Finally, some good news.
No, not the surgical assassination in Beirut of Hamas’s No. 2, Salah al-Arouri, although that was a long-awaited and significant accomplishment. And, no, not the release of thousands of reservists who have been in uniform, under arms and away from their families, in harm’s way, for nearly three months.
Rather, this week’s good news was that the High Court of Justice’s dramatic and precedent-setting rulings on Monday, giving it authority to shoot down Basic Laws in general, and the Knesset amendment banning the use of the “reasonableness statute” in particular, did not send the country spiraling back to the divisiveness and hate that marked the judicial reform debate for much of 2023, at least up until October 7.
Nor, for that matter, did the court’s decision two nights later to postpone implementation to the next Knesset of the controversial recusal law that protects prime ministers from being forced by the attorney-general or the High Court of Justice to step down from office.
Not that there was nobody who tried to exploit these decisions to thrust Israel back into the throes of self-destructive divisiveness.
Shortly after Monday’s decision, Meretz politician Yair Golan – touted as the possible head of a new left-wing party because of his heroic rescue actions in the South on October 7 – was asked on Channel 12 by presenter Keren Marciano about the court’s decision.
Told that Justice Minister Yariv Levin said that the government will continue with the “judicial revolution immediately after the war,” Golan replied: “We are ready for battle, no problem. Just as we know how to fight on the Gaza and northern borders, the same reservists who were cursed by those in the coalition...”
At this point, Marciano and political correspondent Dafna Liel cut him off and took him to task for his terminology.“Your terminology is very extreme,” Marciano said. “Hasn’t the time come to moderate the discourse? Look at the disaster that caused.”
In the past – pre-October 7 – that type of terminology would have passed unchallenged. If anything, that type of discourse would have been encouraged in some studios because it generates debate and makes for good confrontational television. But not this time. Not now.
Golan was not alone.
Things are different now during the war
On Tuesday, from the other side of the political spectrum, Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel responded to the court’s decision with a post on X. “First, we will roundly defeat Hamas, then we will deal with Hezbollah, and for dessert we will make order in the Supreme Court. Everything has its time. Patience.”
Although Fogel predictably received backing from his party’s head, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and although members of the opposition predictably slammed him, the reaction from other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prewar coalition – from parties that fought hard for the judicial reform – was telling.
For instance, Shas Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, in the role of Marciano who did not allow Golan to continue with acerbic rhetoric as though October 7 had never happened, said in response to Fogel: “I am saddened by the shameful words of MK Zvika Fogel. There is no room for comparison, or to place the Supreme Court in the same category as the worst of our enemies who murdered, slaughtered, abused, and kidnapped the best this country has to offer. Even when you want to criticize, this is not the way. We are one people.”
Marciano’s and Arbel’s reactions were indicative of something that has changed in the country, a sign that it may indeed have learned something from the atrocities of October 7, and that there needs to be pushback against the type of rhetoric that led to the divisiveness and disunity that preceded the attack and left the country so vulnerable.At least for now.
At least when the war is being waged, when soldiers are dying, when some 130 Israelis are still being held captive by Hamas, and they and their families are suffering unthinkable agony, when those opposed to the judicial overhaul and those in favor of it are fighting in the same tanks and hunkered down in the same Khan Yunis house awaiting contact with the enemy.
As Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar, an ardent supporter of the judicial reform plan, posted on X after writing that it would have been better if the court had waited until after the war to issue its decision: “I know that many of my friends in the national camp are pained by the verdict and feel this evening a violation of their democratic choice, but it is our duty at this time to bite our lips, act responsibly and preserve the unity of the people. That is our duty toward the fallen, and we are commanded to do this for our future.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by Benny Gantz, the head of the National Unity Party, who warned of civil war exactly a year ago and called on masses to take to the streets against the judicial overhaul plan “to make the country tremble.”
After Monday evening’s decision, Gantz posted on social media that on the eve of October 7, Israel reached a level of divisiveness and hate that it should never have come to. “The verdict must be respected, and the lesson from the conduct of the last year must be internalized – we are brothers, we all have a common destiny. These are not days for political arguments; there are no winners and losers today. Today we have only one common goal – to win the war, together.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid sounded a less conciliatory note. After stating on social media that his party gives the Supreme Court its full backing, he added: “If the Israeli government again starts the quarrel over the Supreme Court, then they have learned nothing. They didn’t learn anything on October 7; they didn’t learn anything from 87 days of war over our home.”
But, apparently, they did learn something. For with all the disappointment that the court’s verdict caused, no one inside the coalition – not even Levin – suggested taking action now to overturn it.
Remember the question that Netanyahu was asked repeatedly after the Knesset passed the law repealing the reasonableness statute? Would he abide by the court’s decision if it shoots the law down? Now, that seems like a moot point. The question was not even raised in the aftermath of the court ruling.
For that matter, Netanyahu has not even commented on the ruling. Levin slammed it but added, “When the war is being waged on different fronts, we will continue to act with responsibility and with restraint.”
Some observers said that the ruling put an end to the judicial reform plan, as the court made clear that it would not curtail its authority. While that might be true in a formalistic sense, what really ended the judicial overhaul – at least for the foreseeable future – was October 7.
Once Hamas violated the country and triggered a war, everything else paled in comparison, including issues that seemed to the public to be of paramount importance at the time, so crucial as to be willing to leave the country or abandon the military reserves because of them.
THIS POINT was painfully illustrated just moments before the court decision was released when many were tuned in to the news to hear the verdict. Just before it was announced, the IDF released for publication the name of yet another soldier, Amichai Yisrael Yehoshua Oster, who fell in Gaza.
The juxtaposition of the announcement of the death of yet another soldier with the decision on the reasonableness clause put things in painful perspective. Yes, the court decision was important, and the judicial reform issue is real and something that will need to be dealt with, but with soldiers being killed daily, it seems of secondary importance.
On Monday evening, after the decision was handed down, the court ruling featured significantly on the nightly news. Were it not wartime, it would have dominated the news cycle for days.
But it is wartime, and on Israel’s rejiggered ladder of priorities, the ruling has significantly been pushed down a number of rungs. In the first 90 minutes of Channel 12’s news program on Tuesday evening, the night of the Arouri hit and concern about an escalation from the north, it did not even merit a mention.
That is a telling indication of what the country deems essential right now.
The nation’s muted response to this week’s court rulings is also a telling indication that it has learned something from October 7 and is unwilling to be thrust back into the destructive strife and corrosive discord that preceded and created favorable conditions for that attack.