Since my last newsletter on March 3, increasing numbers of military reservists - notably from the IDF’s top units - have threatened to refuse service if the Netanyahu government’s judicial reform plan moves forward. Other prominent voices in Israeli society, including but not limited to current Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron, former Shin-Bet chief Nadav Argaman, and Israel’s Consul General in New York City, have warned that the current path will have catastrophic economic, social, diplomatic, and political consequences for the country.
On March 15, amidst the tenth consecutive week of public protests, President Isaac Herzog presented an alternative judicial model to the Israeli public in an attempt to find compromise before the situation turns into a full-fledged constitutional crisis.
Herzog depicted a grave situation. “Those who think that a real civil war, with human lives, is a border we won’t cross,” he cautioned, “have no idea…the abyss is within reach.”
Herzog’s proposal was quickly rejected by the coalition.
This isn’t Israel’s first culture war, nor will it be the last. Such is the fate of nations comprised of a heterogenous mixture of peoples, faiths, and ideologies. There is a real rift between some of those who believe that what makes the Israeli enterprise unique is primarily its democratic character and some of those who believe that it is primarily its Jewish character. As someone who grew up in the United States, I was educated to believe those two principles were complimentary. However, in a country with no real separation between religion & state, these principles often compete with one another in the public square. So long as that competition remained nonviolent, many Israelis were able find creative ways to strike a balance between the two principles. But the combination of five consecutive elections (each more polarizing than the one before it) and the tone/pace of the government’s legislative agenda only aggravated these raw nerves which we now see being demonstrated on the street.
Public opinion polling indicates that trust in Israel’s public institutions has already been in decline for several years, but the debate over judicial reform has engendered discourse about issues like military service that threatens the social contracts upon which Israeli society relies. This should be enough for the moderates in both camps to call for the process to stop before the situation descends further into anarchy.
It is difficult to convincingly argue that judicial reform is the most important thing that Israel needs right now.
However this crisis has demonstrated that, nearly 75 years into its existence, the time has come for Israel to craft a document that embodies and protects the common values and interests of those whose fate is tied to this state-building project. As of today those documents are the Declaration of Independence and Basic Laws, but what the Israel really needs is a constitution. But a constitution requires dialogue, understanding, civility, and a willingness to compromise. That isn’t Israel’s current reality.
What happens next? Well, there are two weeks remaining to the Knesset’s winter session, so the coalition is on the clock to advance its legislative package or moderate some of the language pertaining to judicial reform. Perhaps the coalition will choose to split its legislative priorities between the winter session and delay some of the processes until after the holiday season, and in doing so try to split the opposition. Some Likud voices are advocating for a softer approach, but it remains unclear whether they will be heard or whether any proposed alterations will be enough to calm the waters. Odds are there will be more noise, more disinformation, more protests.
If this is a turning point in Israel’s history, and there is good reason to believe it is, then it would be prudent for its leadership to consider the twin messages of Abraham Lincoln, who on the eve of civil war called for the “better angels” of human temperament to overcome the desire for schism and division, and Martin Luther King Jr. who in A Gift of Love argued that a failure to see the humanity in the “other” is the primary cause behind the suffering in the world, that - if left unchecked - sets in motion a chain reaction that will plunge humanity into “the dark abyss of annihilation”.
I always prefer a mixed methods approach to understanding large, transformative social developments, so I’ve pulled together three pieces that I hope offer some windows into what is going on:
To start, read in detail the Israel Democracy Institute’s latest index, which offers some valuable insights into the varying perspectives in Israel at the present moment, as well as some subtle changes within the protest movement from January to February. For me, one of the very telling components of the index were the figures relating to the question “how does Israel’s situation today compare to its situation in the period before the formation of the current government?” Whereas there were sharp contrasts between how coalition vs opposition voters saw Israel’s economic, security, and diplomatic standing, there is consensus that the government has negatively impacted the relationship between different groups within Israeli society.
Another excellent read is Isaac Chotiner’s New Yorker interview with pollster and analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who (amongst many other important insights) explains why Israel never achieved a constitution in its early years:
“…the reason they were unable to was a combination of undemocratic forms of governance that David Ben-Gurion [Israel’s first Prime Minister] preferred at the time and an unwillingness to antagonize and risk losing the participation of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition. There was no other option, because they weren’t willing to allow Arabs full legitimate political representation at the time—not in the form of their own political parties and certainly not in the governing coalition.”
Finally, I recommend Dan Ben-David’s 5 part look into some of the systemic challenges that Israel faces, from the start-up nation and labor trends, to questionable domestic policies, the ultra-Orthodox education and labor trends as part of broader public education woes, and the big demographic trend. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t make for happy reading. But it does put the judicial reform debate within the context of greater changes happening within Israeli society.
I hope you find this edition’s content engaging. Please feel free share this newsletter with others.
-Gabi