Israel was born without a constitution and long resisted judicial supremacy. For decades, its legal system reflected the British parliamentary tradition, in which courts interpreted statutes but did not claim authority to override the political branches. Only in recent decades did Israel begin to emulate the American model of constitutionalized judicial power. This turn, championed largely by liberals, is likely to prove a grave mistake. American history shows that reliance on courts as engines of liberal reform is both normatively troubling and strategically self-defeating. The American past, in this sense, is a warning about Israel’s future.

Judicial supremacy was not inevitable in the United States. Unlike Israel, the United States adopted a written constitution at its founding, but that document did not clearly assign courts the final word when it came to interpreting it. Even Marbury v. Madison (the 1803 landmark case that established the principal of judicial review) did not inaugurate a regime of unchecked judicial power, and for much of the 19th century courts exercised restraint. It was only after Reconstruction, when Congress retreated from democratic transformation in the South, that judges began asserting sweeping authority – often to entrench laissez-faire economics and block social reform.

A 50-year mobilization against this phenomenon kicked off, culminating in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal revolution against the Supreme Court’s obstructionism. Reformers focused not just on the invalidation of statute by judges, but also aggressive statutory interpretation that allowed judges to impose their own preferences. Judges “battered their way to supremacy with their double axes,” one reformer and judge himself, Learned Hand, explained. “One edge is the control over legislation by its unconstitutionality, the other is such free interpretation of statutes as suits their purposes.” Ultimately, after a long struggle, the judges were beaten. The experience showed that managing political change legally rather than politically is doomed to fail. Long after World War II, liberals like Associate Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter remained anxious that judges could never serve as the emissaries of liberalism, certainly not as a substitute for political victory.

Nor was the U.S. constitutional model influential globally until long into the 20th century, except among conservatives upset about the coming of a new kind of democracy grounded on universal suffrage, and eager to explore how to avoid its consequences. No wonder that parliamentary sovereignty without checks appealed far more for so long on a global scale, notably in the postcolonial states born after World War II — including, of course, in Israel for many decades. That changed.

The reason, paradoxically, was that liberals in the United States adopted antidemocratic techniques to lay the groundwork of a liberal and egalitarian society in the context of race relations. For a time, their tactics looked both successful and transformative. Those who protested not the ends but the means of advancing liberal values, such as Frankfurter, came to be seen as conservative rather than progressive. In retrospect, the strategy failed. The Warren Court – the U.S. Supreme Court of the 1950s and 1960s, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren – achieved iconic victories, but its accomplishments proved fragile. Desegregation stalled without political support, and reliance on courts generated backlash that fueled a long conservative campaign to capture the judiciary. By the time liberals secured landmark rulings on abortion and gay rights in the succeeding decades, the Supreme Court was already drifting rightward.

Liberals were slow to reckon with the consequences of their own strategy. Having encouraged judicial supremacy, they found themselves powerless when their opponents mastered the same tools. Now it is widely agreed that they made a profound mistake and some wish they could take it back. Liberal lion Laurence Tribe, a longtime Harvard law professor once known for his esteem for the court, wrote in 2023 that “The era of the Warren Court was the exception rather than the norm.” Americans, he wrote, must give up “an outdated conception of the Court until recently held by many” and “misplaced … reverence.”

Israel imported this model at precisely the wrong moment. Beginning in the 1990s, under Chief Justice Aharon Barak, the Israeli Supreme Court embraced a theory of judicial authority explicitly inspired by American constitutional practice. Its Supreme Court now wields powers exceeding even those of its American counterpart: striking down legislation based on vague principles, neutralizing laws through aggressive interpretation, invalidating executive decisions for “unreasonableness,” and supervising routine governance. The court also controls its own composition, suppresses dissent within the judiciary and has transformed the attorney general into a quasi-supervisory authority over elected officials. Together, these doctrines have produced an extraordinary concentration of unelected power.

This system rests on a fiction familiar from American debates: that judges stand above politics and merely apply neutral legal principles. They do not. Judges are not moral or policy experts, and empirical evidence confirms that their decisions track ideological commitments. Judicial reasoning often rationalizes preferred outcomes rather than neutrally discovering law. The most damaging feature of judicialized liberalism is not that courts make political decisions. It is that liberals insist – against all evidence – that they are not doing politics at all. They claim that the law itself already commands the outcomes they favor, and that judges merely “discover” these mandates through neutral interpretation. This pretense may reassure allies, but it convinces no opponents.

Political adversaries understand perfectly well what is happening. They see courts being used to entrench substantive moral and social commitments that failed to win democratic endorsement. They therefore respond not with legal argument, but with political counter-mobilization – aimed above all at capturing the judiciary itself. In this way, the denial that judging is political does not depoliticize conflict; it intensifies it, while shifting it into institutions ill-suited to contain it. Courts come to be viewed not as arbiters, but as instruments – venues for continuing political struggle by other means. Every appointment becomes a high-stakes ideological battle; every procedural rule a potential weapon. This happened in the United States and it is now happening in Israel. Worse still, judicial power acquired in the name of liberalism does not remain liberal for long. Once courts are openly understood as political prizes, there is no reason to expect they will remain in friendly hands. American liberals learned this lesson painfully when decades of reliance on judicial power culminated in a Supreme Court dominated by their ideological opponents – who then used the very tools liberals had legitimized to dismantle liberal achievements.

Judicialization was a choice, not a destiny. In both the United States and Israel, the era since the 1970s has seen the rise of the right, roughly marked by the electoral victories of Menachem Begin and Ronald Reagan. It was natural to experience depression about the prospect of regaining the prior near-hegemonic majorities associated with the Labor and Democratic parties that came near to making both Israel and the United States one-party states over several decades. The appeal was understandable – but the long-term costs were severe.

Courts can block legislation, but they cannot build coalitions or legitimacy. Liberalism advanced through judges narrows its ambitions and provokes counter-mobilization. Over time, it transforms from a governing vision into a defensive posture defined by fear of democracy. American history offers a different lesson. At key moments – Reconstruction and the New Deal – liberal elites ultimately chose democratic contestation over judicial insulation. The risks were real, but the alternative was worse. Democratic politics, not courts, produced durable liberal achievements.

Israeli liberals are not condemned to repeat the American mistake. Democratic politics remains open-ended: Coalitions can be rebuilt, arguments renewed, defeats reversed. Liberalism does not fail when it loses elections; it fails when it abandons the effort to win them.

The path forward runs not through courts, but through voters – and it is still available.

Published in Haaretz.

The post Israeli Liberals Must Understand: The Courts Will Not Save Democracy first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Recently, the Israeli police prevented Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Custos of the Holy Land on behalf of the Vatican, Francesco Ielpo, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as they made their way to the Palm Sunday Mass. The two were stopped en route, without any procession or public ceremony, and were forced to turn back. The incident, justified on the grounds of “ensuring their safety,” places Israel on a collision course with the Catholic Church—still the most powerful religious institution in the world—on the eve of the holiest days in the Christian calendar.

This is an unprecedented event: for the first time in centuries, the heads of the Church have been prevented from conducting one of Christianity’s most important rites. It constitutes a direct violation of freedom of worship and a dramatic departure from the long-standing status quo and the most basic norms of respect for holy sites and believers worldwide. One can only imagine how such a policy is being interpreted. When a state takes so drastic a step without even the appearance of concern for the religious rights of millions of Christians around the world, it sends a deeply troubling message. The contrast between the closure of holy sites and images of large ultra-Orthodox weddings proceeding undisturbed likewise does little to convey a sense of equality.

This outrageous decision must also be read alongside last week’s controversy, when, at a press conference with international media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paraphrased the American historian Will Durant to argue that justice and morality are insufficient to overcome the forces of evil, adding that “Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan.” The remarks, widely perceived as offensive to Christians, were swiftly denied by Netanyahu and dismissed as “fake news.” In his clarification, he insisted that Christians “are protected and flourish in Israel.”

The wide resonance of those earlier remarks compelled Netanyahu to respond in both cases. His political engagement with Christian audiences—particularly evangelical ones, whose relationship with the Catholic Church is marked by deep rivalry into which Israel would do well not to enter—is well known. Yet the real issue is not political alignment or shared interests, but something far more fundamental: freedom of worship is a foundational principle of any society that seeks not merely to survive, but to truly live.

A state that does not protect the right of Christians to practice their faith with dignity fails at something far deeper than diplomacy. And that, today, is precisely the situation in Israel.

Since its founding, Israel has had to navigate the complex task of governing religious minorities whose significance extends far beyond its borders—above all Christianity, for which Israel is both birthplace and home to its most sacred sites. Over time, a delicate status quo emerged, regulating Christian life in Israel: its institutions, its sacred spaces, and the millions of pilgrims who visit them.

We should not mistake the Prime Minister’s words of reassurance for a reflection of current policy. They are closer to wishful thinking than to reality. The condition of Christians in Israel today is far from ideal, and the recent events at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre once again make this clear.

Christian communities in Israel face significant structural challenges. The absence of a clear legal framework governing religious and property registration creates ongoing difficulties for church leadership. Burial arrangements remain insufficiently regulated. Disputes over municipal taxation persist. Bureaucratic restrictions at times limit the conduct of religious ceremonies. Christian ecclesiastical courts receive unequal funding. Christian educational institutions suffer from chronic underfunding, despite their longstanding contributions to Israeli society. Many holy sites endure ongoing neglect, and Christian holidays and events often pass without any official acknowledgment by the state—reflecting a troubling indifference.

At the same time, issues of personal security have intensified significantly. Since the late 2000s, numerous incidents of vandalism and violence against churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and clergy have been documented. According to annual reports by the Center for Freedom of Religion Data, since 2023 there has been a sharp increase in harassment and violence against Christians, including spitting, verbal abuse, physical assaults, property damage, and disruptions of religious ceremonies—particularly targeting priests and monks. While the police have taken certain steps, such as installing cameras and increasing their presence in sensitive areas, many investigations are closed for lack of evidence, leaving communities with a persistent sense of vulnerability.

The post Palm Sunday Ban Triggers Church Outrage first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The recent High Court ruling on the appointment of the Civil Service Commissioner holds up an unflattering mirror to Israel’s attorney-general and the government’s legal advisory system as a whole.

At a time when the government has declared war on the legal establishment and the rule of law, this system must indeed act with resolve – but also with judgment and restraint. The majority opinion in this ruling, as in several recent decisions, suggests that the attorney-general herself would do well to engage in some serious self-reflection. At its core, this was a dispute over the limits of power.

The minority justices urged intervention based on a broader sense of danger: fears of executive abuse and democratic backsliding. But the majority refused to play along. Courts, they insisted, are not there to enforce what feels right, but what the law actually says – strict adherence to the text of the law, legal precedent, and the bare facts.

Chief Justice Isaac Amit, writing for the minority, warned that the ship of state might “sink” if the appointment moved forward. But the majority shrugged off the metaphor.

A blunt rejoinder followed: courts do not intervene because a policy seems unwise or troubling – only when it is unlawful. That line should resonate well beyond Israel. When legal opinion quietly replaces law itself, democracy begins to rot from the inside. The sharpest criticism – and the one that should echo through the halls of the Justice Ministry – came from Justice David Mintz and Deputy Chief Justice Noam Solberg.

Mintz wrote that “these matters cast a heavy shadow over the position taken by the legal advisers.” Solberg was even more direct, pointing to a professional failure on the part of the Attorney General’s office.

In striking language, he concluded: “The boundaries of the law are considerably broader than those presented to the government by the attorney-general.” He added a terse reminder, quoting former chief justice Dorit Beinisch, that “prosecutors are not policymakers.”

Attorney-General Baharav-Miara had insisted that appointing the commissioner without a search committee would be illegal. The court disagreed. The law allows it. This was not a one-off. In recent months, the court has repeatedly sided with the government over the attorney-general on questions of legal authority.

Given the government’s ongoing push for “judicial reform” and the flood of decisions and legislation aimed at undermining the foundations of Israeli democracy, the role of the legal advisory system is more vital than ever. Precisely for that reason, it must act responsibly and with restraint. A healthy justice system depends on public trust. When the attorney-general is perceived as acting in open rebellion to the government, the damage reaches beyond the government to the rule of law itself.

Gatekeepers matter. But gatekeeping is not governing. Justice Solberg summed it up with a call to action: “Lessons must be learned.” Indeed, the legal advisory system must continue to draw clear legal red lines where necessary – but not invent them where the law and precedent are clear.

The majority opinion reminds us that there are judges in Jerusalem. There is also an elected government. And there is the law. The role of the legal advisory system is to respect all three and to act as a true gatekeeper only when the legal threshold has clearly been crossed.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Israel legal gatekeepers must be careful not to overreach first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

You don’t have to be a philosopher of language – or George Orwell – to know that language is not just a tool for describing reality; it also shapes it. Speech changes reality. And yet, it seems that many fail to internalize this and deploy their words with dangerous haste.

The discourse of the government’s supporters is full of examples. Some of them do not hesitate to fire up the “poison machine” that paints not only the opposing camp’s politicians but also state institutions – primarily the judicial system – in the darkest shades of black. And they are not content with sharp language alone. They also call for action, from disobeying these institutions to leveling them altogether. But critics of the government, too, do not hesitate to use caustic language, which, in my view, is destructive. Thus, the leader of a major party warns that “if we lose the elections, it will be the destruction of the Third Temple.” A historical metaphor like this frames the elections not as a political process, but as an existential event. A prominent liberal leader declares that “Israel is no longer a liberal democracy,” thereby, by virtue of his stature, implants in the public consciousness the notion that a decisive change in the state’s character has already occurred.

Former senior officials – prime ministers, heads of the security services, leaders of the justice system – who watch with alarm what has been happening in recent years, use dramatic language according to which Israel is, or is on its way to becoming, a “dictatorship,” bearing “fascist” characteristics; whose government is “revolutionary” and includes elements “more deadly than external enemies.”

This hyperbolic rhetoric is intended to emphasize the depth of the peril the speakers feel regarding our future and to spur their followers to actively protest. That is, of course, a most worthy form of civic engagement. But the speakers, as people of public and national stature, must understand the explosive force of language – “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Extreme depictions of the situation influence public perceptions of reality and exacerbate political and social tensions. Paradoxically, proclaiming a dystopian future, even when the intention is to prevent it, may advance its realization, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Social correction, even when accompanied by an authentic sense of urgency, must be undertaken with discretion, caution, and responsibility.

Thus, if the next elections are described as existential, as having the potential to usher in the state’s annihilation, someone may find moral justification for taking drastic measures to avert the threat. So that I do not commit the very sin I seek to prevent – altering the perception of reality for the worse through dystopian description – I will not elaborate. But all of our imaginations together could fill an entire book of apocalyptic prophecies. Is that what those sounding the alarm intend?

It is possible and proper – indeed vital – to conduct our internal identity struggles candidly, without cosmetic euphemisms. But black-washing reality is dangerous. Israel is not a dictatorship – the broad social protest of 2023 succeeded in preventing the judicial overhaul. The criticism that many in Israel level against the government is not being silenced. There is no doubt that aspects of Israeli democracy are being eroded – a serious undermining of its gatekeepers is one important example – and there is a tendency within the current government to deepen that erosion through radical legislative initiatives. Still, this is a far cry from the factual determination that Israel is no longer a liberal democracy and that single-camp rule prevails here.

The confidence of Israel’s citizens in the continued existence of their state should not be subject to political manipulation. Israel is a well-established nation, and its future depends on the sense of security it projects internally and externally. Extremist rhetoric has a mobilizing power, and that is its purpose, but it also upends the ground on which we all stand. The necessary remedy, for the benefit of us all, is to stabilize the system of government through entrenched constitutional arrangements that secure the democratic rules of the game by which we will conduct this continuing identity struggle. Unfortunately, we are unable to agree on a constitutional bill of human rights; but if, after the next elections, a broad coalition is formed, it could establish a “thin constitution” that would include power-sharing arrangements preventing a “victory” by either side – and thereby ensure Israel’s future as a stable and thriving liberal democracy.

First published in TOI

The post Death and Life Are in the Power of the Tongue first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The murder rate in the Arab sector is not just a tragedy for Arab citizens. It is an indictment of the state.

Three men were shot and killed in the northern town of Shfaram. Another was murdered in Arara in the Negev. Four men, between the ages of 20 and 50, killed one after the other, in different parts of the country, by different gunmen, in what has become a grim national pattern.

And the year has only just begun.

Since New Year’s Day, 11 Arab Israelis have been murdered across the country. Add that to the record-high 252 homicides in the Arab sector in 2025, and it becomes impossible to pretend this is merely a “problem.” Israel is in the midst of a national crisis – one that too many prefer to ignore. The danger is that ignoring it does not make it go away. It accelerates it. And the numbers prove it. In 2018, there were 74 homicides in the Arab sector. By 2022, the number had crossed 100. Today, we are well over 250. What once looked like a warning light is now a flashing alarm.

So what is the government’s plan?

Sadly, it is hard to find one.

Instead of a serious, holistic strategy – one that confronts organized crime, dismantles gangs, aggressively collects illegal weapons, strengthens education frameworks, and pulls young people off the streets – the government is focused more on theatrics. Under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the police prefer heavy-handed operations, such as the current campaign in Tarabin. Do the police need to be more active? Absolutely. But believing that a single operation, no matter how forceful, will produce real structural change is a fantasy. It is burying one’s head in the sand.

Real change requires a national plan. Even Arab leaders acknowledge that the crisis is rooted not only in policing but in deeper social failures: a struggling education system, a lack of frameworks for post-high-school youth, high unemployment and poverty, a culture that too often tolerates violence, and a weakening respect for the rule of law – sometimes extending even to basic norms like wearing a seat belt. There are financial issues as well; Israeli banks make it hard for Arabs to take loans, pushing them to the grey market. It is a vicious cycle that will not simply end on its own.

The government could, for example, establish a permanent interministerial task force to address the violence with plans across education, welfare, employment, infrastructure, policing, and local governance. That is what serious states do when confronted with systemic breakdowns.

Has it done so? Obviously not.

Instead, Ben-Gvir has increasingly floated another idea: bringing the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) into the fight against crime in the Arab sector. This is deeply problematic. Not only does it divert the Shin Bet from its primary mission of combating terrorism, and not only are its invasive and aggressive tools wrong to be used against Israeli citizens, but more fundamentally, it simply means that the government is outsourcing the problem. Instead of fixing what is broken, the government is acknowledging that the police are not capable of doing their job.

In other words, bringing in the Shin Bet is not a solution. It is an escape from the real work of creating effective civilian law enforcement and governance. All of this unfolds against a deeper backdrop: the long-standing disenfranchisement many Arab Israelis feel toward the state. And we cannot pretend that “Jewish Israel” has nothing to do with it. As one young Arab entrepreneur told me this week, “Even if I wanted to serve in the IDF, would the army trust me? Would it suddenly want 5,000 Arabs in uniform?”

For better or for worse, we all know the answer.

And while Arabs can do national service – currently only around 3% do – can we genuinely expect them to when they feel that the state doesn’t care if they live to see tomorrow?

That is the tragedy of the runaway homicide plague. Obviously it undermines the sense of security and causes 20% of this country – over 2 million people – to live in fear. But it also reinforces the feeling of “second class,” something every Arab is reminded of whenever they get pulled aside by police or enter the terminal at Ben-Gurion Airport, where they undergo exhaustive interrogation and inspection.

But what this government refuses to recognize is that there is an opportunity to change this, and unfortunately, like so much more in this country, it looks like it is poised to miss it because of politics. Let’s recall what happened in May 2021, when Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab cities erupted in violence on the sidelines of Operation Guardian of the Walls in the Gaza Strip. Lod, Haifa, Acre, Ramla, and Jerusalem turned into battlegrounds as clashes broke out between Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis.

By the time the fighting ended, four Israeli citizens – three Jews and one Arab – were dead, some lynched by mobs. Hundreds more, Jews and Arabs alike, were wounded. Synagogues were torched. Storefronts were smashed. Entire neighborhoods were left damaged. The IDF was particularly concerned by what had happened and established a new reserve unit tasked with protecting major highways under the assumption that Arab Israelis would try to block them in future conflicts to prevent the deployment of forces to the North or South.

But now think about this: Since the October 7 massacre, Arab Israelis have not only refrained from rioting, but according to multiple polls, for most of the first year of the war, many supported Israel’s right to defend itself. Wouldn’t this be enough to illustrate the opportunity before us? Shouldn’t this lead us to believe in the integration of not only Arab Israeli people but also political parties into a future coalition, something that before the war had happened but now is rejected by almost every politician in the opposition?

The murder rate in the Arab sector is not just a tragedy for Arab citizens. It is an indictment of the state. A country that allows an entire community to bleed year after year is not merely failing them; it is eroding its own authority. Israel cannot demand shared responsibility or civic partnership while signaling that some lives matter less. If this crisis continues to be treated as someone else’s problem, the price will eventually be paid by everyone.

First published in the Jerusalem Post

The post It’s time Israel recognizes Arab sector homicides as a national crisis first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

On Saturday night, the IDF reported a ramming attack in the city of Hebron. According to the initial statement, a car driven by a Palestinian resident accelerated into an IDF checkpoint. The soldiers opened fire, killing the driver and another Palestinian in the vehicle. The first reports said the men had attempted a ramming attack. Headlines followed almost instantly, nearly all echoing the same language: “Two terrorists killed in Hebron ramming attack.”

But just a few hours later – too late for most of the print editions already sent to press – the IDF admitted that one of the Palestinians was not a terrorist at all and not even connected to the incident. He was a municipal garbage collector employed by the Hebron municipality, on his daily route, and he had been mistakenly shot by Israeli security forces.

I mention this story because it jumped out as a small but striking example of something that has quietly returned to Israeli journalism: the instinct to parrot what the military says without asking questions, challenging assumptions, or even pausing to consider alternative possibilities. The lack of investigative journalism in Israel has been known for years – that part is not new. But especially after October 7 and the traumatic two years that followed, the fact that so many reporters simply accept whatever they are told without pushing back, without probing deeper, is deeply troubling.

Let me explain why this matters. Like many journalists in Israel, I, too, was invited in the years preceding October 7 to closed-door briefings with senior military commanders and intelligence officials. No reporter is ever shown raw intelligence, but we all heard the same story: Hamas is deterred, Hamas does not want war, Hamas’s training videos are bravado, Hamas wants economic prosperity, more Qatari cash, and more work permits for Gazans. Whenever someone asked why, if Hamas was deterred, it continued to develop longer-range rockets, train openly along the border, hold military exercises, or orchestrate border protests, the answer was always the same: political messaging, bargaining tactics, pressure for more money. We accepted this explanation. No one pushed too far. No one questioned the logic too deeply. Very few challenged the military narrative that everything was under control.

To understand why, you need to understand the structural media reality in Israel. The military has near-total control over access and information. Israel does not have “Pentagon reporters” who are permanently accredited and granted independent access to the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv. You cannot just walk in because you cover defense. You enter only if the IDF Spokesperson approves your visit for a specific meeting.

Everything is controlled and filtered, and, most importantly, every journalist knows it.

This system creates a dependency: Reporters rely entirely on the IDF spokesperson for access to officers, stories, embeds, and frontline visits. Now imagine you are a reporter who wants to publish something critical about the IDF chief of staff or another senior commander. You know exactly what will happen: The IDF Spokesperson will block your next requests. You will lose embeds, interviews, and firsthand access to the war. Those opportunities will go to competitors.

You will be punished, quietly and effectively.

This brings me to one of the great inside jokes of the Israeli media: When newspapers proudly publish what they brand as “exclusive” interviews with senior IDF officers or alleged “first-time” accounts from Gaza or Lebanon, these pieces were assigned to that reporter. The IDF chose that journalist as the platform for its message, usually because they “walked the line” properly – critical enough to appear serious, but not so critical as to be inconvenient.

Take, for example, video footage of IDF operations sometimes broadcast on TV shows like Uvda (Israel’s 60 Minutes). This type of material does not appear because of investigative digging or a Watergate-like secret source in a parking garage. It is simply a decision by the IDF Spokesperson to allow them to have it; that’s all. Contrast this behavior with what happened in the United States just two months ago. When the Pentagon attempted to introduce new restrictions limiting reporters’ ability to publish information that had not been approved by United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, dozens of the nation’s top defense reporters walked out, returned their press badges, and refused to comply. Their outlets backed them almost unanimously.

And look at the uproar surrounding Hegseth today over the US strike on an alleged narco boat in the Caribbean. According to reports, nine people were killed in the initial strike, and when two survivors clung to the burning wreckage, the vessel was struck again in what is a potential violation of international law. Congress, including Republican members, is demanding answers. Trump has commented, and every day brings another investigative piece. Scrutiny is relentless.

Has anything like that ever happened in Israel? Have we seen a major push across outlets for transparency, accountability, or the release of operational footage? Have military reporters refused to publish what they are told without verification? Unfortunately not. Instead, the media here largely plays along. It eats from the very hand it is supposed to monitor. It echoes, amplifies, and repeats claims of terrorists being killed, of military targets being bombed, and without a single question, probe, or challenge.

The post Israel’s media has not learned the lessons of the October 7 massacre first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

As the world is shocked by the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, and as experts pontificate about fighting abstractions like “hate,” too many ignore the most effective move Australia – and other countries – can make.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should say: “Palestinian terrorists and their supporters keep trying to advance the Palestinian cause by slaughtering innocents, Jews and non-Jews alike. Today, rather than impotently claiming ‘terrorism doesn’t work,’ we will prove it with one action. Terrorism doesn’t work – it backfires: Australia hereby rescinds its recognition of a Palestinian state.”

Instead, after two antisemitic anti-Zionists murdered 15 innocents and wounded dozens, Albanese guaranteed that the problem won’t end; he claimed that Australia’s recognizing of a fictitious Palestinian state didn’t encourage the Jew-slaughter.

Such head-in-the-sand thinking is like denying the link between Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Holocaust. Mein Kampf wasn’t just a bestseller, and Australia’s pro-Palestinian stance isn’t just a policy. Since the 1970s, the world has repeatedly rewarded Palestinian terrorism by advancing the Palestinian cause. Since Hamas’s unspeakable barbarism on October 7, it’s become super-trendy to enable terror and greenlight Jew-hatred.

When terrorism is rewarded

Ghazi Hamad, a Qatari-based Hamas leader whom Western useful idiots deemed “pragmatic,” called Australia and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state one of the “fruits of October 7.”

Hamas celebrated the recognition as an “important step” and a “deserved outcome of our people’s struggle.”

Terrorists aren’t stupid. Western leaders claim “terrorism never works,” yet their appeasement and cowardice spur more violence. That’s why since 2000, over 106,000 terrorist attacks worldwide have murdered 249,941 people. Since October 7, 8,670 terrorist attacks – including stone-throwing – occurred in Judea and Samaria.

There’s a fine line between exploiting a tragedy for political reasons and disincentivizing terrorism. But Bondi Beach wasn’t some natural disaster.

It was an unnatural aberration, perpetrated by monsters and fed by a monstrous anti-Zionist ideology blurring support for a Palestinian state, traditional Jew-hatred, and a desire to eliminate the Jewish state. Just because this anti-Zionist antisemitism gets traction in reaction to Israeli actions or leaders, it’s still motivated by a fury that Israel is – not what Israel does.

The logic is clear. Terrorism is politically motivated violence. Punishing the political cause discourages the terrorists. That’s why the way to stop antisemitic terrorism is to rescind recognition of the Palestinian state and encourage Palestinian civil society.

Bondi Beach should challenge the Jewish world too. Jews in countries emboldening terrorists by recognizing this bound-to-be-undemocratic Palestinian state must ask: have we truly shouted our displeasure, pressured our leaders, and shown the kind of spine we want Albanese and others to grow?

For decades, Jews’ accommodation politics worked in Australia, Great Britain, and Canada. But as their governments turn on Israel, communities there must master a new politics of confrontation – understanding that fighting against antisemitism and for Israel is a fight for true liberal democracy and the West’s soul.

Second, everyone must ask: are we raising our children to have the courage, grit, and strength demonstrated by Ahmed al-Ahmed, the fruit vendor turned hero who tackled a terrorist?

Israeli parents can answer “yes.” Can others? If not, why? Many should stop raising their kids to fit in and start teaching them to stand up, strong and tall, for others, including their own. They need a new conception – and new parenting guides – understanding that a strong sense of particular identity, including loyalty to your people, actually is the best way to create rooted, grounded, civic heroes who are gutsy and self-sacrificing.

Finally, beware of the conversational winds shifting in New York, as Jews risk catching Stockholm Syndrome, accepting Zohran Mamdani, who is still campaigning to be America’s leading anti-Zionist antisemite. Yes, Bondi Beach proves again how antisemitic anti-Zionists are, how the Palestinian national movement has intertwined the two, and how the burden of proof is on anti-Zionists – not Jews – to prove they aren’t Jew-haters.

No, I don’t agree that Mamdani “understood the fissures of our community better than we ourselves did” – why give him such credit? That’s not what happened. Does anyone believe anti-Zionist Jews went woke because American Jews don’t criticize Israel enough?

Bibi-bashing has long been a favorite sport among American Jews. Moreover, although Google AI notes that “prominent American Jews have been criticizing Zionism and Israel since before the state was founded in 1948,” for 30 years, at least, American Jews have been “hugging and wrestling” with Israel – a phrase coined in 2004, eight years after the radical Israel-bashing group, Jewish Voice for Peace, was founded.

Perhaps, rather than rabbis blaming Israel for the Jews’ alienation from Judaism and the Jewish state, we should re-examine how rabbis – and parents – teach about Israel, Zionism, and Judaism. Do they view Israel through the B-B-B – Bibi-bashing partisan lens – rather than the B to B … Bible to Birthright identity-building lens?

Have they taught Jews to recognize their true enemies, even if they’re perfumed with human rights talk or masked by Mamdani-style high-flying rhetoric? Can they distinguish between those who criticize what Israel does and those who reject that Israel is?

It’s no coincidence that a disproportionate number of the young Jews leading Hillel proudly today – and much of the Jewish community – are day school graduates. They lead not because they’re programmed to be mindless, pro-Israel right-wingers but because they’re educated to be thoughtful, nuanced, caring Jews, who recognize how central Israel is to their Jewish identity and our Jewish future.

It’s too easy to blame Israel for letting Jews down; sadly, too many Jews have let Israel down.

Originally published in JPost

The post Make terrorism backfire: Rescinding recognition of ‘Palestine’ first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The post Should Herzog Pardon Netanyahu? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

If someone landed in Israel this week, they could be forgiven for thinking the war is completely over. They could be forgiven for thinking that Israel no longer has troops deployed behind enemy lines in Syria, Lebanon, and, of course, deep inside Gaza. They could even be excused for forgetting that Hamas still holds the bodies of two hostages in Gaza or that the IDF continues to carry out nightly raids and ongoing operations from Jenin to Khan Yunis.

A visitor arriving today might look around and assume everything is fine, that Israel is simply experiencing another routine week in the Middle East. They would see the fight dominating the headlines between IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and Defense Minister Israel Katz and conclude that if the two most senior defense officials in the country have the luxury to wage a public battle over officer appointments, then surely Israel must be a country at peace.

The problem is that it is not.

As we saw vividly this week, every “ceasefire” across the region is fragile to the point of fiction. In Gaza, Hamas continues trying to reassert itself, reconstitute its rule, and attack IDF forces. The much-touted second phase of the Trump plan – which was to include the disarmament of Hamas, the establishment of a new governing authority, and the deployment of a multinational force – remains elusive. No one is stepping in, and no one is taking responsibility. Instead, the vacuum remains. In Lebanon, the elimination of Hezbollah’s top military commander, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, by Israel just days before the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire only underscores the obvious: There is no ceasefire at all.

Over the past year, Israel has killed more than 300 Hezbollah operatives and struck hundreds of targets deep inside Lebanon, while the Lebanese government has taken zero meaningful steps to curb or dismantle the Iranian-backed militia. Hezbollah is not deterred. It is simply holding its fire as it regroups and rebuilds. And in Iran, the ayatollahs are rebuilding nuclear facilities, accelerating long-range missile production, and constructing new launch sites to replace those destroyed by Israel in June. The question, according to Israeli defense officials, is no longer “if” there will be another confrontation with Iran, but “when.”

Yet amid this reality, the defense minister and the chief of staff are locked in a public, petty, and destructive fight. You have to wonder what the soldiers in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank think when they hear about this. What goes through the mind of a reservist sitting in an APC (armored personnel carrier) in Rafah or a Golani soldier sitting atop a frozen hill in southern Lebanon when they read that their leadership is fighting over promotions and investigations? What do they make of it? What message does it send?

This has to be said clearly: What Katz did to Zamir this week is not about professionalism, governance, or oversight. It is about keeping the spotlight on the IDF and away from the government. When Zamir took over from Herzi Halevi earlier this year, he inherited a military still in the midst of a high-intensity war and still reeling from the trauma of October 7. Shortly after the war began, Halevi set up multiple investigative teams examining intelligence failures, operational breakdowns, and structural deficiencies. When Zamir replaced him, the two discussed these probes and agreed that they needed to be reviewed comprehensively before deciding on consequences.

This is how Zamir ended up appointing Maj.-Gen. (res.) Sami Turgeman to lead a panel reviewing all the internal probes and delivering recommendations. Turgeman did exactly that. But instead of accepting the findings – and respecting the chief of staff’s authority to restructure the IDF and remove officers who failed – Katz responded by demanding yet another review by the Defense Ministry’s ombudsman.

Here’s the absurdity: The IDF has already investigated itself twice, while the government has not investigated itself even once. Katz is pushing for more reviews not because they are needed, but because they delay the accountability that should fall on the cabinet just as much as on the generals. This is what Katz wants, and it is also what Netanyahu wants: to keep the conversation focused on tactical failures inside the military rather than strategic failures of the political echelon. Look, for example, at the government’s decision last week to establish a ministerial committee that will recommend the mandate and scope of the commission of inquiry the government is considering establishing. The only thing missing are auditions for who gets to serve on the panel.

Imagine you are suspected of a crime and are brought to a police station. Do you get to choose which detectives will interrogate you? Of course not. That would be a mockery of justice. Yet that is precisely what the government is trying to engineer – a commission that is not independent but rather is designed to stay focused on the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and Zamir’s removal of officers this week. This is why, for example, government ministers openly talk about the need for a commission to go back to the 1990s and look at the Oslo Accords and to 2005 to talk about the Disengagement from Gaza. They want to investigate the role of the attorney-general, the Supreme Court, and the protesters against judicial reform. In other words, everyone but them.

And this fits a deeper pattern.

Earlier this week, Education Minister Yoav Kisch was on the radio discussing a new initiative. The conversation shifted to the Supreme Court, and Kisch repeatedly referred to Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit simply as “Justice Amit,” pointedly dropping his title. When asked why, he deflected and then finally claimed that Amit was under suspicion for building violations that had never been properly investigated, and therefore, he could not refer to him by his official title. As the interviewers noted, these are mere allegations. Yet Kisch felt comfortable diminishing the head of Israel’s judiciary on live radio. It is worth remembering that the prime minister is also on trial under charges of corruption, yet no one calls him by anything other than his official title.

But this is the pattern: The government wants civil servants – the IDF chief of staff, the judges, the professionals who are supposed to be independent – to be subordinated to them. Of course the IDF is subordinate to the government; that is how democracies work. But the constant need to interfere in every appointment and to demand endless reinvestigations shows a deeper agenda.

An independent commission of inquiry is existential for Israel since if we do not learn the lessons of what happened, they will repeat themselves. Accountability is also not a luxury; it is the moral backbone of a country. A society where leaders refuse responsibility cannot expect its soldiers to shoulder it for them. Because here is the truth: The IDF’s soldiers who are deployed right now behind enemy lines – the reservists who leave their families again and again and the units freezing in outposts on the Lebanese border – all look up to political leaders to set an example.

If what they see are political games and a government desperate to avoid scrutiny, then the damage is not just institutional; it is moral. Israel’s strength has never come solely from tanks, jets, or intelligence. It comes from a shared ethic of responsibility. Our soldiers deserve leadership that is worthy of their sacrifice, and our society deserves a government that seeks truth, not excuses.

Published by Jerusalem Post

The post Afraid of accountability, Israel’s government goes after its own generals first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.