Israel's basic laws – its de facto constitution – are subject to interpretation by the Supreme Court, which often finds clever ways to reach its desired ruling.
For example, when the justices were presented with a legal challenge to the Nation-State Law's language that says, "The State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation" they ruled that this clause is only declarative and cannot be used as grounds for promoting Jewish-only towns in a discriminatory way.
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Judicial review is not just about interpreting acts of parliament; it also creates new laws. The most famous case involves the ruling in which justices said the value of equality is an implied basic right found in Basic Law : Human Dignity and Freedom despite not being mentioned. In another ruling, they refused to override the Central Elections Committee's decision to disqualify an Arab party despite not having the powers to do so under the law.
Even if the proposed amendment to the Basic Law: Knesset is approved and incitement to racism is removed as grounds for disqualifying candidates, it is safe to assume the court will not let a Nazi party to stand for election by citing some provision. What's more, if such a party is created in Israel and enjoys a groundswell of support, such a ruling won't be what stops it. Chief Justice Esther Hayut referred to this situation in a new book, in which she essentially conceded that public discourse doesn't deal with extreme situations that become extrajudicial.
In 1999 the court ruled that the ARab party Balad's then-Chairman Azmi Bishara was "close to crossing the line" because of his extreme conduct, but let him stand for election anyways. Balad and its members have managed to fend off challenges to their candidacy by citing the rationale the justices noted in the Bishara case: Calling for the negation of Israel's Jewish character and actively promoting this is not tantamount to crossing a line.
In 2019, Justice David Mintz had enough and said that most Israelis "know that there is no doubt when it comes to Balad, "it is actively engaged in subversive conduct in undermining Israel's Jewish and democratic character, and is openly calling for an armed struggle by a terrorist organization against Israel."
What the Mintz and other justices, as well as most Israelis, understand is that Balad has met the necessary criteria for disqualification under Israel's basic laws. Unfortunately, the majority of justices have yet to internalize this.
The incoming right-wing government believes that the court has been discriminating against Jews by applying a harsher standard to Jewish candidates. Whether or not this is true or not, should removing the racism clause from the basic law be the solution? Why should the coalition die on this hill, considering the many other challenges facing the new government?
Another piece of legislation that the Right wants to advance would allow businesses from refusing service to customers if this would result in carrying out something that runs against their core beliefs. But, it is important to note, this only applies to cases where the actual service runs against the business's values, not the values espoused by the customer. In other words, anyone would be allowed to buy service from every business, but won't necessarily be allowed to buy every form of service.
In recent days, some have cried foul by suggesting that this law would be used to discriminate against LGBT customers. While this could be the de facto result, the actual language of the bill only seeks to bolster the the individual's right to act based on their values. Should a printing house in an Arab town be forced to accept an order to print pamphlets for a conference run by an racist anti-Arab organization? Should a vegan copywriter have to accept a request by a meat company to promote its brand? The devil is in the details. The main challenge lawmakers will have to tackle is how to make sure such a law used on an individual basis as means of bolstering one's own values rather than as a blanket mechanism to deny service to entire populations so that we avoid a situation in which certain customers would be denied service a-priori.
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