While it is unclear whether the new judicial reform proposal put forward on Thursday by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will resolve this divisive issue, the involvement of two bereaved fathers – one from the center-right and one from the center-left – lends a refreshing new dimension to the compromise.
Izhar Shay is a former MK elected to the Knesset in 2019 on Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party slate. He served a brief stint as Innovation, Science, and Technology Minister in 2020. His son, Yaron, was a Nahal Brigade soldier who fell on October 7 near Kerem Shalom.
Dedi Simchi is a reserve brigadier general who went from commanding the Home Front to serving as commissioner of the country’s Fire and Rescue Authority. His son, Guy, an off-duty Paratroopers Brigade soldier, attended the Nova music festival on October 7 and fled with others to Kibbutz Re’em, where he was killed while trying to prevent terrorists from entering a safe room where people had taken refuge.
Because of their personal losses, Shay and Simchi – people who served in public positions previously but largely flew under the country’s radar and are by no means household names – bring a perspective that could help the country find solutions to issues that have long defied resolution.
Simchi, in a Kan Reshet Bet interview on Sunday, explained that he and Shay have been meeting for over a year to explore solutions and compromises to various contentious issues.
“We say that if our sons made the ultimate sacrifice for the security of the state, we will do the same in search of compromise,” he said.
“They say war is too serious to leave in the hands of military men; the same is true with this compromise only being in the hands of the jurists,” he added, referring to criticism of the compromise leveled by purists on both sides of the judicial reform debate following the proposal’s publication on Thursday.
“Release us from this already,” he said, articulating the feeling of many in the country exasperated that the judicial reform debate is again stirring, pitting zealots on both sides against each other and threatening to once again ignite a full-blown constitutional crisis.
“There is a war, people are being killed, we want a little quiet, we want to preserve the independence of the judiciary, the selection of a range of judges. We don’t want the coalition to control the courts. This is not the best solution in the world, but that some from one side oppose it, as do others from the other side, shows that it is a genuine compromise.”
Judicial selection committee
Among other elements, the compromise – which would only go into effect after the next Knesset election – changes the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, removes a veto of appointments by the judges sitting on the committee, ensures that High Court of Justice appointments need approval by one coalition and one opposition member, relegates the scope and force of basic laws, and limits judicial review.
While no one is completely happy, Simchi said, compromise is what is desperately needed.
That call, coming from bereaved parents, carries greater weight because it is rooted in an ability to put things in a much larger perspective.
The participation of Shay and Simchi may also signal the welcome emergence of a broader phenomenon: reservists and relatives of fallen soldiers stepping into public discourse, shaping agendas, and influencing national dialogue. While polls continue to measure support for existing political structures, many Israelis yearn for fresh faces in both politics and military leadership.
The anger and frustration at the political and military leadership for the failures of October 7 have not been washed away by the military successes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
That anger and frustration still exist and can be heard in calls repeated over and over for there to be a clean sweep at the top – that new people, not tainted by the failures of October 7 or responsible for the conditions that led to it on October 6, need to take the reins.
War mints heroes. Some are known to the public, others are not. These are people who have shown extraordinary courage in battle, made unimaginable sacrifices for their comrades, or displayed uncommon grace in the face of unspeakable loss. They often carry with them a unique perspective shaped by these experiences – insights about the country’s deepest challenges and its path forward.
This perspective has come out time after time in media interviews with reservists and bereaved relatives, and most poignantly at graveside eulogies: stark divisions in the streets and the Knesset do not reflect the sentiment among the troops, where the soldiers find a way to fight and live together despite political, religious, and cultural differences.
One recurring question always follows: If this can happen in the trenches, why not elsewhere?
Yet these sentiments often crash against the rocks of an unforgiving reality where the divisions inevitably seem to re-emerge alongside the toxic rhetoric that casts those who think differently as fifth-columnists or messianists, fascists or left-wing anti-Jewish universalists.
The engagement of Simchi and Shay in search of a judicial reform compromise suggests that out of the many dialogue initiatives born since the war, something substantive might emerge. It points to the rise of individuals who, because of their experiences, will demand a new kind of national conversation and refuse to let Israel slip back into the divisiveness of October 6.
Many Israelis are hungry for leaders free from the straitjacket of ideology, untainted by the cynicism of cutthroat politics, and driven by integrity and love of country.
Simchi and Shay’s initiative demonstrates that such people are starting to emerge. The judicial reform compromise they helped draft may not be a perfect plan, but it could provide a foundation for constructive dialogue to break the deadlock.
More important than the document itself, however, is the process behind it: the involvement of people deeply scarred by October 7 who are motivated by a hard-earned perspective that prioritizes unity over factionalism and compromise over ideological purity.