Before the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on Oct 7, the major news from Israel seemed to be the massive protests within Israel against the government’s plan to reduce the power of the Supreme Court. What was missing from the stories was the reason the Netanyahu government wanted to change the court.

I found the answer in “The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Israel does not have a constitution. In 1995, Israel’s High Court of Justice declared that the court had the power to strike down ordinary statutes that the court determines are in conflict with what is known as the Basic Law. Essentially, the court decided, on its own, that the Basic Law was Israel’s constitution, even if no one, including Israel’s Knesset, had ever previously determined that.

The Netanyahu government determined to change what it saw as the court’s overreach (imagine courts legislating in America!). A lot of people liked what the High Court had done, especially in overriding other laws that couldn’t be passed by the legislature. Protests and riots were the result.

To read American newspapers, what is going on is a power grab by the Netanyahu government. The cause, the original overreach by the courts, is conveniently omitted. Like everything else these days, the media report a narrative instead of the news.

This is why books like “The Genius of Israel” are important. The discussion about the court is a small part of the overall book. The main theme of the book is how has Israel, a country in which no two Israelis ever seem to agree on anything, managed to pull off what it has – economically, militarily, socially, and culturally. The answer lies in the Israeli character, and the authors make a convincing case.

Senor and Singer tell stories, give examples, and show data. From that, they reflect on how these things have happened – everything from winning a competition to land a spaceship on the moon, move it 500 meters, and take pictures to how two orthodox Israelis, exempt from military service and other group-building programs, became tech entrepreneurs. It delves into Israeli history, noting that Israelis were disagreeing with each other from the beginning (in 1948, the new nation was not only fighting for its life against all the Arab nations around it, Israelis were also fighting and often killing each other). Despite the internal conflicts and differences, As the title indicates, Israel does have a particular kind of genius, one marked by hevre, or the group a person is part of, and gibush, how people are brought together to deepen the bond between them.

The Hamas attack did one thing that Israelis often seem incapable of doing on their own, and that was to unify the country. It created both a national hevre and a national gibush.

Previously, the two authors published “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle.” Senor is a former U.S. Defense Department official based in Baghdad and Qatar; a columnist for such newspapers at the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post; and currently a media communications and public policy executive at a global investment firm. Singer is a former editor and columnist at the Jerusalem Post; advisor to U.S. members of Congress; and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other publications.

“The Genius of Israel” is a timely book. Published Nov. 7, it doesn’t address the Oct. 7 attack. But it goes a long way to explaining why and how Israel will respond. Enemies underestimate Israel at their peril.

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