For the past few years, Lebanon has been spiraling into fiscal, political, and economic crisis, while such basic institutions as the national electrical company and the civil service are crumbling. Hanin Ghaddar explains that, while rampant corruption and political deadlock are part of the problem, ultimate responsible lies with the Islamic Republic and its local proxy, Hizballah:

Corruption and a weak state apparatus are the core of Hizballah’s policy. Reforming certain sectors, electing a president, or forming another government that looks a little better than the last are all important steps; . . . nevertheless, the clash is not between two Lebanese political parties. It is a clash between a kidnapper and a hostage.

It is as a hostage that Iran views Lebanon—there’s no need to have a socioeconomic policy for Lebanon, or for Iraq or Syria for that matter. On the contrary, a prosperous Lebanon means a stronger state, and that’s not in the interest of Iran or Hizballah—a hostage needs to stay weak and frightened. What matters is how to maintain and strengthen Iran’s grip on these countries, whether their citizens stay, leave, or die trying. In this context, the institutional tools that Lebanon is using to show the world that it is still functioning as a democracy have been rendered worthless by Hizballah’s arms, or threat of armed force.

The West—and France and the U.S. in particular—have expressed a willingness to help the country get back on its feet, but, Ghaddar stresses, any successful plan must involve enforcing strict sanctions on Hizballah and its local allies. And then there is the problem posed by Hizballah’s massive stockpiles of weapons themselves:

No one can really target this arsenal without a war. Israel has been taking care of Iran’s weapons factories and facilities in Syria, but the ones in Lebanon have been stored underground since 2006. Some expired, but many still constitute a serious risk in the next war with Israel. There are two ways of dealing with these: either targeted attacks by Israel that would destroy weapons without killing civilians, or exposing the weapons facilities built under civilian infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals. The Lebanese people have no idea what’s under their homes and land, and they certainly do not want to risk anything anymore.

Contributing to the Jewish state’s current controversy over efforts to reform its judicial system, observes Peter Berkowitz, is its lack of a written constitution. Berkowitz encourages Israelis to seek a way out of the present crisis by looking to the founding document they do have: the Declaration of Independence.

The document does not explicitly mention “democracy.” But it commits Israel to democratic institutions not only by insisting on the equality of rights for all citizens and the establishment of representative government but also by stressing that Arab inhabitants would enjoy “full and equal citizenship.”

The Israeli Declaration of Independence no more provides a constitution for Israel than does the U.S. Declaration of Independence furnish a constitution for America. Both documents, however, announced a universal standard. In 1859, as civil war loomed, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter, “All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Something similar could be said about Ben Gurion’s . . . affirmation that Israel would be based on, ensure, and guarantee basic rights and fundamental freedoms because they are inseparable from our humanity.

Perhaps reconsideration of the precious inheritance enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence could assist both sides in assuaging the rage roiling the country. Bold and conciliatory, the nation’s founding document promises not merely a Jewish state, or a free state, or a democratic state, but that Israel will combine and reconcile its diverse elements to form a Jewish and free and democratic state.