Otzma Yehudit MK Amichai Eliyahu published a post on Facebook in response to former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, who claimed in a speech at an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv on Motzei Shabbos that “Israel is no longer a liberal democracy.”

Eliyahu wrote, “The truth is, Mr. Barak, you are absolutely right. Israel indeed stopped being a liberal democracy—but not yesterday, and not because of the current government. Israel ceased to be a liberal democracy 30 years ago, on the day you, Mr. Barak, created what you grandly called ‘the constitutional revolution.’ That was the day you decided—without a mandate from the people, without Knesset approval, and without any democratic process—that you and your judicial elite would become the true sovereigns of the state.”

“And since then, you have ruled. Since then, you have tried to determine who will head the Shin Bet, freezing the dismissal of the failed Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, even though this is the exclusive authority of the elected government. Since then, you have dictated to the IDF what to do with terrorists’ bodies and prohibited the army from holding them for negotiations over our hostages. Since then, you have decided how many square meters the murderers of Am Yisrael will receive in their prison cells—a minimum of 4.5 square meters for each terrorist, more than the average combat soldier receives during active service.

“Of course, along the way you also made sure to ensure ‘basic and proper food’ and ‘humane conditions’ for the murderers of October 7—those Nukhba terrorists who slaughtered, raped, burned, and abducted our sons and daughters. All this during wartime, while our hostages are being raped and starved in Gaza and returned as walking skeletons. Everything was permissible in your eyes as part of your personal war against the policies of National Security Minister Ben Gvir.

“With astonishing chutzpah, you even nullified Basic Laws and struck down 24 laws that the Knesset democratically enacted. You determined what is legal and what is illegal, what is ‘reasonable’ and what is ‘unreasonable,’ using that marvelous invention of yours—the ‘reasonableness doctrine’—an ambiguous term lacking any clear legal definition, whose sole purpose is to allow you and your colleagues to overturn any decision you dislike.

“With brazen arrogance, you ordered the Speaker of the Knesset in 2020, MK Edelstein, when to convene the plenum, and you also determined who is fit to serve as a minister and who is not. Not because you are above the law, but because you are the law—the ultimate arbiters, the supreme rulers.

“But the most outrageous point of all is the expansion of the right to petition the court. Until the 1980s, in order to petition the Supreme Court, one had to prove personal, direct, real and concrete harm. In simple terms: if something didn’t affect you personally, you had no business in court. Then you arrived, Mr. Barak. In ruling after ruling, you decided that this requirement lacked philosophical foundation, was not anchored in the separation of powers, and harmed the rule of law—in your words. Thus, you turned the Supreme Court into the private court of left‑wing NGOs and assorted professional petitioners.

“Suddenly anyone could petition about anything. As a result, the Association for Civil Rights petitions against every government decision it dislikes. Yesh Din petitions against every necessary security action. Adalah petitions on behalf of an invented people. B’Tselem petitions against the demolition of terrorists’ homes. The Center for the Defense of the Individual petitions against prison conditions, and the Committee Against Torture petitions against interrogation methods for terrorists. And you, Mr. Barak, opened the gates wide for them.

The ‘perimeter petition’ to the Supreme Court—in which left‑wing organizations such as Adalah, Yesh Din, and the Association for Civil Rights petitioned against the IDF’s open fire regulations in the perimeter zone along the Gaza border—led to the creation of a military protocol that tied our soldiers’ hands and enabled Hamas terrorists to approach the fence almost unhindered and prepare the infrastructure to blow up the security barrier on the day of the massacre.

“Thanks to your nefarious decision to expand the right to petition the court, there is no escaping the conclusion that you’re fully complicit in the failures that enabled the massacre. You are the one who turned the Supreme Court into the court of appeals for the enemy.

“Because of you—and because of your actions—the State of Israel is no longer a true democracy, for you did everything in your power to trample that democracy in which the people choose and the elected officials govern. You turned the separation of powers into a fusion of powers. You turned yourselves into legislators, enforcers, judges, and executioners—without checks, without balances, and without any accountability.

“So yes, Mr. Barak—absolutely—you’re completely right. This is not a liberal democracy—it’s an elitocracy, a dictatorship of robes. And you are its spiritual father and the chief architect of this democratic destruction.

“‘Amar Rebbi Yochanan: What is the meaning of ‘And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged?’ It was a generation that judged its judges (for the judges themselves were corrupt). He says to him: ‘Remove the splinter from between your teeth.’ He replies, ‘Remove the beam from between your eyes!'”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)