It appears that the prime minister\u2019s ultimate goal these days is to block the formation of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the failures leading up to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. If this requires ousting two of the gatekeepers pushing for its establishment \u2013 the head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the attorney-general \u2013 he has no qualms about doing so.<\/p>\n
President Isaac Herzog, on the other hand, seeks to expedite the establishment of the commission. He has initiated an unusual move that would enable Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg to have a role in determining its composition. Netanyahu, doggedly dedicated to his objective, immediately rejected the proposal.<\/p>\n
If an AI program were asked to consider the attributes befitting a judge in Israel, it would likely suggest an individual with qualities very much like those of Sohlberg.<\/p>\n
When Sohlberg was first appointed to the Supreme Court in 2012, critics were quick to point out his identity as a \u201creligious settler\u201d and his conservatism, among other alleged flaws.<\/p>\n
But after more than a decade on the bench, he has demonstrated the ability to act according to his worldview while also giving space for sources of inspiration characteristic of his background \u2013 all within the system.<\/p>\n
His voice has struck a distinctive, sometimes dissonant chord within the judicial orchestra, enriching the collective intellectual and cultural wisdom of the Supreme Court in a way that better reflects the plurality of identities in Israeli society.<\/p>\n
Yet, none of this mattered when Herzog\u2019s proposal, with the consent of Chief Justice Isaac Amit, that Sohlberg and Amit jointly determine the composition of a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led up to the October 7 massacre by Hamas, was immediately rejected by Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Although his opposition to Amit is no secret, why does he lack trust in Sohlberg? There is not the slightest personal allegation against him. It turns out the opposition is to the very idea of a judge, any judge, being involved in the investigation. A judge, as such, is deemed unworthy of trust.<\/p>\n
This is another clear and extreme sign of a serious disease afflicting Israeli democracy: the politicization of trust in state institutions and their leadership. The rift between Right and Left regarding trust in the courts, the attorney-general, and the Supreme Court\u2019s chief justice is well known and well documented.<\/p>\n
The extreme example in the legal context is the attitude toward the State Attorney\u2019s Office: Only a small minority among right-wing and center-right Israelis express trust in it (3% and 23% respectively) \u2013 the mirror image of the overwhelming trust left-wing and center-left individuals place in it (83% and 81% respectively).<\/p>\n
This malignant polarization spills over everywhere. Surveys by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), as part of its monthly Israeli Society Index, reveal that public trust in state institutions, once at the heart of national consensus due to their responsibility for our collective security, now decisively derives from political affiliation.<\/p>\n
A majority of right-wing and center-right Israelis have low levels of trust in the top ranks of the IDF (19% and 42% respectively) and the leadership echelon of the Shin Bet (13% and 43% respectively). Conversely, a majority of left-wing and center-left individuals hold high levels of trust in both the IDF senior command (63%) and the Shin Bet top brass (83%).<\/p>\n
Over three-quarters of the public is demanding it, including a very large share of right-wing voters of various shades.<\/p>\n
The government recognizes this fact but refuses to carry out the will of the people, for obvious reasons. The public outcry \u2013 including tens of thousands whose family members were murdered or injured as a result of the terrible cascade of failure, or who were displaced from their homes \u2013 goes unanswered by elected officials.<\/p>\n
Until recently, the excuse for avoiding an investigation into the greatest failure in our history was the lack of trust in Chief Justice Amit. Herzog\u2019s proposal, aimed at ameliorating this impediment, which is supported by the vast majority of Israelis, was rejected. Sohlberg, who is considered the \u201cposter judge\u201d of the Israeli Right, is suddenly unreliable in the eyes of the right-wing government. Why? Because he is a judge.<\/p>\n
The government is indeed willing to establish a commission of inquiry whose composition is determined by the Knesset. But this would mean that the coalition, controlled by the prime minister, would have veto power over the appointment of any individual who might objectively exercise investigative authority.<\/p>\n
This is why the existing law authorizes an independent entity, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to appoint the commission members.<\/p>\n
In its distress, the government escalates the argument against the court, and claims that it, too, should be investigated for its role in the failure and hence stripped of its appointment authority. One might find humor in this if the stakes weren\u2019t so high.<\/p>\n
The trampling of Judge Sohlberg by the racing wagon of division is not just a lesson in itself. It imparts something far broader: There is no institution or person left in the public sphere whose legitimacy has not been undermined by the politicization of our lives.<\/p>\n
We are deliberatively denuding ourselves of any ability to identify a domain of genuine consensus or the ways to reach an agreement. This is a national loss of sense, an unraveling of the ethos of statehood. The social damage will remain with us even after we manage to rebuild the security systems that failed in the debacle of October 7.<\/p>\n