Israel’s Supreme Court’s decision to deny legislative control of the judiciary ends a now-faltering effort by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government to downsize the courts, which has sparked nine months of protests that ended only when attacked by Israel is Hamas on October 7.
The protests deeply divided Israel, but the ensuing war united it, even as pilots and reservists who had vowed to ignore military drills immediately showed up to fight before they were called up.
If Monday’s court decision lifted the wartime veil, revealing once again the culture war at the heart of Israeli politics, Mr. Netanyahu and his government responded by re-appealing to wartime unity to try to minimize their losses. This is another version of Mr. Netanyahu’s argument against almost every critic of his performance and his policies — that these are all topics to be discussed “after the war.”
And the court’s decision, however important, is expected to have little or no effect on the conduct of the war itself.
“I don’t think the decision will change,” said Amit Segal, a political columnist for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth who reported a leak of the decision and is considered close to Mr. Netanyahu. Even before the war, he said, “Netanyahu does not have enough artillery, so to speak, to defeat the enemy.” So it helped him that this decision came during the war, Mr. Segal said, because “he could justify the lack of reaction, and after the war he would have more important things,” such as his own political survival.
But the court and the war are connected in a way, because they are both important to the future and future identity of Israel. Israel sees the war as existential — the best way to restore its reputation in the region as unassailable and as a beacon of security for Jews around the world. The court’s decision goes to the heart of the debate over whether Israel will remain a thriving democracy, which is vital to its special relationship with the West.
Narrowly, the court ruled that the judiciary should be able to provide a check on the ability of a simple majority in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, to change the country’s fundamental laws and change the democratic character of the state. It leaves open the possibility of major legal changes through a special vote with a larger majority.
Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have argued that the courts have too much power over the law of elected lawmakers, are too liberal and are chosen undemocratically.
The court’s decision was seen by critics of Mr. Netanyahu, whose own trial on corruption charges is ongoing, as having saved the nature of a balanced democracy in a country without a constitution and without an upper house. Some, like former attorney general and former Supreme Court judge Menachem Mazuz, called it “the most important decision since the founding of the state.”
Until now, Mr. Mazuz said in a telephone interview, “The Knesset felt they could do whatever they wanted, determine that there are two days in the day and four in the night.” But the court decided that “there are limits to the authority of the Knesset, which is impossible to harm the democratic or Jewish character of the state, which has limitations.” That, he said, could allow for a different and improved agreement down the road “between the legal and political systems.”
But the decision “also plays into existing issues of the culture war in Israel,” said Bernard Avishai, an Israeli-American analyst in Jerusalem. “There is a growing division between people who think the war is winnable and — like Netanyahu — that Israel’s only goal is to become stronger and more formidable, and those who think the war is truly unwinnable in those terms, that we need some kind of diplomatic landscape, that we cannot continue to isolate the rest of the world, the region and the United States, where we get our weapons,” he said.
The court’s decision “brings into sharper focus this growing tension between those who want a reasonable diplomatic solution and those who want to return to the pre-war status quo, the same people who want to destroy the court,” Mr. Avishai said.
Mr. Netanyahu and his allies, he added, are pushing for a “Jewish state that rules the entire land of Israel,” including the annexation of large parts of the West Bank and even, as some ministers suggest, the resettlement of Gaza, while “the court is considered to be trying to liberalize the country, which is a challenge to the status quo and the annexation and ‘Land of Israel’ supporters.”
For Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli analyst and pollster, “there is a direct link between the outcome of this war and the nature of Israel, what kind of state it is and whether it can continue to claim to be democratic.”
The war, he said, “has been a great accelerator for the far-right designs of a far-right government, including annexation, possible expulsion and complete, formal Jewish sovereignty over the land and its people.”
Mr. is expected to use Netanyahu made the decision to continue trying to shore up his slim majority in Parliament, built on his coalition with religious nationalists and the far right. So far, Mr. refused. Netanyahu to condemn some of the harshest statements by his allies regarding the annexation of the West Bank and the settlement of Gaza. He has presented himself as an important bulwark against criticism by the rest of the world, including the United States, and the whole idea, favored by President Biden, of a future Gaza ruled by a “resurrected” Authority of Palestine.
In a recent example, Mr. Netanyahu supported his far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who refused Mr. Biden’s request that Israel transfer to the Palestinian Authority part of the Palestinian tax funds it collects in on behalf of the authority, intended for its employees in Gaza, announcing that he would resign from the government.
“Bibi is still their champion,” Mr. Avishai said.
Mr. also clarified Netanyahu, as recently as a news conference on Saturday, that he does not intend to resign, even after the war and even as his Likud party sinks in opinion polls. A Channel 13 poll said today’s election would give Likud just 16 seats and, with its current coalition parties, just 45 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, compared with 38 seats for Mr. Netanyahu’s rival Benny Gantz and 71 seats for opposition parties.
said Ms. Scheindlin, the pollster, that Likud’s concerted call for wartime unity after the court ruling was politically savvy, as even the party’s supporters cared less about the judicial overhaul than the rest of the party. issue, including the outcome of the war. Mr. Segal, however, said the decision could help bolster Likud’s support, as many of the party’s voters would be angry about it.
Still, the call for unity and the accusation that the court’s decision hurts the war effort is “quite cynical,” Ms. Scheindlin, “because the judicial reform bill really destroyed the country.”
The Likud party of Mr. Netanyahu that “the court’s decision contradicts the desire of the people for unity, especially in times of war,” while Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, said: “At a time when our soldiers sacrifice their lives for the people of Israel in Gaza. day by day, the high court judges decided to weaken their spirit.”
The subtext, said Ms. Scheindlin, was “nothing we don’t want should happen until the war is over, and the war will never be over,” at least not for a long time.
Nathan Odenheimer contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
