From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker, on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

I'm delighted you're joining us this week. If you're not already a subscriber, please do subscribe

to Free Expression wherever you get your podcasts, and if you can, leave us a very nice review.

This week, the political crisis in Israel. Is Benjamin Netanyahu really pushing the Jewish

state on the path of illiberalism and undermining democracies, as many critics in the US and

elsewhere, allege? Or is he merely undertaking a long overdue effort to rebalance a political

system that gives way too much power

to unelected judges. And what are the wider implications for the world of the struggle between

Israeli conservatives and their critics? Is it another sign of the slow collapse of liberal

democracy? And if so, should we be concerned or maybe even hopeful? This week, under pressure

from massive protests and resignation within his own

coalition government, Benjamin Nesigno, the Israeli Prime Minister, put on hold his plan for a radical

overhaul of Israel's Supreme Court. The plan would have significantly increased the elected

government's role in choosing members of the court and would have sharply limited the scope of the

court to intervene in disputes. The proposal outraged many in Israel who saw it as another

example of advancing illiberal democracy. And it's been heavily attacked in many of Israel's allies,

including here in the United States, as heralding a dangerous lunge towards authoritarian populism.

So what happens next? I'm joined this week by Ben-Dra Yomini, an Israeli journalist and commentators

written for numerous newspapers and magazines in Israel and around the world.

Yomini is a strong defender of Israel against its many critics overseas, and he often identifies rightly anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism.

But he's also knows at times when the right time to criticize the Israeli government, and he's been speaking with great interest and great authority on this subject of the Supreme Court. And Benjaro Yemini joins me right now. Mr. Yemini, thank you very much for joining free expression. Thank you for having me. So I want to get into the merits or demerits of what Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to do and into the substance of the debate

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