It was with disbelief that many of us interested in international affairs looked on last week at events in Israel - described as the only true democracy in the Middle East. Its prime minister succeeded in taking a bold step towards dismantling that most lauded and hard won democracy by weakening the independence of the country's judicial system in making its judges more subject to political control. The answer to the question: Why would he do that? is: Self-interest. Pure and simple. Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting to avoid being found guilty in court and made to pay the penalty for his alleged corruption. It is akin to Donald Trump's presidential stacking of the Supreme Court with conservative justices to shape public policy and hopefully do his bidding when his three dozen-plus felonies come to court. Three more were added last Thursday.

Both men have been leading their countries into very dangerous waters, shaping democracy, not for ideological reasons but to protect themselves from justice. Donald Trump is the first US president to be indicted, and the string of felonies is so long, old and varied that a federal case could take well over another year, experts say, and reach trial after the November 2024 presidential election. Trump knows that according to the US constitution he cannot be stopped from running, even with his impeachments and indictments hanging over him. If he won the election he would be free to return to the White House and could claim, as he did before, that sitting presidents are immune to federal prosecution and invoke executive privilege to hide information and thwart the legal process with regard to his case. His legal team is fighting hard to ensure there is no pre-election criminal trial by using an array of delay tactics that could well succeed.

As for Netanyahu, he is ensuring the courts have little power to act against him in his ongoing corruption trial. He was tried and was desperate to avoid possible conviction before the last general election took place, since Israeli law banned anyone serving a jail sentence in the previous six years from ministerial office. He succeeded in narrowly winning last November's elections and forming a coalition of minority far right parties. Now he is on step two of saving Bibi. Recently, the government passed a law blocking the ability of the judiciary to declare the prime minister unfit for office, and the law passed last week further entrenches him ­- the government will now be able to hire and fire public servants without the intervention of the courts, which have had a lot of power in Israel. It also gets the decisive vote over some of the justices appointed to the Supreme Court. Israel has no constitution and a unicameral legislature, so the politicisation of the judicial system and the removal of the checks and balances needed to reign in the power of the Executive is very alarming to citizens. Opponents argue that now politicians could overturn a Supreme Court ruling by the narrowest possible majority, easily bring about fundamental