Law, Power, and Justice

How the war in Gaza could lead to a new constitutional order.
— Read on www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israels-unfinished-democracy

Excerpts

this past summer, polls indicated that 45 percent of the public thought that the country was on the brink of a violent civil war.

the polarization has hardly disappeared: even now, at the height of the fighting, the trust that Israelis place in the government is at an all-time low, and the rally-round-the-flag effect has been limited to support for the Israel Defense Forces and their mission to defeat Hamas

. Israel will need to reframe its whole approach to the Palestinian conflict. Many have also speculated that the current leadership, led by Netanyahu, will have to step down at the end of the war.

After a dangerous brush with illiberal, authoritarian rule, Israelis will not be content to return to the status quo. They will demand firm guarantees that a temporary majority cannot overturn democracy and constitutional safeguards that will enshrine its citizens’ individual rights.

Israel’s military establishment was convinced that even if Hamas did try to attack, it would be thwarted by the billion-dollar high-tech security barrier that had been constructed at the end of 2021 along the 1949 armistice line. That

Often understood merely as a power grab aimed at helping the prime minister avoid jail time for corruption, Netanyahu’s proposed changes would have seriously degraded Israel’s democratic foundations. By giving the governing coalition a veto over the Supreme Court, the reform would effectively end the country’s independent judiciary—and to many Israelis, it looked like a way to ensure that the country’s extreme right settler and ultra-Orthodox sectors retain extraordinary privileges and influence. Although they constitute only about 13 percent of Israel’s overall population, the ultra-Orthodox are prominently represented in the governing coalition. And to the consternation of a majority of Israelis, the ultra-Orthodox have long refused to serve in the IDF or to enter the workforce at anything close to the same rate as the rest of the country. The judicial reforms would have allowed them to continue to receive special subsidies and economic incentives, even as their contribution to national security and the Israeli economy is negligible.

Yet Israel’s leaders seemed to think that they could afford to promote divisive and dangerous policies, even if it polarized the electorate and weakened national security in the process. As with its assumptions about Hamas, the government’s determination to flout overwhelming public opposition to its judicial overhaul plans proved to be fatally misguided.

Netanyahu’s ratings have continued to decline—including among those who voted for his coalition in the elections a year ago. For instance, in a survey published on October 31,

In other words, although Israelis have broadly endorsed the war effort, the prime minister has never been more unpopular, with only 22 percent of Jewish Israelis giving him high grades for his performance during the war

many of the issues that dominated Netanyahu’s quest for power—his judicial overhaul, the veto power enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox parties—will be among the first that are targeted for change by a new leadership.

Take the effort to formalize military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox. The flagship initiative of the religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, this was a sweeping bill that would legalize the existing reality according to which all yeshiva students are exempt from military service. The bill is now, for all practical purposes, dead on arrival. After the enormous losses incurred by the IDF in the war in Gaza—and given that almost no ultra-Orthodox are represented in the country’s rapidly filling military cemeteries—it is highly unlikely that the Knesset would consider