grain Deal on July 17. President Vladimir Putin’s key demands for rejoining the agreement are expected to be a top agenda item for this week’s upcoming Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Greece’s island exodus. Around 19,000 people on the Greek island of Rhodes were forced to flee their homes and hotels over the weekend to escape raging wildfires. On Monday alone, more than 2,000 tourists were evacuated via repatriation flights in the country’s largest evacuation effort in history. Rhodes, along with Corfu—another island evacuating its residents due to wildfires—are top tourist destinations for Europeans at this time of year.
The fires began last Wednesday and have only escalated, leading Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to warn of more repatriation flights to come. “For the next few weeks, we must be on constant alert,” Mitsotakis told Parliament. “We are at war. We will rebuild what we lost. We will compensate those who were hurt.”
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is taking doomsday prepping to a whole new level. New court filings released last Thursday detail how Bankman-Fried’s brother outlined a plan for the billionaire to purchase the island of Nauru—that’s right, the entire country—to construct a bunker for waiting out the apocalypse. The world’s smallest island nation was once a money laundering haven, which makes it a bit too on the nose as an escape for the disgraced founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange, who is accused of swindling $8 million from his customers.
The post Netanyahu’s First Judicial Reform Bill Passes in Israel appeared first on Foreign Policy.
