A petition calling for personal sanctions on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Supreme Court President Isaac Amit sparked predictable backlash, especially after the Trump administration softened its tone toward Israel. But the writer argues that the petition, which he says he initiated, was never about a specific diplomatic moment. It was meant to expose what he sees as a deeper shift in Israel, where real governing power has moved from elected officials to the legal system.
Using the comparative constitutional term "juristocracy," associated with Professor Ran Hirschl, the piece claims Israel is an extreme case of judicial expansion, in which judges and legal advisers effectively hold the final say. Hirschl, who studied under Aharon Barak, described the trend in his 2004 book "Towards Juristocracy," and the writer says Israel has since become a clear example of that model. In this view, personal sanctions are an unusually strong but legitimate external tool for pressuring entrenched legal power.
The article cites Brazil as evidence that sanctions can work, saying U.S. measures against Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes and the federal prosecution helped create pressure that eased the case of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced harshly and later moved to house arrest for health reasons. It argues that legal systems do not operate in a vacuum and that outside pressure can sometimes be the only force that checks excessive internal power.
The writer also dismisses criticism from two camps, the left associated with the Kaplan protests and religious Zionist critics around "Makor Rishon." He says the left has itself called for international pressure on right-wing ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, while the right’s sovereignty argument is incomplete because sovereignty depends on who actually makes final decisions. In his view, the Supreme Court has become a veto player over appointments, public policy, and security matters, and the current moment may not be ideal for advancing sanctions, but that does not mean the idea was wrong in principle.
