Publications

This essay discusses four principal disputes in Israeli society related to national security, focusing on approaches to these issues among the Israeli Jewish public (hereafter, “the public”). It outlines the connection between these disputes and different world views among the public, based on respective approaches to the country’s core values. To this end, the essay discusses the significance of Israel’s definition as a “Jewish and democratic state,” the role of liberal values in the Israeli democratic context, and possible ways to balance competing values. It considers the proposed “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” currently debated in a special Knesset committee. The essay then examines how the values discourse affects the analysis of the four disputes, and refers to the criticism of the Supreme Court, which is increasingly cast as an agent promoting liberal values at the expense of national values. It concludes with an analysis of the implications for national security and recommendations for the future.