Women Will Be the Biggest Victims of Israel’s Judicial Reforms

On July 24, the Israeli government charged ahead with plans for a judicial overhaul with the passage of a bill striking down the courts’ ability to review the “reasonableness” of government and ministerial decisions in a 64-0 vote as many opposition members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, walked out in boycott.

Thousands of protesters remain in the streets, demanding the defense of democratic values in what is now both the longest-running and largest protest movement in Israel’s history. While the majority of Israelis oppose the reform, the fear is most acute among women: Nearly 63 percent of women expressed concern over a potential retreat in gender equality as a result of the legislation. Alongside chilling photos of protesters dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale marching through the streets, memes about the “Talibanization” of Israel have become commonplace. This is not surprising: As gender equality is not explicitly legally entrenched, judicial reform poses a unique threat to the status of women.

In a country where women have been historically underrepresented in government, the Supreme Court has been a critical buttress for women’s rights on wide-ranging issues. Court rulings have struck down gender-based wage discrimination, supported affirmative action for women’s access to state-owned company boards, prohibited gender segregation in public spaces, established women’s right to privacy in sexual harassment cases, eliminated discrepancies in retirement ages between men and women, and reinforced women’s representation in public bodies. The list goes on.

Its interventions have also helped to ensure female representation in political parties and on key decision-making bodies, as it moved to uphold the Women’s Equal Rights Law and to remove the use of gendered terms in party bylaws. Despite resistance—and at times noncompliance from the ultra-Orthodox community—the impact of these cases have been considerable: Access to state-owned company boards rose 30 percent, female representation in public bodies grew by 35 percent, bus segregation declined—but has by no means disappeared.

In this context, the Supreme Court has played a critical, if at times contentious, role in interpreting the Basic Laws, issuing landmark decisions that have sought to preserve and expand the scope of fundamental human rights protections. To many on Israel’s right, such rulings represent partisan and unlawful judicial overreach. Those on the left, meanwhile, lament the court’s overly cautious approach to ensuring human rights guarantees. Yet gaps in protection for marginalized communities, including women, remain unaddressed.

The shortcomings in women’s rights are unlikely to be addressed legislatively. Women’s representation in the Knesset—despite seeing a steady rise from 14 in 1999 to a record 35 seats in 2022—has petered out. Today women hold just nine of the 64 seats in the governing coalition; only six of 32 ministers are women. Two of the coalition parties deny the inclusion of female representatives altogether—despite past Supreme Court rulings demanding their inclusion. Israel’s global ranking for the proportion of parliamentary seats held by women has plummeted from 61st to 93rd as a result. The number of political parties headed by women has likewise dwindled to just one: Israel’s beleaguered Labor Party. Similar disparities prevail on the local level; women lead only 14 of 257 local authorities.

If all the wider reform ambitions are realized, the court could cease to serve as a mechanism for protecting women from discrimination.

The judicial reforms sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government could deal a catastrophic blow to both the judiciary and, by extension, women’s rights. If all the wider reform ambitions are realized, the court could cease to serve as a mechanism for protecting women from discrimination, rendering them increasingly defenseless against a government that lacks both female representation and essential constitutional guarantees of basic equality.

The initial judicial reform package demanded a reduction in quotas for women on the Judicial Appointments Committee from four members to three, which, if they reappeared, would further diminish women’s input in judicial selection. Another provision sought to expand the reach of state-run rabbinical courts—which bar women from serving as judges, and often as witnesses—to adjudicate civil issues. Another proposed law would empower a simple legislative majority to override Supreme Court rulings, effectively undercutting the court’s capacity to review and potentially block legislation that violates the Basic Laws.

In a government dominated by far-right factions, the potential harm to women is not merely hypothetical. Religious parties seek to deny the personal rights of women in almost every facet of life. As a basis of its formation, the coalition government agreed to amend anti-discrimination laws to permit and normalize gender segregation in public spaces. While femicide rates in Israel have grown 50 percent in the past year alone, the coalition vowed to not ratify the Istanbul Convention to prevent and combat violence against women.

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In March, they tried unsuccessfully to block legislation mandating an electronic monitoring system to tag domestic abusers. In its most blatant efforts to erase women from government spaces, earlier this month, the head of Israel’s Civil Service Commission, an Orthodox rabbi and former right-wing politician, banned gender-inclusive spelling in official documents.

The explosive growth of the ultra-Orthodox (known in Israel as Haredi) population and their entrenchment in the coalition affords them disproportionate influence over Israeli society. Under the guise of religious protection, they have consistently pressed for more and more concessions that come at the expense of women. A key provision of the coalition agreement with the Religious Zionism party would allow businesses the right to refuse service on religious grounds. If passed, such laws could empower religious business owners to deny service to immodestly dressed women, or allow doctors to deny birth control or medical treatment to women.

Such restrictions would effectively minimize the availability of public spaces and the quality of services for women. To date, ultra-Orthodox leaders have been preoccupied with the priority court cases that affect them most—for example, exempting ultra-Orthodox young men from military service—but as issues that were once treated in the secular domain come under their purview, they are likely to be met with religious resistance.

In the past, the Haredi have brazenly defied legal efforts—including those by the Supreme Court—to protect women. Reports abound of ultra-Orthodox women who are blocked from boarding buses, relegated to sitting in the back, scrubbed from advertisements, barred from public concerts, and prohibited from teaching college courses. Such tactics underscore a steady normalization of gender segregation in public life. Under this government, the court stands as the last barrier to the success of many such efforts. And a religious right that has long sought gender segregation in academia, the military, and, increasingly, in health care are now enjoying unprecedented opportunities to entrench those demands legally.

These steps should also be replicated across government structures including in the legislature. Women must not be barred from political parties or party leadership roles, as remains the case with the religious parties United Torah Judaism and Shas. Rather, gender quotas and placement mandates for party lists can help equalize women’s participation in the Knesset. These should not be left to the discretion of parties, but rather formalized through mandates for both party-level and Knesset representation.

Washington and other allies that have influence over Israeli leaders need to prioritize the status of women when engaging with Netanyahu’s government.

In this regard, Tunisia offered a brief if useful model: After the Arab Spring, the country strengthened existing gender laws by mandating that party lists alternate between male and female candidates, and by ensuring that half the parties would be headed by women. Before a subsequent electoral law abolished those gender parity provisions in 2022, 47 percent of municipal council positions were held by women. Similar diversity quotas should be applied to cabinet appointments in Israel.

Of course, none of this will be possible under the current coalition. But Israel’s moderate parties must prioritize and incorporate these goals into their work—and prepare for the moment when the political pendulum swings back once again. When the time comes, leaders must prioritize a constitution-drafting process, one that includes women, and is led by an impartial and inclusive expert committee reflective of the diversity of Israeli society. And it must commit to enshrining in that constitution the fundamental rights and freedoms of all its people, including women.

For its part, Washington and other allies of Israel that have influence over its leaders need to center the status of women when engaging with the Netanyahu government over its potential democratic backsliding.

The presence of women in government leadership roles and basic women’s rights are essential to a thriving democracy. Israel’s Western allies must continue to raise alarm bells over the proposed judicial reforms and the impact they have on women must be squarely on the agenda. To be accepted, any compromise on future judicial reform must account for its impact on the totality of Israel’s democracy—its balance of power, its protection of minorities—and the safety of Israel’s powerful but increasingly marginalized female majority.