Via NYTimes:
Wrapping up its business before a long summer recess, the right-wing, religious coalition that rules Israel's Parliament moved aggressively this week to push through its polarizing agenda, piling up points at the expense of its already weakened foes.
On Monday, it empowered the education minister to bar some groups that criticize the Israeli occupation of the West Bank from speaking in public schools. On Tuesday, it accelerated what critics call the creeping annexation of the West Bank by cutting off Palestinians' access to the Supreme Court in land disputes. On Wednesday, it blocked single men and gay couples from having children through surrogacy.
The capstone, though, came Thursday, with passage of a law granting the Jewish people an exclusive right to national self-determination.
"Is there a unifying principle to this madness?" asked Donniel Hartman, a rabbi who is the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, which promotes Jewish pluralism and democracy.
More at the link above. Welcome to the one shining democracy in the middle east.But to right-leaning Israeli Jews, the measures were part of a long-overdue restoration of the proper balance between Israel's dual identities as a Jewish and a democratic state. Many supporters of the governing coalition see that balance as having been tilted dangerously askew after a quarter-century of legislating from the bench by a liberal Supreme Court.
"There are people who it's in their interest to make it sound extreme, but they're overexaggerating," said Sharren Haskel, a 34-year-old member of Likud, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party. "We are a right-wing government, we're proud of it, and we're bringing Israel to a better place."
Critics in the opposition, and even some on the right, say the frenzy of lawmaking reeked of pre-election-season posturing by a coalition that has cemented its hold on power, and whose members were trying to outbid one another for the support of their most hard-core primary-campaign voters.
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