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.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.