Two emails from the Kohelet Policy Forum piqued my interest and ultimately had me pay a visit to their offices in the Jerusalem area several weeks ago. The first message contained a policy paper authored by the economist Dr. Michael Sarel that railed against the so-called "Coalition Funds" appropriated to Haredim. The second was authored by Maureen Amitai and Dan Gefen on the protection rackets plaguing Israel.
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In the current political climate, visitors to this place come with sandbags, signs reading the words "collaborators with dictators" and so forth. So it is hardly trendy to do what I did – simply arriving armed with just a few questions. In fact, even asking questions is very out of fashion these days. Question marks are out; exclamation marks, rallying cries for and against issues, boycotts, and character assassinations – in.
After speaking with Sarel, who is the head of the Kohelet Economic Forum, I felt befuddled. Sarel has come out with a very complex stance against the judicial reform in its current iteration. Although he believes that the judiciary needs some kind of overhaul so that elected officials' hands would no longer be tied like today, he also thinks that the legislation – in its current language - would jeopardize Israel's future as a democracy. These nuanced views have not been part of the black-and-white debate raging in Israel, but in this think tank they feature prominently.
Sarel is very much against the pork-barrel spending used to cement together the support of the Haredi factions in the coalition, which saw hefty sums generously spent on ultra-Orthodox education that lacks the core curriculum in schools. He believes this will only exacerbate the disparities between the Haredi schoolchildren and others, adversely affecting the Israeli economy as well as the child and his or her future family. The figures he showed me during our conversations were also incorporated in a statement issued by the Finance Ministry against the government's budgetary decisions.
As I was about to leave, a woman in the forum told me, "I am very much against what he said about the Haredim." She has been working on streamlining the day-to-day work between the central government and local authorities and has tried to have more powers devolved to the very officials who have to address the concerns of the people they live with every day. It appears that the Israeli think tank most vilified by liberals has pluralism and a liberal approach to things.
The very place that has been cast as the institution bent on destroying Israel's democracy actually has a range of views. In fact, the disagreements between the scholars are what allowed it to thrive in recent years, setting it apart from other institutes that appear to have only one overarching paradigm to promote, like the Israel Democracy Institute, whose scholars appear to all be behind the policy papers sent to lawmakers. In light of this, one has to wonder why only the Kohelet Policy Forum is singled out and called illegitimate when it shares its scholars' output with policymakers.
Having spent much of the past decade in the Knesset hallways and inside committee rooms, I have on more than one occasion seen policy papers placed on MKs desk. Over the past two years, lawmakers from parties on the Center-Left (Blue and White and Labor) would normally get papers, proposed legislation, and briefs from the Berl Katznelson Foundation, and before that from a whole host of institutions. MKs have their work cut out for them and are often overwhelmed by the demanding legislative sessions. That's where the think tanks – on both the Left and the Right – come to the rescue.
For example, in 2022 then-MK Gaby Lasky introduced legislation that was written in collaboration with Berl Katznelson Foundation aimed at making payslips more intelligible. Likewise, the Israel Democracy Institute has tried to push forward a bill that would lead to a constitution being ratified by courting various MKs.
The Kohelet Policy Forum's success in introducing the judicial reform could also be an albatross on its neck. Although the forum's executive director, Meir Rubin, and others in the forum have advocated a piecemeal approach rather than the grand legislative package promoted by the government, the protesters consider the judicial overhaul agenda to be the brainchild of the organization – perhaps inextricably so.
With the political climate being what it is – including in the form of a thought police by some – MKs across the board fear being associated with the forum because of their past or current collaboration on socioeconomic matters and various other policy issues.
This might not bode well for Israeli society. Reducing regulation, cutting red tape, and increasing the Knesset oversight over the government, as well as fighting protection rackets and various other measures will never see the light of day if lawmakers have such fears on the back of their minds. Ultimately, it is us – the Israeli electorate – who suffer when policy papers stay in the drawers.
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