What they mean when they talk about 'dialogue' and 'compromise'
There's little reason to think that Netanyahu's call for a pause in the legislative process is going to do anything but delay the inevitable showdown that Israel has long been heading toward
Non-Orthodox and secular Jews who have more-observant [corrected from “less-observant”] relatives will be familiar with this scenario: The love and good will are mutual, but invariably, when you get together, it’s you, the non-Orthodox ones in the extended family, who have to accommodate the ones who keep the mitzvot.
If one weekend, for example, I, not a consistent observer of Shabbat, want to host close family members who are “shomer Shabbat,” I have to make sure that the food is cooked before candle-lighting time, and that I have attached timers to any lights or other electrical devices that they might require if their stay is going to be overnight. I may feel an obligation to leave pre-torn toilet paper in the bathroom so that they don’t have to violate the restriction on tearing, or even unscrew the lightbulb in the refrigerator so that they can open and close it without unintentionally operating a light.
At such times, it's hard not to feel some resentment, and to ponder the unfairness of my having to change my lifestyle in order to accommodate them, just because they live by “all these rules.” But the reason for this is pretty obvious: My family won’t be able to visit me if they aren’t confident that I will respect their beliefs and accommodate their needs. Personally, I might give or take this or that Jewish ritual, including attending synagogue, depending on my mood, but they have made a commitment to keeping the commandments. I may be irritated at having my style cramped, but for them, it’s part of their identity, and I have no choice but to accept them on their terms.
It’s hard enough, for both sides, when a single extended family has members with different beliefs who have to figure out how to maintain their relationships with mutual respect and patience. When it’s an entire state in question, the challenge may seem insurmountable. But I would argue that, unless that state is a theocracy, à la Iran, it’s the religiously observant public that has to make the compromises, at least up to a point. Of course, a liberal democracy has to make it possible for its most stringent religious observers to live their lives as they believe they should, it cannot allow them to impose their customs on the rest of the population.
Depending on what being Jewish means to you, your belief in what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state may vary greatly from your neighbor’s. Should public transportation, or the national airline, operate on the Sabbath? Why is it not possible to have a civil marriage in Israel? Should political parties be permitted to limit membership and candidacy to males? Should schools receiving public funding be required to teach certain core subjects to all their students? These questions, and hundreds of others, come up regularly in Israeli politics, and in a society with such wild diversity in its population, coexistence is not possible without compromise on them. That compromise is referred to as the “status quo” arrangement, and it has been in place almost since the state’s establishment.
When new challenges to the status quo arise, they generally lead to political clashes, and thus are often decided, not by dialogue and consensus, but by coercion. And even if the major issues at the center of the current political crisis in Israel are nominally concerned with the makeup of the Supreme Court, at the heart of this crisis is the question of what kind of democracy we will be -- or even, more basically, what “democracy” really means.
That’s why I am not optimistic that the pause in the legislation process announced last night (March 27) by Prime Minister Netanyahu will lead to a compromise between the government, on the one hand, and the parties and public that are opposed to the judicial overhaul, on the other. Neither side could afford, politically, to refuse the opportunity to enter into “dialogue.” But actual dialogue is not likely to occur.
When government representatives talk about compromise, they mean that they are willing to consider returning the number of Supreme Court justices required to rule that a law passed by the Knesset is unconstitutional from the proposed 12 out of 15 to the previous simple majority. And since another part of the overhaul is a bill that would allow a majority of Knesset members to override such a decision by the High Court, it doesn’t much matter how many justices vote to strike down a new law.
For the opposition, however, compromise means going back to the beginning of this clash, and examining the very claim, which the government treats as if it were a given, that the Supreme Court is unrepresentative, power-hungry and hence, undemocratic. If in the end, there is consensus that something is off-kilter with the current checks and balances governing the relationship of the executive and judicial branches, the task for both sides would be to hammer out a solution that most of the country can live with, even if it doesn’t give them precisely what they want. And if opposition leader Yair Lapid gets his way (very unlikely), we would even see the start of deliberations on drafting a constitution for Israel.
Anyone who listened to Netanyahu on Monday night, or just looks at the composition of his government, understands that he has none of those things in mind. Even if he did personally, his hold on power is so tenuous right now that he will lose his majority in the Knesset if he backs down on his plan to “save Israel’s democracy,” which is Bibi-code for, “turn Israel into a police state.”
Why did it take Netanyahu all of Monday to prepare the short speech he made in the evening? One reason at least is because he was closeted for more than two hours with Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who needed to be bought off for agreeing to support Netanyahu’s one-month pause in the legislative process. Although Netanyahu neglected to mention this in his speech, he and Ben-Gvir signed a memorandum last night in which it was determined that a new “national guard” will be established that will operate directly under Ben-Gvir’s authority. This follows two months during which Ben-Gvir has repeatedly given direct orders to individual police officers and commanders, even though the existing law requires him to go through the national police commander. (Boiled down to essentials, Ben-Gvir wants Israel’s security forces, all of them, to use more violence, preferably lethal violence.) With this government, it’s standard practice that, when the law prevents you from doing what you want, you change the law. It could be said, in fact, that the entire judicial overhaul is really that practice carried out on a wholesale basis.
I’m sorry I can’t be more optimistic, but it’s clear that both sides will be coming to the talks, which will take place under the sponsorship of President Isaac Herzog, not only with positions that probably can’t be bridged, but with different agendas altogether. For the negotiations to have any chance of succeeding, they would have to include open-minded discussion about the balance between freedom of religion and freedom from religion – that is, a new “status quo.” Ideally, they would lead to agreement by all sides that the time has arrived for Israel to write and adopt a constitution that would lay down the principles and rules for running the state.
Dear David -- first and foremost, thank you *all the more* for your wonderful hospitality to us, with all that it entailed. It's common to think about hospitality in terms of what we give, but more often it's about how much we're willing to adapt and accommodate. We do not take that for granted. Second, I'm pessimistic too, especially about the negotiations, but after a discussion with my resident expert, I have slight hope for the long-term (usually I'm the optimist around here). There's no halakhic basis for banning hametz from hospitals. It wasn't an issue for Haredim until now, and with different Haredi leaders in a different political landscape, it could cease to be an issue. Gender separation will always be an issue in spaces that Haredim consider to be theirs. We don't consider the street outside our apartments to be ours, but Haredim do. Space will need to be reconceived and lines drawn, which is impossible when Haredim -- even though there are not so many of them in the Knesset -- are crucial for the coalition. But that could change. It's hard not to focus on a doomsday scenario where the majority of Israelis have no secular education, and don't serve in the army, pay taxes etc. But Haredi leaders will also see that coming, and they'll adapt to survive. As others have commented, we may just now have seen evidence of Haredi adaptability when they (unlike B-G and Smotrich) announced in advance that they would support the Prime-Minister if he decided to pause the reform legislation. They see the massive opposition to the reforms, understand that it can hurt them, and, in this case at least, were willing to be flexible. Finally, the Haredi world has changed beyond recognition in living memory, and it could change again. We hear about those changes among younger Haredim. So yes, it looks very, very bad, but maybe we'll be surprised. THANK YOU for this and all your posts.