Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu must need some pretty heavy duty medication to sleep at night. He's between a big rock and a massive hard place, to say the least.
The longest serving Prime Minister in the history of the country had to sell his soul to the extreme right in order to win his sixth term in office, but now the chickens have come home to roost. Comprised mostly of religious zealots, these legislators demanded that Netanyahu reform the judicial system, giving more power to the executive branch thereby diminishing that of judges, which hold the only check against a dictatorship in this fledgling democracy. There's something in it for him personally too. He's been on trial for corruption for 3 years, so if he can ram through changes in the system, it might prevent him from having to wear an orange jumpsuit at some point down the line.
Netanyahu forgot one thing - Israel has become far more secular than it has been in the past and its citizens wanted nothing to do with these reforms, so when they were announced and about to be enacted, the shit hit the fan and the country erupted. Nobody went to work and instead went out on the streets yelling and screaming and jumping up and down. When soldiers announced they weren't going to report to their posts and fighter pilots saying they wouldn't fly unless the Prime Minister called off the crazies....well that was a bridge too far and Netanyahu caved.
But he didn't cancel the reforms - he only postponed them for a few weeks so both sides could "talk", although neither party said they would budge from their positions. Sound familiar?
This is what happens when religion is interjected into the process of how human beings govern themselves. It flat out doesn't work because nobody's god is better than somebody else's.
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