The Tel Aviv District Court in one swoop has threatened Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ability to carry out concessions to the Palestinian Authority, meaning U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and also has made him vulnerable to a rebellion within his Likud party.

The ruling, virtually unnoticed or underplayed by most Israeli media, overthrows an internal Likud court decision that decreed that the head of the party’s Central Committee has the power to convene the committee on police issues, a power that Netanyahu wants only for himself.

The head of the committee happens to be one of Netanyahu’s’ most nationalist Knesset Members, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon.

After the internal Likud court overruled the Likud law committee’s decision backing Danon, he appealed to the Tel Aviv court and won his case on Monday. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu is not accepting defeat and will appeal to the Supreme Court.

That will be an interesting show. On the one hand, the High Court has a long history of ruling for democracy, in this case the claim by Danon and supported by the Tel Aviv court that Netanyahu is trying to take totalitarian control of the party.

On the other hand, if the High Court, which historically loves Peace Now and hates nationalists, upholds Danon’s claim, it could put in jeopardy Kerry’s juggernaut that has trampled over the Prime Minister. Netanyahu so far has refused to say “no” for fear of being blamed for standing up against President Barack Obama and wrecking his plan to pronounce instant peace in the Middle East with the creation of a new Palestinian Authority state within Israel’s own borders.

If Danon can convene the Central Committee on issues that Netanyahu wants to decide for himself, such as paving the way for expelling more than 150,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria, dividing Jerusalem and allowing NATO troops to protect Israel from Palestinian Authority terrorists, he could very well win the day and bury Kerry’s blind drive to rub Israel’s nose in the sand at Mahmoud Abbas’ feet.

The only obstacle to a full-scale rebellion within the Likud party is Netanyahu’s power to fire any Cabinet minister and deputy minister who gets in his way. The list is getting longer every day, including Danon, Tzipi Hotovely, Ze’ev Elkin, Yuval Steinitz and Miri Regev, among others.

If the Supreme Court does not change the lower court decision, Prime Minister Netanyahu can easily climb down from his limb, which is getting longer every day and where he is hanging much lonelier than ever, and tell President Obama that “democracy is democracy,” and, “Tough luck, pal.”

If the Likud committee votes its conscience and squashes proposed concessions, and if Prime Minister Netanyahu insists on walking on his knees with Washington, he could face political oblivion.

In 2005, the Liked Central committee voted overwhelmingly against a policy of expelling Jews from Gaza. When Sharon nevertheless tried to get his way in the Knesset Likud, formed the Kadima party and brought along most of the former Likud MKs who wanted their seats of power more than a clean conscience.

Netanyahu, who did not join the parade, does not have the clout that Sharon had.

Trying to for a new party and heading a center-left coalition would be political suicide

But having to swallow the dictates of the party Central Committee would leave him with less power.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday froze the money going to Haredi yeshivas, following a Tuesday Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to halt all payments to yeshivas whose students’ draft has been postponed.

Lapid instructed the Finance Ministry’s comptroller to freeze the payments, but on Thursday he issued a statement saying that, after discovering that the funds had already been sent to the Education Ministry, he convened an emergency meeting with his comptroller following which he ordered her to block those funds as well.

Lapid’s statement said that this was done in an effort to obey the high court’s ruling.

Now the two offices will be cooperating to separate the 18- to 20-year-old yeshiva students with an August draft postponement, who will not be paid, from the rest of the yeshiva students.

“These will no longer receive state funds,” said the Lapid statement. “Only once the Education Ministry’s examination of their cases is concluded will the Finance Ministry release the funds to those yeshiva students not included in the court ruling.”

The Supreme Court ruled on several appeals from so called good government groups. The court ordered government to issue an updated announcement by March 31 regarding the pay, saying the justices might issue a new decision should the Knesset not come up with new legislation by then.

Meanwhile, the justices have prohibited government to transfer any funds “intended to support Torah institution students born in 1994, 95 and the first half of 96, who received their draft date starting in August, 2013, and who have not shown up to be drafted based on general decisions to postpone their draft made by the IDF Chief of Staff.”

So, everybody wins: Lapid gets to show his few remaining potential voters that he’s tough on parasitic Haredim; the Haredi yeshiva deans get to show the world that Israel hates Torah; and Yeshiva students and their families get a rare opportunity to drop their nasty habit of eating several times a day and living in homes.

Israel’s VIP Protection Unit has warned Israeli government ministers that they should not travel on Road 443 due to escalating terror attacks. Those attacks include stones, firebombs, and a roadside bomb that was neutralized before it could explode, according to a report on Israel Army Radio this morning.

Road 443 is the second main highway connecting Jerusalem, Israel’s capital to Tel Aviv, Israel’s financial center.

When the Supreme Court ordered, just over 3 years ago, that parts of Road 443 be reopened to traffic by Palestinian Authority citizens, the more grounded Israelis warned that the road would return to being the terror zone it was before it was closed off to PA traffic and terrorism.

Before Road 443 was closed, six Israelis had been killed and more injured by Palestinian Authority Arab attacks on Jews travelling on the road.

Those on the left claimed that these Israelis were being paranoid and exaggerating (remember the warning about rockets on Israel from Gaza, before the disengagement).

It wasn’t long after Road 443 was reopened that the stone throwing attacks began again and escalated to the level it is now.

It raises the obvious question, since we know what prevents these terror attacks on Road 443, why are Israeli ministers being warned from traveling on the road, instead of the government resolving the terror problem the way it knows that works.

In a last ditch attempt to block the granting of university status to Ariel College, some Israeli universities turned to the Supreme Court to block the decision.

Three Supreme Court judges, including the court president ruled against the petition, stating that the process was done properly, confirming Ariel’s new upgraded status.

For a country that promotes higher education, surprisingly, Ariel is its first new university in decades.

Or not so surprising, as among other things, universities receive additional government funding, causing the existing universities to be concerned about the slicing of their pie, thus blocking new entries into the market.

For some of the universities, their opposition was also political, as Ariel University is located in post-67 Israel.

Unlike in the US, in Israel, universities are considered to be more prestigious than colleges, and only universities can offer a doctorate degree.

Israel’s Supreme Court has suspended a Rabbinical Court (Beit Din) order that a woman in divorce proceedings allow her baby son, now one year old, to be circumcised. The woman also was ordered to pay a fine of $150 for each day the brit mila is not performed.

She originally objected to circumcision because she said her son was not medically fit but since has said that a brit mila causes suffering.

The woman appealed the Netanya Beit Din’s decision to the secular judicial system, which put the rabbis’ order on hold until the judges reach a decision on whether the Beit Din has authority to order a circumcision.

A mother in Israel has appealed to the country’s Supreme Court a rabbinical court ruling requiring her to circumcise her son.

In her appeal filed Wednesday, the mother said the rabbis cannot order her to circumcise her son, who is now a year old.

The Jerusalem rabbinical court last month upheld the ruling of the Netanya rabbinical court ordering the mother to have her son circumcised as per her ex-husband’s wishes or pay a $142 fine each day until the procedure is performed. The Netanya court presided over the woman’s divorce, according to Haaretz.

The boy was not circumcised on the eighth day, as per Jewish custom, due to medical problems, according to reports.

The Jerusalem court said it believes the mother is using the circumcision as leverage in her divorce, but she told Haaretz last month that she “started reading about what actually happens in circumcision, and I realized that I couldn’t do that to my son.”

The mother has not been identified in media reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of a Minnesota rabbi who claimed he was cut from an airline’s frequent flier program for earning too many miles.

Oral arguments in the case of Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg were heard on Tuesday.

Ginsberg was one of Northwest Airlines’ top fliers when he was cut from its program in 2008. Northwest has since been absorbed by Delta.

The rabbi, who acquired his frequent flier miles by consulting with educational organizations, says the airline was targeting top miles earners. Northwest counters that Ginsberg complained too frequently — 24 times in a seven-month period.

The case hinges on whether federal regulatory discretion extends to routine lawsuits such as this one.

Ginsberg says Northwest’s actions were a breach of contract. Lawyers for the airline, backed by the Obama administration, say handing Ginsberg a victory could open the door to chaotic state-to-state differences on what is and is not litigable.

An Israeli divorcee who has fought for a year to prevent her son from being circumcised said she will appeal to the Supreme Court to cancel a rabbinical court order that she allow a brit milah to be performed on the baby.

The unusual case occurs at a time when there is growing pressure in Europe and some isolated parts of Canada and the United States to ban or control circumcision, which opponents say is a violation of human rights since the baby does not have the freedom of choice.

The order to the mother, identified as Elinor, to have her circumcised upholds a similar ruling last month by a Netanya rabbinical court. Her baby now is one year old, and she originally objected on medical grounds to circumcising her son after eight days, as prescribed by Jewish law unless there are medical reasons to postpone it.

The mother is fighting the father’s determination to have the baby circumcised, and the Jerusalem rabbinical court said that she may be exploiting  the act of circumcision “as a tool to make headway in the divorce struggle,” according to Haaretz.

The court ordered the mother to pay a fine of $140 for each day the boy remains uncircumcised.

No one is speaking about a ban in Israel of the Jewish custom that is part of the heart and soul of Judaism, but the case tests the authority of rabbinical courts and strikes at the very heart of Judaism at a time when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is insisting that Israel be known by the Palestinian Authority as a “Jewish state.”

Jewish law, like secular law, does not allow one to choose what law he wants to observe, particularly when it comes to circumcision that Jews have practiced for centuries at the risk of death by tyrannical regimes, dating back to the Roman Empire and more recently to the Communist regime in the former Soviet Union.

The mother’s opposition, as quoted by the newspaper, parallels that of anti-circumcision campaigners outside of Israel who are protesting that the procedure should be banned because it is painful and should not be done without the approval a child, who of course cannot be reasonably state his opinion until he is at least a teenager.

“I started reading about what actually happens in circumcision, and I realized that I couldn’t do that to my son. He’s perfect just as he is,” the mother told Haaretz. Jewish thought explains that one of the lessons of the Torah law for circumcision is exactly the opposite of what she said – that no one is born perfect and that everyone must make a “tikun” to repair the world, starting with himself.

The rabbinical court noted, “We have been seeing public and legal fights against circumcision in the United States and Europe for quite some time. The public in Israel stands united against this phenomenon, seeing it as another aspect of the anti-Semitic acts that must be fought.”

If the case reaches the Supreme Court it will have special significance due to recent legislation that diluted the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, which is dominated by the Haredi stream of Judaism, to decide where couple can get married and what conditions they have to meet for a marriage to be performed.