One could only marvel at the deliberations in the Supreme Court Tuesday, 13.5 hours of rapture: the other Israel, the Israel from the dreams, not the reality. It’s been ages since there was such an incisive, in-depth discussion here, and ages since there was one so disconnected from Israel’s ignorant, shallow, jingoist, rude, violent and ad hominem reality.
The hearing was the polar opposite of the sideshow attraction that preceded it in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. Everything was learned and polished in the court: “social justice,” “Your Honor,” “Yellow Pages v. Israel Broadcasting Authority” and the “Wednesbury principle.” Even the government’s counsel, Ilan Bombach, morphed momentarily into a reserved Central European intellectual, quoting Montesquieu and Hobbes. An all-Jewish, all-Ashkenazi hearing, with more kippot than the average in the population and with almost no Arabs and Haredim, the two usual annoyances of Israeli society. White Israel debated the future of its form of government. It was instructive, and also depressing.
It was a deliberation inside a sealed, protected bubble, a yellow submarine in murky waters, a graduate seminar in democracy with the best minds, on the deck of the Titanic. A foreigner who came across the hearing might have thought, mistakenly, that it reflected the usual level of debate and argument in Israel – that’s how they talk there, especially lately. But the level and style were not the most deceptive element; the content of the debate was much more deceptive.
What had been described ahead of time as “the most important hearing in the history of Israeli law” lived up to its promise. It was the most important political deliberation in the history of the State of Israel, simply because there has never been, and will never be, a more important and consequential deliberation here. That’s no accident, of course. The importance of the struggle over the independence of the judiciary cannot be overstated, but we cannot ignore the even more important and consequential deliberations concerning Israel’s government that never took place.
The deliberation in the Supreme Court was deceptive because it planted the impression that the reasonableness standard is what stands between democratic Israel and tyrannical Israel. Its preservation, democracy; its repeal, dictatorship. That is what’s behind the pathos, the monumental impression of the deliberation. On one side, the gatekeepers who are struggling to preserve the status quo from all harm; on the other, the subversive and revolutionary right wing, which seeks to destroy it all, including Israel’s Declaration of Independence. As if that sacred scroll was ever implemented, the pillar of fire that has guided the state since its establishment. The evil Ilan Bombach came and threw the scroll into the dustbin of history.
This too is an illusion, another way to tell ourselves: Look how beautiful we are, what a wonderful Declaration of Independence we have, we followed its precepts diligently, until Bombach.
The beautiful Israel realized very few of the principles formulated by “37 people who were never elected,” as Bombach described its signers. Read in the scroll about a nation that “lov[es] peace but know[s] how to defend itself”; about the state that “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and “be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Excuse me, when did Israel comply with even a single UN resolution? This, too, is infuriating: “We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness.” A hand in peace? To whom? When? Where? What of all this did Israel realize, before Bombach destroyed it?
The deliberation in the court was a deliberation of fantasies and phantasms. It was no different from a deliberation in the South African Supreme Court prior to 1994 about the nature of the democracy for whites. No one asked Tuesday how it is even possible to talk about democracy in an apartheid state.
We truly must hope that, thanks to the Supreme Court, Israel will continue to follow the Yellow Pages precedent; the alternative is dangerous and terrible. But let’s admit it: Even with the Yellow Pages ruling on the reasonableness standard, we will not be a democracy, not even for a moment.