Publications

 Demonstrations against an incumbent government are not new in Israel. However, the demonstrations against the proposed judicial overhaul, which was first presented in the Knesset on January 4, 2023, have been unprecedented in terms of their scope, spread, and duration over the last eight months. Since the judicial initiative was announced, there have been 1816 demonstrations across approximately 200 locations throughout Israel. According to the police, these demonstrations involved more than 7 million protesters; the protest...

On September 12, 2023, the Supreme Court held a hearing on the petitions against an amendment to the Basic Law: The Judiciary, which eliminates the Courts’s authority to overturn decisions by the Government and the ministers on the grounds of “unreasonableness.” The petitioners and the Attorney General argue that the amendment should be nullified, due both to flaws in the legislative process and to its contradicting the core values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The Government and the Knesset, on the...

Troubling tensions have surfaced recently between Israel’s political leadership and the heads of the security establishment, mainly regarding the operational fitness of the IDF in light of the measures taken by senior reservist officers, particularly in the Air Force. Such tensions are not new, but in the context of the profound existing socio-political crisis, the fact that they have penetrated the discourse among those who are responsible for national security severely harms their trust toward one another, and that of the public in...

 To understand the economic implications of the political crisis in Israel, we should closely monitor the currency exchange rate and the performance of the local stock market. These indicators reflect, in real-time, the sense of the general public, specifically stock investors, and serve as a “financial seismograph” for understanding current events. As the chart demonstrates, since the beginning of the year a significant gap has emerged between the performance of the Israeli stock market and that of its counterparts in the...

The mandate of the Israel Defense Forces is to defend the state from security threats, and Israel’s military is necessarily and unequivocally subordinate to the legally elected political echelon. The IDF is not meant to be the protector of democracy; that is not its role. Reservist officers, no matter how senior and talented they may be, are not constitutional scholars and are not authorized – by virtue of Israel’s nonexistent constitution or by the Basic Law: The Military – to defend Israel’s democratic regime. Those anxious for the...

The INSS Insight “Why Don’t Arab Citizens Join the Protest Movement against the Proposed Judicial Overhaul?” attributes the lack of participation by Israeli Arabs in the protests against the judicial overhaul largely to indifference and alienation. The results of a February 2023 survey and a closer analysis, however, reveal a complex interplay of factors that hinder this sector’s involvement. These factors include geographical distance, historical experiences of repression, feelings of alienation, skepticism regarding the inclusivity...

Israel’s home front functioned well during Operation Shield and Arrow, the recent short round of fighting against Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). There was no evidence of the impaired national consensus and undermined societal solidarity of  recent months sparked by the political-social crisis, which raised questions about national security issues, including mandatory service in the IDF and the commitment to serve. The return to routine following the operation was swift. Overall, the limited round of fighting did not severely...

The protest by the reserve soldiers and the crisis confronting the IDF is examined here from three angles: non-volunteering, containment of the protest, and the conscription law. Even if the protest has ostensibly calmed down, the threat of non-volunteering for reserve service remains and is expected to resurface if, within the framework of the proposed judicial overhaul, the legislation on changes to the composition of the judicial selection committee moves forward in the Knesset, or if the conscription bill, in one version or...

No one can ignore the tremendous impact of the protest by IDF reservists on the public debate on military resilience, and, finally, on the (to date, temporary) suspension of the legislative processes spearheaded by the government. One of the prominent moments in the protests by reservists was the announcement by dozens of pilots that although they would report for operational duty, they would stop reporting for training exercises. Similar letters by officers from other units followed. Frequent reports named yet another unit joining...

The government’s proposed judicial overhaul, which looks increasingly like a recipe for a regime coup, has aroused much opposition. The most important of these critical voices came from officers in the reserve corps, who linked their continued service in the reserves with the democratic nature of the State of Israel. In response, a counterargument was raised, claiming that any such linkage is a political expression, which, in accordance with the apolitical nature of the IDF, is not valid. The purpose of this article is to refute this...

If I am put in a position of being asked to execute something I feel is immoral, unethical, or illegal, I believe I have only one option, and that is to make my point extremely forcefully and then, if I am unable to reconcile that difference simply to resign.[1] Admiral Stansfield Turner, former head of the CIA   Leading a security establishment demands strength and the ability to withstand various types of significant pressure. One such pressure is the need to remain in office even in difficult circumstances, in order to ensure...