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Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the Big Take. I'm

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Speaker 1: West Kasova. Today is Rayleigh's pour into the streets to

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Speaker 1: protest the government. Israel's Prime Minister of Benjamin Netan Yahoo,

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Speaker 1: is trying to push through major changes to the way

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Speaker 1: the country is governed, taking some power away from the

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Speaker 1: courts and putting it into the hands of politicians in

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Speaker 1: the Cannesse at Israel's parliament. The move has infuriated large

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Speaker 1: portions of Israel's population, not just political opponents, but business

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Speaker 1: leaders and academics. Even soldiers have been taking part in

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Speaker 1: mass protests for more than two months. They accuse far

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Speaker 1: right and ultra orthodox parties of trying to weaken the

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Speaker 1: checks and balances between the branches of government in an

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Speaker 1: effort to introduce a semi religious autocracy. Israel has the

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Speaker 1: most far rights government in its history. The protesters warned

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Speaker 1: the policies will undermine the business friendly climate that's driven

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Speaker 1: strong economic growth and shake Israel's support from the US

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Speaker 1: and Europe as a stable democracy in a volatile region

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Speaker 1: of the world. Bloomberg's Israel bureau chief Ethan Bronner has

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Speaker 1: been covering this unfolding crisis, and he joins me now

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Speaker 1: from Tel Aviv to explain what's happening and where it

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Speaker 1: goes from here. Ethan, can you start by describing the

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Speaker 1: changes Prime Minister Netanyah who wants to put through that

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Speaker 1: are causing these huge protests around the country. The truth

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Speaker 1: is that there's a whole bunch of things all related

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Speaker 1: to the role of the Supreme Court of Judiciary in

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Speaker 1: this country. Nittagyah who won in November and then he

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Speaker 1: put together a government which is unprecedented in this country

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Speaker 1: in terms of it's being very right wing and very

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Speaker 1: religious and very religiously nationalist, and then came to the

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Speaker 1: country and the Knesset and said, Okay, here are the

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Speaker 1: things we're going to do. We're going to change the

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Speaker 1: way we select the judges. We're going to end the

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Speaker 1: ability of the Supreme Court to overturn something unless all

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Speaker 1: fifteen justices agree, and if they agree, we can still

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Speaker 1: overturn it with a simple vote of the Knesset. So

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Speaker 1: it was a quart of a whole set of things

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Speaker 1: that as people looked at it felt like this is

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Speaker 1: going to really remove any checks and balance system that

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Speaker 1: we have in this country. Because one more point to make,

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Speaker 1: and that is that in the United States we have

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Speaker 1: the executive and then we have the legislative. In this country,

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Speaker 1: they're really the same because in order to rule, to

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Speaker 1: become prime minister, you have to have a majority in

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Speaker 1: the Knesset. So Nitzagyah, who of course has what he

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Speaker 1: needs for a government, he has sixty four votes. And

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Speaker 1: they have parliamentary discipline in this system, so if a

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Speaker 1: vote comes, they have to vote or the government falls.

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Speaker 1: And so all those things together are what are freaking

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Speaker 1: out a lot of people here. You talked about some

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Speaker 1: of the right wing parties, the ultra orthodox parties. Can

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Speaker 1: you describe some of the parties in this coalition and

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Speaker 1: what they want? Well, yes, I mean you do have

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Speaker 1: a couple of parties that have been joined together in

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Speaker 1: a coalition called Jewish Power, and their leaders are settlers.

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Speaker 1: They live in settlements in the West Bank. They believe

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Speaker 1: that a Palestinian state is complete anathema. They believe also

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Speaker 1: that God, of course gave this land to the Jews,

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Speaker 1: and that their settlement of it and the spread of

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Speaker 1: religious theocratic rule is in fact what God wants from them.

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Speaker 1: And so the more national religious type of rule they have,

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Speaker 1: the better they will be able to fulfill the desk

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Speaker 1: that has been handed to them. So these are very

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Speaker 1: unpragmatic kind of people who have learned but one foot

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Speaker 1: in front of the other and to win, and they've

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Speaker 1: gotten much further in this country than anybody imagined. Their parties,

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Speaker 1: by the way, were outlawed by the Supreme Court forty

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Speaker 1: years ago and then repermitted later into the political spectrum.

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Speaker 1: So these are very very marginal voices that are now

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Speaker 1: in positions of enormous power, and that is what is

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Speaker 1: really driving these demonstrations anything. What is the complaint that

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Speaker 1: these far right parties have with the courts? In essence,

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court in this country about thirty years ago announced,

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Speaker 1: based on a basic law that had been passed to

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Speaker 1: human dignity, that it was from then on going to

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Speaker 1: be judging laws on their constitutionality based on a set

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Speaker 1: of criteria that they thought was appropriate. We're familiar with

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Speaker 1: this in the United States, of course as well, but

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Speaker 1: in Israel there is no constitution, so the idea of

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Speaker 1: a law being unconstitutional is slightly complicated. But they said,

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Speaker 1: we'll call these basic laws the essence of our constitution.

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Speaker 1: So even instead of a constitution, there are these thirteen

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Speaker 1: basic laws. What are they? What do they pertain to?

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Speaker 1: So some of them are just the way the government

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Speaker 1: is organized, the executive and legislative, the judicial. There are

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Speaker 1: several that have referred to equality, to equal treatment, to

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Speaker 1: human dignity, and those are the ones that have caused

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Speaker 1: a lot of problems for the right, so that, for example,

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Speaker 1: when there was an attempt to prevent the ultra Orthodox

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Speaker 1: from being forced to join the army, the Supreme Court said, well,

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Speaker 1: that is unequal, that violates our equality claws. When there's

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Speaker 1: been a problem in this country, as there is in

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Speaker 1: many countries, wealthy countries where refugees have come in. These

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Speaker 1: are African refugees in Israel, and the government has been

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Speaker 1: trying to prevent them by being pretty tough with them

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Speaker 1: and putting them in prison camps for a while, and

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said this violates human dignity. So it's

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Speaker 1: sort of overturned some of those policies as well. There

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Speaker 1: are questions, for example, of in the West Bank and

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Speaker 1: the occupied West Bank, of whether settlements can be built

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Speaker 1: on land that is known to be personally owned by Palestinians.

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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court said you can't. So there's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of times like that where the agenda of the right,

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Speaker 1: which is to be tough about the border, to spread settlements,

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Speaker 1: to make it possible for the ultra Orthodox not to

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Speaker 1: serve in the military, all of these things have they've

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Speaker 1: gotten in the way, if you like. So from the

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Speaker 1: point of view of the moderates or the liberals or

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Speaker 1: the left, this is the only way that minorities, minority rights,

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Speaker 1: and human individual civil rights will be protected, because if

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Speaker 1: you leave it up to the majority, there is what

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Speaker 1: we know in the law is known as the tyranny

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Speaker 1: of the majority. So that's the issue. So the Court

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Speaker 1: has been in doing that. Now there are several issues

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Speaker 1: that the right and people who voted for Antonia who

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Speaker 1: have been angry about for a long time. One is

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Speaker 1: that they feel that the selection of judges is a

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Speaker 1: kind of self selection, which is to say, unlike in

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Speaker 1: the United States, where the president nominates in the Senate confirms,

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Speaker 1: in Israel there's a committee of nine people, and five

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Speaker 1: of those nine are members of the bar, including three

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Speaker 1: members of the Supreme Court, and the rest are politicians.

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Speaker 1: And so there has been a feeling that the judges

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Speaker 1: can sort of choose their fellows as they move forward,

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Speaker 1: and as the government's turn to the right, they still

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Speaker 1: can prevent the governments from putting right wingers or conservatives in,

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Speaker 1: so there's a selection process. There's the question of exactly

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Speaker 1: under what circumstances the Supreme Court can overturn a law

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Speaker 1: passed by the Kinesse at the Parliament. There's a question

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Speaker 1: of also the role of legal advisors in each ministry.

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Speaker 1: So there's a whole bunch of things in which it

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Speaker 1: is felt by the right the legal establishment has kind

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Speaker 1: of taken over a lot of politically sensitive issues through

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Speaker 1: the law because they can't win at the ballot box

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Speaker 1: even Can you describe why this is happening now? The

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Speaker 1: complaints that you're describing about the thirteen Basic Laws, The

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Speaker 1: ultra orthodox, the far right of the country has had

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Speaker 1: these complaints for years. Why is it coming to the

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Speaker 1: four right now. The simple answer is that the extreme

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Speaker 1: right parties and the ultra religious parties together are for

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Speaker 1: the first time in the governing coalition, so that Nintenyaho

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Speaker 1: we think of as a conservative, it is on the

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Speaker 1: left flank of his own government. And this is because

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Speaker 1: there have been four indecisive elections in the last few years,

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Speaker 1: and this election, this was the only way that he

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Speaker 1: could form a stable government, stable meeting a majority of

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Speaker 1: sixty one or more of the one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: seats in the Knesset. Now there's an additional factor here,

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Speaker 1: which is the Natanyahu himself has been indicted for a

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Speaker 1: series of corruption charges, and that has added to the

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Speaker 1: left and the Center's desire not to enter a coalition

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Speaker 1: with him. He is being accused of also going after

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Speaker 1: the legal system because he had grown bitter about the

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Speaker 1: charges against him. He, by the way, believes that the

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Speaker 1: charges against him are political that in a certain way,

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Speaker 1: just an analogy would be in the United States with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. That's the sense that you couldn't win an election,

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Speaker 1: so you would set the legal establishment after him and

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Speaker 1: his companies and so forth. I mean not saying that

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Speaker 1: that is what happened, but that is the view of

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Speaker 1: many on the right in the United States. So like

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Speaker 1: that Natanya whose argument was, you are coming after me

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Speaker 1: on fake charges because you can't win an election against me.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, he is the longest serving prime minister

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Speaker 1: seven I think government and twenty years so it's a

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Speaker 1: very long time, you think. Can you describe how the

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Speaker 1: system works in Israel where a prime minister is elected

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Speaker 1: but then has to form a government among other parties

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Speaker 1: if his own party doesn't have a majority. Yes, So

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Speaker 1: in the system in this country, there isn't a separate

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Speaker 1: election for the chief of government for what's the prime

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Speaker 1: minister here? That person is whoever is leading the party

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Speaker 1: with the most seats in the Knesset and then forms

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Speaker 1: a coalition because you have to have more than sixty

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Speaker 1: You have to have a majority of one hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty to rule. So this has been true for a

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Speaker 1: long time. One of the problems is that the system

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Speaker 1: allows small parties to get past the threshold. You only

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Speaker 1: need a certain number of votes to be able to

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Speaker 1: have a seat, so you would typically have five or

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Speaker 1: six parties in a ruling coalition. And that's what you

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Speaker 1: have here. And as I say, because the center and

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Speaker 1: the left in this particular election, as said, we're not

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Speaker 1: going to sit with the Tanyaho. Then he turned to

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Speaker 1: the far right. So people are very upset. It's almost

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Speaker 1: like the proud Boys have been brought into government. For

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Speaker 1: the United States, that's the sense people have, and so

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Speaker 1: when you look at who is in power and then

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Speaker 1: their desire to take down the checks and balance of

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Speaker 1: the court system, suddenly people are in deep alarm in

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Speaker 1: this country about what this could mean for the democratic system.

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Speaker 1: And that's how we get to these demonstrations that we've

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Speaker 1: been seeing. And so some of these far right smaller

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Speaker 1: parties Net and Yah, who made a coalition with they

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Speaker 1: have the power to crash the government if he doesn't

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Speaker 1: go along, because if they pull out, then suddenly the

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Speaker 1: government is no longer viable. That's right. And so in

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Speaker 1: some ways he's between a rock and a hard place

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Speaker 1: in the sense that he even if he would like

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Speaker 1: to compromise on the digital question, and there's good reason

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Speaker 1: to think that he would, he would lose his governing coalition.

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Speaker 1: So he's not done that yet. You mentioned the charges

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Speaker 1: against net and Yahoo. Is there a feeling that net

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Speaker 1: and Yahoo is also trying to gain sway over the

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Speaker 1: judiciary in order to prevent them from furthering charges against him.

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Speaker 1: This is certainly the accusation that you hear all the

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Speaker 1: time here. It's difficult to assess exactly how accurate it is.

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Speaker 1: I would say the way in which the Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: could benefit from these changes or re rather slow in

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Speaker 1: terms of the turnover on the bench and so on.

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Speaker 1: It's not so much that he thinks it will keep

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Speaker 1: him out of jail, as that he is very angry

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Speaker 1: at the legal establishment for what he believes to be

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Speaker 1: a politicized case against him. My conversation with Ethan continues

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Speaker 1: after the break. This feeling that acracy in Israel is

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Speaker 1: under threat if the kinetic can simply overrule the courts

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Speaker 1: has caused enormous protests throughout Israel. And as you write,

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Speaker 1: it's not the usual people you would think who would

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Speaker 1: be pouring out into the streets to protest. So we

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Speaker 1: have a fascinating situation ten weeks in a row of

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Speaker 1: at least once a week and usually twice a week,

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands. In some cases there have been several

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand people in the streets, and they're led by

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Speaker 1: the kind of upper middle classes, professional classes, hedge fund managers, bankers,

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Speaker 1: you know, all the major banks are basically letting their

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Speaker 1: employees out of work to go to these protests. We

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Speaker 1: have CEOs and chairmen out on the street holding Israeli flags.

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Speaker 1: There is a sense that these people feel who've been saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've been doing our business of building companies.

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Speaker 1: We've had a sort of implicit deal with the government.

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Speaker 1: You take care of stuff and we'll build the economy.

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Speaker 1: And suddenly they feel that they've allowed too much to

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Speaker 1: go on and if they don't step forward now, the

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Speaker 1: society that they want to live in will disappear. And

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Speaker 1: that bargain has been pretty good for Israel because has

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Speaker 1: become a powerful economy, a leader in tech, in in

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Speaker 1: other industries. If you look at gross domestic product per

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Speaker 1: capita twenty or thirty years ago, it was a fraction

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Speaker 1: of what it is today. The Israeli economy is really

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Speaker 1: an extraordinary success story, particularly the last twenty years, in

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Speaker 1: which has been driven by tech and driven by the

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Speaker 1: people who are on the streets. So there's another factor

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Speaker 1: here we haven't really talked about, which is that on

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Speaker 1: the right you also have the ultra orthodox parties, in

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Speaker 1: which you have many many men who basically study for

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Speaker 1: a living, have six seven, eight children and are not

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Speaker 1: productive in the typical capitalistic way we think of, and

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Speaker 1: the economy is being carried by the people who are

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Speaker 1: in the streets and who feel that the people who

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Speaker 1: are studying and not in the streets in fact don't

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Speaker 1: understand how modern society works, and they're going to allow

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Speaker 1: a takeover of the court system in order to create

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Speaker 1: what they're afraid it will be a kind of theocracy,

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Speaker 1: and which the Torah studiers may not actually object to.

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Speaker 1: Some of the people who are out in the street

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Speaker 1: obviously they're protesting because they feel a sort of patriotic

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Speaker 1: sense that the country is slipping through their fingers. But

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Speaker 1: it's also bad for business that businesses are worried about

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen for the ability to keep Israel

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Speaker 1: as a driver of economic growth. That is correct. There

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Speaker 1: is a deep, deep concern that the conditions for business,

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Speaker 1: which have been very very pro market, very helpful for

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Speaker 1: the kind of technological advance and innovation that has been

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Speaker 1: going on here, will disappear if the legal system is

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Speaker 1: a slave to the political system. Right, if you don't

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Speaker 1: have kind of courts that you can count on to

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Speaker 1: make the sorts of reasonable decisions that the modern market

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Speaker 1: system requires, that is scaring people. And the truth is

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Speaker 1: it's two components. One is the legal system will not

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Speaker 1: be reliable. The other is the people who are typically

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Speaker 1: innovative today will not want to live here, and so

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Speaker 1: the combination could really do terrible things to the economy.

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Speaker 1: And in these weeks of protest, there has been you know,

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Speaker 1: it's been very difficult to assess the amount, but there's

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Speaker 1: unquestionably been money not coming in and money leaving out

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Speaker 1: of concern that the reliability of the Israeli's system is

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Speaker 1: under question. Even you went out into the protests and

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Speaker 1: tell Aviv, what were they like? What did you hear

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Speaker 1: when you were talking to people? It is really and

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Speaker 1: I've been visiting this country for many, many years, whilst

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Speaker 1: I've really never seen this level of anxiety and of

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Speaker 1: a kind of spiritual patriotism that you found on this streets.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, the demonstrations in the heart of Tel

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Speaker 1: Aviv occur in the high Tower part of the city,

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Speaker 1: So you have these massive towers, all a result of

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Speaker 1: the money that's come in over the last twenty or

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Speaker 1: thirty years. You have the Defense Ministry within sight. You

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Speaker 1: have all of these middle aged people carrying Israeli flags

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Speaker 1: and kind of singing Israeli songs. The Declaration of Independence

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Speaker 1: as it was read by the founding Prime Minister David

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Speaker 1: Ben Gurion is heard in that Crackley Radio recording of

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Speaker 1: the original nineteen forty eight one has been broadcast in

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Speaker 1: various places. You will be added to the sides of

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Speaker 1: buildings that are owned by high tech companies have the

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Speaker 1: words of the Declaration of Independence put up on them.

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Speaker 1: Big electronic billboards that advertise McDonald's and Coke are also

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Speaker 1: saying we're here for democracy. And the other thing was

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Speaker 1: happening is because it's been going on regularly for at

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Speaker 1: the same time every week, you have almost like a

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Speaker 1: farmer's market feeling. The doctors are there, the lawyers are

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Speaker 1: the psychologists are there. They all have their kind of

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Speaker 1: signs and their slogans, and there is a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a block party feeling to it as well. You know,

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Speaker 1: these are all people who kind of know each other.

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Speaker 1: I have to say that in the socio ethnic breakdown

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Speaker 1: of Israel, it is heavily Ashkenazi, which is to say,

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Speaker 1: Whitish Jews of European origin, not so much Middle Eastern,

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Speaker 1: very few Arabs. So in that sense, you know, that's

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Speaker 1: one of the ways in which the other side of

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Speaker 1: this debate can say, look, they're self dealing. They're protecting themselves.

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Speaker 1: These are the sort of old, rich, white Ashkenazim who

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Speaker 1: want to hold onto their power and their money. But

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Speaker 1: I found an enormous amount of sincere concern. I did

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Speaker 1: go out one night with a man who co founded

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Speaker 1: one of the largest investment companies in the country, are

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Speaker 1: called Kumer Capital. His name is Arras Shahar, He's fifty

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Speaker 1: nine years old, and he said to me, look, I've

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Speaker 1: never been politically involved. I thought I had a deal.

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Speaker 1: You keep the country safe, I'll build an innovation economy.

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Speaker 1: And instead I realized that's slipping out from under me.

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Speaker 1: I am here to say we're going to take this

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Speaker 1: all the way. And now the question of court is

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Speaker 1: what does it mean Natania, who does have a majority

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Speaker 1: in the government, what can this side accomplish. So now

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Speaker 1: I can say to you that there is talk led

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Speaker 1: largely by the President of Israel. This is Isaac Hertzog,

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Speaker 1: who has relatively symbolic role, it's not a role of

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Speaker 1: real power, who's trying to find common ground to say, Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm open to the idea that there needs to be changed.

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Speaker 1: This change is too radical and too sudden. Let's find

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Speaker 1: ways to move this forward in a reasonable way. But

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Speaker 1: another thing that's happening, and Shahar and people around him

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Speaker 1: felt this way, is that Israel needs to put into

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Speaker 1: a constitution certain rights that will be inviolable ball so

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Speaker 1: that if in fact, the ultra Orthodox community grows and

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Speaker 1: becomes a third of the population in fifty years, which

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Speaker 1: is the prediction, that it will not be possible for

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Speaker 1: them to vote in a kind of tyranny of the

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Speaker 1: majority way for a theocratic state. So that's ultimately their goal,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's accomplishable. You spoke to Schachar,

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Speaker 1: and let's listen to a little bit of what he

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Speaker 1: had to say. So the traditional reform is a whitewashed

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Speaker 1: term for really turning Israel into an autocracy. The courts

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Speaker 1: are actually being dismantled in this move, and the government

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Speaker 1: gets complete power on legislation without the court supervision and oversight.

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Speaker 1: So this is the playbook of turning a democracy into authocracy. No,

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Speaker 1: it's very rare to see tech people, venture capitalists go

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Speaker 1: out of the street to demonstrate, but we feel that

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Speaker 1: we're fighting for our homeland, we're fighting for our country,

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Speaker 1: and we've taken a position a very clear one that

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Speaker 1: we will not let Israel become a non democracy. So

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Speaker 1: we are fighting for a liberal democratic Israel. There could

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Speaker 1: be no other Israel where things go from here when

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Speaker 1: we come back Ethan. Another big thing that's happening here

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Speaker 1: is that the military, which is one of the core

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Speaker 1: cultural institutions of Israel, is also in turmoil over this,

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Speaker 1: and some people are saying they'll refuse to serve. The

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Speaker 1: military is a central institution in this country, apart from

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Speaker 1: the ultra Orthodox and Arabs. There is compulsory service, so

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Speaker 1: about fifty sixty seventy percent of people serve in it,

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Speaker 1: and it's the longest compulsory service of any demand Christian

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Speaker 1: in the world, three years for men. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that happens because it's compulsory military service here, the

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Speaker 1: military watches kids in high school and anyone who shows

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Speaker 1: quantitative promise is pulled aside, and if he's really good,

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Speaker 1: and I say he could be here or she really good,

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Speaker 1: they will be sent into units that specialize in cyber

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Speaker 1: and high tech and that sort of thing, and then

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Speaker 1: they are a central part of what's the intelligence unit

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Speaker 1: in the Israeli militaries, known as Unit eighty two hundred

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Speaker 1: is the largest in the military today. And so they

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Speaker 1: form bonds, professional bonds in the military, and then when

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Speaker 1: they lead, they form startups based on the knowledge and

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Speaker 1: the sense of the establishment here. Sometimes when I was

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Speaker 1: out on the street, I thought of the Vietnam protests

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Speaker 1: in the United States in the late sixties, And the

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Speaker 1: difference is really quite important, because, yes, these are educated,

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Speaker 1: relatively well off people in the streets complaining about a

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Speaker 1: conservative government's policy. But in this case, it is not

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Speaker 1: kids who don't want to go to the military. It's

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Speaker 1: people who've spent their lives in the military. So the establishment,

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Speaker 1: the absolute establishment of what has made this wealthy, advanced

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Speaker 1: country is in open revolt against a kind of populous

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Speaker 1: set of proposals, and it's fascinating Ethan. All of this

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Speaker 1: is of course also happening against the ongoing backdrop of

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Speaker 1: conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Recently we've seen another

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Speaker 1: uptick in violence. How is all of this playing into

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Speaker 1: that they are intimately linked For a bunch of reasons.

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Speaker 1: You made reference to the fact that there are people

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Speaker 1: in the military who are saying, if these changes of

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Speaker 1: the judiciary go through, they might not actually respond to

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Speaker 1: the call up for service. Those are reservists, and if

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Speaker 1: as the problems get worse in the West Bank, they

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Speaker 1: were to suddenly not show up, that would certainly cause

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Speaker 1: an enormous alarm in this country. But I mean, the

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Speaker 1: other thing is that one of the great divides in

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Speaker 1: this country politically is what should happen in the occupied

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Speaker 1: West Bank in East Jerusalem, with the left saying it

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Speaker 1: needs to be the basis for a Palestinian state and

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Speaker 1: the right largely saying there should not be a Palestinian state.

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Speaker 1: We need to absorb this land, and that's our historic

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Speaker 1: Jewish homeland, biblical homeland, and that's where we want to

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Speaker 1: continue to build our country. So the conflict with the

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Speaker 1: Palestinians touches on this issue at every point. Do you

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Speaker 1: think that pressure being brought to bear by the US

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Speaker 1: government or by Western European governments can actually force netya

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Speaker 1: who's hand? You know, the question of whether pressure works

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Speaker 1: is one of the eternal questions of the human condition.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I do believe that, you know, one

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Speaker 1: of the things that has been the case for the

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Speaker 1: last twenty years is that a certain kind of Western

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Speaker 1: government and Western thinker has been critical of Israel and

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Speaker 1: the Natanya who governments and those around him have learned

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Speaker 1: to sort of say, listen, those guys, the hell with them.

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Speaker 1: They don't care about us anyway. But one of the

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Speaker 1: things that is so striking about these last two or

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Speaker 1: three months is that people who have stood by Israel,

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Speaker 1: the Likud party, Natanya who in the past, are standing

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Speaker 1: up and saying no, no, no, this is the wrong

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Speaker 1: way to go. There are a whole series also of

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Speaker 1: other middle of the road politically Jewish thinkers in the

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Speaker 1: United States and elsewhere who are vociferously calling for this

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Speaker 1: to stop. So I feel like it's another quality of objection.

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Speaker 1: Although again, where does it go. We don't really know.

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Speaker 1: Israel status as a democracy in a region which is

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Speaker 1: very volatile has given it a lot of support, especially

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Speaker 1: from the US and also Western Europe. Does this threaten

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Speaker 1: to shake that relationship. Israel is pretty dependent on support

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Speaker 1: from the West. You know, The truth is that I

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Speaker 1: think it's a little less dependent than it once was.

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Speaker 1: It is a very very healthy economy with an extremely

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Speaker 1: powerful military. But that said, it values enormously a sense

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Speaker 1: that it is a member of the kind of club

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Speaker 1: of liberal democracies essentially in the West, and it is

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Speaker 1: opposing a challenge to those relationships. The leaders of France, Britain, Germany,

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Speaker 1: and the United States have all said allowed that they

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Speaker 1: are concerned about these tradicial changes, that an independent judiciary

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Speaker 1: is core to a democratic system, and the American Jewish community,

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Speaker 1: which has been very important to Israel's existence and survival

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Speaker 1: over the years, is alarmed about it as well. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's complicated because they're also alarmed about some of the

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Speaker 1: members of the government that Nigenia who have brought in,

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Speaker 1: who have a history of racist state So, yes, it's

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Speaker 1: all up in the air. The sort of people who

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Speaker 1: might read Bloomberg in Israel are deeply depressed right now.

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Speaker 1: In Israel. They feel that their country is slipping from

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Speaker 1: their hands. Although there is also the sense that they

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Speaker 1: are going to stand up and prevent this from happening,

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Speaker 1: they're not sure they can win. Well, that raises the

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Speaker 1: question can they win If net and Yah, who has

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Speaker 1: a coalition government, he has the votes to pass pretty

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Speaker 1: much anything that he wants, how can this be stopped?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really think anyone knows exactly what

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Speaker 1: that answer would be. I think the feeling is that

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Speaker 1: if the pressure is so intense, if it really were

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Speaker 1: clear that money, or if we think of the SVB

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Speaker 1: bank run, that if we think of that as kind

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Speaker 1: of a model that could happen here, which is there's

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Speaker 1: concern you never know and then suddenly everybody wants to

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Speaker 1: pull out that if there were a run, if you

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Speaker 1: like on the Bank of Israel, and enough reservists said,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to do it, that somehow

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Speaker 1: it would That's somehow those are around Natanya who would say, listen,

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Speaker 1: this needs to stop. We need to negotiate. So that

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Speaker 1: is I think the only scenario I can imagine in

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Speaker 1: which he loses, because I don't think any member of

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Speaker 1: his coalition is going to peel away to the center

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Speaker 1: of the loft at the moment. But it's an enormous mystery.

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Speaker 1: How can this go anyway except the way he wants

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Speaker 1: it to go? Ethan Browner, thanks for talking with me today.

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Speaker 1: Been a pleasure, West, Thank you thanks for listening to

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Speaker 1: us here at the Big Take. It's a daily podcast

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00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from my Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen,

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Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions

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00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The

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Speaker 1: supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergelina. Our

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00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: senior producer is Katherine Fink. Rebecca Chasson is our producer.

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Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Sam Gebauer. Raphael M. Seely is

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Speaker 1: our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.

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Speaker 1: I'm Westcasova. We'll be back on Monday with another Big Take.

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Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. H