Since the tenure of Aharon Barak as its chief justice, Israel’s highest court has arrogated to itself broad powers to overturn legislation and intervene in various aspects of public life, based only on its evaluation of the “reasonableness” of any particular measure. To David M. Weinberg, the concept of “reasonableness” has become an “authoritarian” tool that “allows high-court justices to apply elastically their own sensibilities; to re-engineer Israeli society—in their enlightened image, of course.” He notes how arbitrary this standard has become in recent cases, and its implications for those cases that the court will soon hear:

In the event that Joe Biden wins the upcoming presidential elections, there is a good chance that the U.S. will revert to the Obama-era policy of realignment with Iran, and to distancing itself from traditional Middle Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia. Richard Goldberg argues that Riyadh, along with the United Arab Emirates, can buy itself some security by establishing official relations with Jerusalem: