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.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days