Benjamin Netanyahu's government began passing legislation on the "judicial amendments" plan, passing a law ending judicial oversight of government decisions and policies, marked a turning point in Israel's history.
At first glance, the repercussions of passing the "judicial amendments" on Israel will seem contradictory, making it more aggressive towards the Palestinian people, while at the same time eroding the strength it relied on to secure its existence.
The passage of a law that eliminates judicial oversight of government policies and decisions allows the powerful Jewish religious forces within the coalition to implement their program aimed at resolving the conflict with the Palestinian people by controlling the Palestinian land and annexing it to Israel by seeking to empty it of its owners by exercising the greatest amount of repression, which may amount to genocide.
The passage of the law will give the Israeli government the ability to expand the use of other tools of repression against Palestinians, such as: imposing the death penalty on resistance fighters, destroying homes, expelling the families of resistance terrorists, and others.
It is true that in the past, the judiciary has given successive Israeli governments "legal" justifications to justify their aggression against the Palestinian people, but nevertheless, it has nominally given Palestinians the ability to petition against the decisions of Israeli governments and institutions, although overwhelmingly rejecting such petitions.
After the passage of the law that eliminates judicial oversight of government decisions and policies, radical religious parties can push for the adoption of extremely dangerous decisions on the conflict without even the need for a formal legal cover.
While the political platform of the Jewish Power movement, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, explicitly calls for the displacement of Palestinians, the movement's ability to implement this program after the passage of the latest law through policies and decisions adopted by the government is possible.
At the same time, the law will enable the government to escalate the level of repression against the Palestinian people with the aim of resolving the conflict to the point of genocide, as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the "religious Zionism" movement, explicitly called for the "erasure" of the Palestinian town of Huwara. There is no reason to rule out that the government will formulate security and military policies aimed at achieving this goal after the passage of judicial amendments.
The passage of the law will also give the Israeli government the ability to expand the use of other tools of repression against Palestinians, such as imposing the death penalty on resistance fighters, destroying homes, expelling the families of resistance terrorists, and others.
On the other hand, after the passage of judicial legislation, Israel has turned into an entity ravaged by political division, torn by societal rift, dominated by uncertainty, and abandoning many of the strengths that have ensured its survival until now.
Israel has lost a minimum of solidarity among the components of its society, as the position on space modifications is based on ethnic and religious considerations. Religious Jews and Jews of Eastern descent support the amendments, while a majority of secular Westerners oppose them.
This reality will herald the eruption of other polarization axes related to the interests of the parties in a way that will deepen the societal rift, political polarization, and uncertainty.
The passage of judicial amendments will open new paths of confrontation between political circles and social sectors for and against them. Parties participating in the government will take advantage of the lack of judicial oversight of their policies and decisions to promote the interests of the social groups they support.
After today, the government, under the influence of the religious parties in which it participates, will be able to make decisions to ensure that the ultra-religious character of the state is strengthened, in a way that is crudely contrary to the interests of secularists and their perception of how to manage their social activities.
The religious parties participating in the government have spoken out for a stricter Sabbath sanctity and dictate social patterns, notably reducing women's presence in the public sphere and requiring them to wear specific dress codes, establishing gender segregation in some public institutions, allowing rabbinic religious courts to intervene in civil cases, infringing on minority rights, and restricting the freedom of homosexuals, among others.
At the same time, the absence of judicial oversight will enable the Haredim to legitimize the gains they have accumulated from their parties' participation in the government, both in terms of exempting ultra-Orthodox youth from military service and in terms of the huge financial allocations they hold, while they play little role in the labor market because they devote themselves to religious education and worship.
The announcement by thousands of officers and soldiers of the reserve forces to stop performing military service after the amendments are passed, including hundreds of pilots of the Air Force, Israel's strike force, means that Israel's ability to fight battles is low.
This reality will fuel the anger of secularists, who on the one hand bear the burden of performing military service, and on the other hand contribute more than 90% of the value of taxes earned by Israel because they monopolize participation in the labor market. This would justify serious friction between opponents of the judicial amendments and both the government and its supporters.
Secular opponents of judicial amendments reject that followers of religious currents accumulate material and social gains in light of their evasion of participation in the labor market and military service, at a time when they tend to influence their social lifestyles through legislation that enhances the religious character of this entity.
Last week, former head of Israel's domestic intelligence service, Nadav Argaman, did not rule out the possibility of a civil war in Israel if Netanyahu's government embarks on judicial amendments.
Even if Argaman's prophecy is not fulfilled, all indications are that the passage of the amendments will lead to the collapse of the system of commonalities that have so far formed a bond between the parties in the Israeli arena. Yuval Noah Harari, described as Israel's most important intellectual, predicted that the passage of judicial amendments would result in the "disintegration" of Israeli society.
If after passing the judicial amendments, Israel becomes more aggressive in its dealings with the Palestinians, it will be much weaker vis-à-vis other regional actors. Not only because of its political division and societal fragmentation, but also because its army's readiness to fight wars and battles will collapse after these amendments.
The announcement by thousands of officers and soldiers of the reserve forces to stop performing military service after the amendments are passed, including hundreds of pilots of the Air Force, Israel's strike force, means that Israel's ability to fight battles is low.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzli Halevy warned the government on the eve of the passage of the "judicial amendments" that the widespread phenomenon of refusal to serve in the military threatens the army's readiness to fight wars. Israel's National Security Research Center has pointed out that the widespread refusal of military service has reduced Israel's ability to dictate deterrence equations in the face of hostile regional actors.
Thus, although passing judicial amendments makes Israel more aggressive toward the Palestinian people, the weakness of this entity after these amendments represents an opportunity for the Palestinians. Agreeing to a comprehensive resistance program precisely after the passage of judicial amendments could lead to reasonable gains if the conflict against the occupation is managed by exploiting its weaknesses resulting from the passage of these amendments.
The passage of judicial amendments in Israel opens up a legal path for Palestinians to track down Israel and prosecute it in international judicial forums. Until now, Israel has responded to war crimes cases before international tribunals by saying that it has an independent judiciary that can investigate such claims. Now, in light of the Israeli Government's own initiative to abandon internal judicial oversight over its decisions and policies, a major obstacle to exhausting the international legal process of holding the occupying entity accountable has been removed.