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:

It was found “unreasonable” that Religious Zionist Jews operate acceptance committees to maintain distinctly homogenous small communities. . . . But it is “reasonable” for Bedouin and Arabs to operate acceptance committees because they are considered “distinct,” and apparently more kosher, communities by the court.

So it was two weeks ago when the court struck down the latest version of an immigration/deportation law pertaining to infiltrators and refugees. So it may be when the court considers a petition to outlaw the new position of “alternate prime minister,” [the creation of which made the current governing coalition possible].

So it may be when the court rules on the historic Nation-State Law of 2018, which was passed as a “Basic Law”—meaning that it was meant as constitutional legislation [that] the court has no right to touch. Nevertheless, Chief Justice Esther Ḥayut has convened an eleven-justice panel to judge the law’s “reasonableness.”

So it may be when the court rules soon on a petition from a group of extremist professors to terminate all government funding for separate-sex ḥaredi college programs. Accepting the petition would be a disaster for the slow but measurable movement of ḥaredi men and women into the workforce—which is crucial for the Israeli economy and the future of our society.

On March 5, Riyadh appointed Salman al-Dosari—a prominent journalist and vocal supporter of the Abraham Accords—as its new minister of information. Hussain Abdul-Hussain takes this choice as one of several signals that Saudi Arabia is inching closer to normalization with Israel:

Saudi Arabia has been the biggest supporter of Palestinians since before the establishment of Israel in 1948. When the kingdom’s founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud met with the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea in 1945, the Saudi king demanded that Jews in Palestine be settled elsewhere. But unlimited Saudi support has only bought Palestinian ungratefulness and at times, downright hate. After the Abraham Accords were announced in August 2020, Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah burned pictures not only of the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain but also of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

Since then, many Palestinian pundits and activists have been accusing Saudi Arabia of betraying the cause, even though the Saudis have said repeatedly, and as late as January, that their peace with Israel is incumbent on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While the Saudi Arabian government has practiced self-restraint by not reciprocating Palestinian hate, Saudi Arabian columnists, cartoonists, and social-media activists have been punching back. After the burning of the pictures of Saudi Arabian leaders, al-Dosari wrote that with their aggression against Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians “have liberated the kingdom from any ethical or political commitment to these parties in the future.”