Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition signaled on Tuesday that for the sake of national unity with Israel at war, it was not planning any immediate countermove against a Supreme Court decision striking down the government’s signature campaign to rein in the court’s powers.
Across the Israeli political divide, supporters and opponents of Mr. Netanyahu’s plan stressed the need to avoid domestic upheaval as military forces are trying to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Netanyahu’s allies, while critical of the ruling handed down by the court on Monday, notably refrained from announcing any attempts to re-litigate the issue.
The court on Monday struck down a law that Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition passed last year to limit the judiciary’s powers, part of a broader overhaul intended to put more power in the hands of elected lawmakers.
The narrow, 8-7 decision raised the prospect of divisions erupting in the national emergency government Mr. Netanyahu formed after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, and a return to the upheaval that began last year when his government pushed to curb the court’s powers, setting off large-scale street protests.
But leaders on both sides expressed a desire on Tuesday to set aside the issue for now rather than risk a crisis at home during wartime.
Acknowledging that the Supreme Court ruling had caused “pain” in right-wing circles, Miki Zohar, a minister from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party, wrote on social media: “It is our duty at this time to bite our lips, act responsibly and preserve the unity of the people.”
There was no public talk from Mr. Netanyahu’s allies about new legislation to rein in the judiciary.
Benny Gantz, a centrist who had opposed the judicial overhaul but entered an emergency wartime government with Mr. Netanyahu, said the ruling must be respected. “Today we only have one common goal: to win the war, together,” he wrote on social media.
Military reservists who played a pivotal role in the mass protests welcomed the Supreme Court ruling but they, too, emphasized that national unity was the top priority.
“We are asking everyone to accept the court’s ruling as it is, and not start another war over it,” said Ron Scherf, one of the leaders of the pro-democracy group Brothers in Arms, an organization of Israeli reservists. “We already have a war with enemies on the outside, and we need to be united.”
“We can’t go back to the rifts and divisiveness of Oct. 6,” Mr. Scherf said. “There is a greater understanding now of what that can lead to, and that we must proceed forward on important matters only when there is broad national agreement.”
The law that was struck down was an amendment to a Basic Law, which has a quasi-constitutional status in Israel. It barred Supreme Court judges from using a legal standard known as reasonableness to overturn government decisions and appointments.
Supporters of the judicial overhaul argue that reasonableness is ill-defined and that it can be used subjectively to subvert the will of voters and elected officials.
Opponents say the standard is an essential tool of judicial review in a country that lacks a formal constitution. The judges are supposed to apply it only to overturn government actions they have found to be extremely unreasonable.
With the contentious court overhaul now off the books, “things are now back to normal,” said Suzie Navot, an expert in constitutional law and vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research group.
Another clash over the balance of power between the judiciary and the government, she said, is likely to come only “if the government or any of its ministers make an extremely unreasonable decision.” If the court then intervenes, she said, “we may have a constitutional problem.”
Legal experts said the most consequential part of Monday’s Supreme Court decision was a broader finding: that, contrary to the government’s position, justices have the authority to strike down Basic Laws if they harm fundamental tenets of the Jewish and democratic character of the state.
That precedent-setting decision was approved by an overwhelming majority. Twelve of the court’s 15 justices endorsed it, with a 13th wavering. The majority included liberals and conservatives alike, posing a serious obstacle to the government’s judicial agenda.
“This is perhaps the most important ruling in the history of the country,” Professor Navot said, because it places limits on the power of Parliament and the government. And at more than 740 pages in Hebrew, she noted, the court decision may also be the longest.
All 15 justices ruled in the case for the first time in the court’s history. Two of those justices, including the departing chief justice, Esther Hayut, retired in October and have not yet been replaced. The justice minister, Yariv Levin, a main architect of the government’s judicial overhaul, is determined to change the method for selecting judges and has refused to convene the committee that selects new judges, holding up the process.
The months of protests and the Supreme Court decision may have “set the judicial overhaul back many, many years,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For now, the government has “no legitimacy to lead any such legislation,” she said.
Ms. Talshir said that Mr. Netanyahu’s centrist rivals only joined the emergency wartime government on the condition that he shelve the judicial overhaul for the duration of the fighting. But eventually, she said, Mr. Netanyahu might be able to exploit Monday’s ruling to drum up right-wing support in the next election.
Mr. Netanyahu’s popularity has plummeted since the surprise Hamas assault that touched off the war, but the legal setback on Monday may offer a path to him to retain power by using the same argument behind his government’s original judicial overhaul plan, Ms. Talshir said: “That the unelected judges overruled the elected government.”
But there were also predictions that the war might change the nature of the debate once it resumes.
Noam Waldman, a rabbi from Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank, said even critics of the Supreme Court like himself should wait until after the war to fully respond to the justices’ decision. The Hamas attack, he said, has given Israelis a deep sense of connection.
“People want a different kind of discourse,” Rabbi Waldman said. “There’s an understanding that not everything we want will happen, not if we want to live together in this land.”
Michael Levenson in New York and Aaron Boxerman in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
