Expanding the Conversation: Roy Peled
What does it mean to be a Jewish and democratic state?
In this episode, Dr. Roy Peled—legal scholar and former youth activist—reflects on the legal and political forces shaping Israel’s identity. Speaking at the Israel at a Crossroads convening, Peled traces the unfinished story of Israel’s constitution and the impact of Basic Laws on minority rights—especially the Arab minority. With clarity and nuance, he unpacks the political forces behind the Nation-State Law, the shifting role of the judiciary, and the tensions between national identity and democratic principles.
Peled brings both scholarly insight and personal conviction, inviting listeners to engage deeply with questions of power, belonging, and constitutional change in Israel today.
Discussion Questions
- Constitutional Identity
Dr. Peled discusses the absence of a formal Israeli constitution. What do you think are the implications—positive or negative—of defining a state’s identity without a written constitution? - Majority and Minority
Peled highlights a lack of clear vision for the role of the Arab minority in Israel. How might a state balance national identity with full inclusion of minorities? What models from other countries, if any, come to mind? - The Role of the Courts
What tensions emerge between legal decisions that protect individual rights and those that shape public or national identity? How should courts navigate these tensions? - Nuance in Debate
Dr. Peled criticizes the polarization of conversations around Israel, both in Israel and abroad. What helps you hold space for nuance when discussing Israel’s identity and minority rights? - Personal Values
Dr. Peled identifies as a Zionist who believes in equality and democracy. How do your personal values shape how you engage in conversations about Israel? What assumptions do you bring to the table?
Show Notes
Video
- Roy Peled speaking at Israel at a Crossroads
Further Reading
- Basic Law: Israel — The Nation State of the Jewish People (Originally adopted in 2018)
TRANSCRIPT
Ellie Gettinger
Welcome to Extending the Conversation, a podcast series that brings the Jewish Theological Seminary to you. The series focuses on the messages that emerged from Israel at a crossroads navigating religion, democracy and justice. A convening that took place at Gates in April 2025. I’m Ellie Gettinger, director of outreach for the Center for Lifelong Learning, and I will be curating the series, which will highlight key messages from the convening itself with insights from our panelists that were recorded separately.
This episode features Dr. Roy Peled, a professor from the Haim Striks School of Law, College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon LeTsiyon. He spoke during the session, “Majority Rights for Minorities: Assessing the Nation-State Law.” Dr. Peled detailed the evolution of Israel’s Nation State Law, beginning with the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Roy Peled
What is not often known is that one lines there says that as of this declaration, May 15th, 1948, the state will be run by interim institutions, which will be replaced by regular institutions in accordance with a constitution, That will be approved no later than October 1st, 1948. Now, you all know Israelis you know, we’re not known for our punctuality, but still we’re way off here.
What I want to raise here is why that happened and the reason that that happened. There are several reasons. Like any historical development, but it has much to do with David Ben-Gurion. I think one of the greatest men to walk the earth, but not flawless. There are a few explanations you’d like power and the Constitution always limits your powers.
That’s one explanation. But one that’s more important for our purposes is the idea that Israel is in the making that you don’t want to carve in stone its nature. It actually had less to do with the Arab population that nobody thought a lot about then, and more to do with the ultra-Orthodox, which Ben-Gurion wanted on board, and was afraid that defining the nature of the state, answering questions about equality, equality for women, equality for different streams in Judaism will push the ultra-Orthodox off board.
And therefore, he said, we can do without a constitution that we don’t really need, that let’s not sort of shake, shake our relationships at this point. So there was a commitment for a constitution and it never happened, at least not in the form of an actual constitution as you knew it from here. What happened was in 1950 that the Knesset decides to go forward step by step, as they called it, and work on chapters of the constitution.
And each chapter that will be agreed upon will become what we call today a Basic Law, beginning 1958 up to 1988. The Knesset confirmed nine of these Basic Laws on the constitutional component that every constitution has. So. So the equivalent of Articles one, two and three of your constitution, we had in those nine Basic Laws the judiciary, the executive, the legislature, capital, Jerusalem, etc., etc..
What’s important to say is that all these basic laws, although some of them were controversial, the one in Jerusalem, for instance, were always bipartisan. You know, we have more than two parties, but in American terms bipartisan, we’re agreed upon across the political spectrum. 1992 we have the first two basic laws that deal with human rights again, the equivalent of maybe your Bill of Rights.
These two are confirmed by a bipartisan majority. Notice, for 22 years later there is no Basic Law. And why is that? After the 1992 Basic Law, the Supreme Court had a series of decisions that struck down laws, mostly upsetting the Orthodox parties Aryeh Deri, the leader of Shas following that said, if it would be suggested to turn the Ten Commandments into a basic law, I will vote against it because I have no idea how the Supreme Court will interpret it.
So for many years, this whole project was put on hold and there were no basic laws legislated. When the recent right wing governments became more confident in their ruling the majority, they began to think it’s actually maybe a useful tool to have. And in 2014, this basic law about a referendum in case of withdrawal not important for our case, other than it was the first that passed on a strict coalition-opposition vote.
So all coalition members in favor, all opposition members against. And that was also the case with the second basic law to be enacted since basic law, Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people, which we’ll get to in more details.
Ellie Gettinger
Let’s get a sense of Dr. Pollard’s background to better understand how he became involved in this topic. You tell us a little bit about what your role is.
Roy Peled
Our talk here brings me to previous lives going all the way back to my youth in Hashomer Hatzair youth movement where I led Israeli Palestinian youth projects from the West Bank. But then as I became an academic and engaged in constitutional law teaching, the issue of minority rights in Israel was very center dealt with that a lot of talk about minority rights in Israel, in the States like to American students in Europe.
So this is sort of a combination of past activism and current academic interests.
Ellie Gettinger
Returning to Dr. Pellets talk. He considers the perception of the Arab minority in Israel.
Roy Peled
So I want to say a few words about conflicting visions on the status of the Arab minority since or through these points in history that I mentioned for many, many years.
The state of Israel doesn’t really ask itself what is our endgame in terms of our relationship with the Arab minority. It’s just not a question. There is an administrative question how we handle Arab localities, how we handle opposition Arabs in politics. But there’s no sort of in-depth discussion of their role in the country that begins to change with the Oslo Accords and not from the Israeli side, but actually more from the Arab side.
Well, from both sides, I’d say in these ways, Arabs begin to say to themselves, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Israel is going to strike an agreement with the PLO. And where does that leave us? The PLO is representing only the Palestinians outside of Israel per se. Not not officially, but in practice. That’s what they’re discussing about with the government of Israel.
The government of Israel insisted, and I think rightfully so, But this creates a problem that the PLO does not represent Israeli Arabs and that nothing about Israeli Arabs is part of this process. So Israelis Arabs begin to ask themselves, where does this leave us? And are we is anyone representing us? Are we deserted by our leadership in both senses of the national one, the PLO and and the Israeli government and something else happens.
Maybe it’s sort of a backlash to that is the Jews also begin to worry. They insist that anything that has to do with Arab-Israelis is an internal political matter. But as voices rise opposing or raising these questions, some Jews begin to feel well. So if there is now going to be a Palestinian state, I’ll give you a spoiler. That never happened even. But the sense was at the time that this may happen. And then there are claims for binationality of Israel. Where does that leave us? Is this going to be a solution of a one and a half Palestinian state and half Jewish state? So there begins to be more discussion about this nature come the year 2000 riots.
Again, very, very conflicting views. But Arabs were 12 Arabs were killed by the police in riots. That one has to say were very violent and cut off the country for a while. Arabs see they’re treated by the police not as protesting citizens, but as enemies as terrorists. Jews begin to think that way. There is a significant force within the country that challenges what we never thought about and took for granted that we basically own this place and serious security threats.
This leads to an interesting development in 2006, different Arab organizations for different initiatives within the Arab sector create what is known as the vision documents, saying, look, we think needs to be the relationship between the state and its national Palestinian minority. Each of them has a different voice, but basically they talk about either binationality or French version of Republicanism where all citizens are equal, but they present the Jewish majority with a vision, not one I necessarily like, any of them, but a well-argued and well thought through vision I had the time was asked to serve as a research assistant for a team of academics in Tel Aviv University that was brought together to respond, to put on the table the Jewish vision for the state’s relationship with its minority. We met for first four or five times and they just couldn’t agree on how to present a vision for the relationship between the state and its minority.
Ellie Gettinger
How are these conversations going on in Israel? And who’s at the table?
Roy Peled
Can I say something before and how it’s going on in the state?
Ellie Gettinger
Please, because I’m not sure it’s going on as much in the States,
Roy Peled
I have nothing to say about how often it happens. But talking about quality rather than quantity. I don’t there and don’t think it always happens on the highest quality. Even in academia, there is lots of simplicity, lots of labeling. It’s of sort of flattening of the discussion into preexisting narratives about either antisemitism on the one hand or settler colonialism on the other.
And normally people jump to the extremes, and that’s sad. And that doesn’t let people learn anything, which I have to say, I don’t I was I think what we had here today was in contrast to that, and I was very happy to see the audience sort of engaged on a deeper level. Does this happen in Israel? Not enough.
And in similar ways maybe to the problems here, but more out of fear or out of deep emotions that lead the discussion? Very few people on both sides, I think, but I’m more familiar with the Jewish side, are really willing to put themselves in the shoes of, for instance, what it’s like to be a minority in a Jewish state.
And people are very defensive. So they think that the moment I’ll acknowledge that it’s not the best experience, I’ll be required to give up my hopes for a Jewish state, or I’ll have to denounce Zionism or a sort of avoiding that back home. So people you don’t think that maybe, okay, I can I can accept that there are some problems.
And now let’s sit down and talk our way to more nuanced solutions. And it’s not everybody’s up in arms.
Ellie Gettinger
In his talk, he expands on the role of the courts in promoting minority right now.
Roy Peled
This also played out in the courts. And I want to mention two quick cases that the present very different notions of the relationship between the state and this minority, the Ka’adon case in 2000 is a case where a citizen, a nurse from village of Baqa al-Gharbiya, wants to improve his life standards, mostly the education of his daughters, and he wants to purchase a piece of land at a nearby community that’s being set up.
He goes there and he’s told, he look like a nice guy, but we don’t accept Arabs here. And he goes to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court, you know, not very long and not very complicated cases says no, that can fly. These sorry communities are erected on state land and the state cannot discriminate between Jews and Arabs. There are few complexities there because the Jewish agency is involved in how the lands were purchased to begin with.
The basically the Supreme Court says, no, and it’s a almost unanimous decision. I want to mention Justice Mishael Cheshin, because justice question is considered not rightfully, by the way, but is considered a conservative judge. Some stages even in this current judicial overhaul. He was the hero of the right. Again, I don’t think that for good reasons, but he is known for very lengthy and heated opinions.
He writes a one-line opinion in this case. He says in receiving their rights from the state, the petitioners were discriminated against and deserve a remedy from this course. That’s all this decision. So I want to contrasted with the second case in 2002, Adalah, which is very important legal NGO fighting for equal rights of Arabs in Israel, petitions to the Supreme Court against five municipalities that have a sizable Arab minority, and they ask the courts to force these municipalities to have Arabic on all their street signs, next to Hebrew, obviously. The court in this case accepts their petition. Justice Cheshin, which I mentioned a minute ago, is in the minority and thinks it should be rejected. And the difference is that this case is not about civic equality for the individual. This case is about the presence of the Arab minority in the public sphere. And Justice Barak, together with Justice Dorner in, say, the Arab minority is a native minority.
It’s not like immigrants from Russia, for instance, and it has the rights for its culture. And its language, of course, is part of its culture to thrive in its homeland. Justice Cheshin says maybe so, maybe not. But it’s not something for the court to decide. If it were a civic problem of an individual, if someone would get lost because he can’t find his way, because there are no sense I’d ruled in favor of him.
But the petitioners made it very clear and they did, that this is a political question that they want the court to back their right to be present in the Israeli public sphere. And justice question thinks that that is very different from Ka’adan. So there are conflicting visions here within the legal establishment, I’d say, about what equality for the minority means.
So we come to the Nation-State law and here maybe I’ll give it. There’s nothing unusual about the Nation-State law. You think about constitutions, many of them have a preamble saying this is the identity of our state. And if people basically accept the idea that Israel is a Jewish state, it could be under also, I think, many different circumstances, a very reasonable opening for a constitution.
It’s not unusual methodologically to have a preamble that says this is the character of our state. There are, however, some substantial issues I’ll mention for the lack of any reference to equality, exclusive national self-determination. We need to say it doesn’t say that only Jews have a right to self-determination, but to national self-determination. The change in the status of Arabic and the question Jewish of governmental support for Jewish settlements.
Now we have to remember the political background here is, as I mentioned earlier, sort of a growing insecurity of Jews in the legitimization of the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. You could debate how justified those fears are. I think that they are a result of some fearmongering. On the other hand, if you think six blocks south of here, those fears got some support in recent times.
So that’s sort of on the Jewish psyche. It’s also a time where there is growing demands, as Mr. mentioned, for integration of Arabs into politics. And this is for the far right, a way to poke the Arab parties in the eye, to say, we want to remind you that you are not equal citizens in this country. We want to make sure that everybody remembers its nature.
And as I said, if you look at the text, I don’t think that’s an impossible text. If you look at the context, that delivers a very different message. That’s the political motivation. It’s also an anti judiciary, political motivation, and the initiators say it very clearly. The court preferred along the years the Democratic part of the states definition on account of the Jewish part.
And we want to change that equilibrium. We want to bring the Jewish part to be more dominant. There is a petition to the Supreme Court against this law, and the Supreme Court, as I think anyone could expect, checks the petition, but says a few important things. And you have to remember this is a petition against a constitutional amendment.
So legally, it’s not a simple thing at all. But the Supreme Court says, look, the laws says that Arabic will be a language with a special status. That is actually in the signage case. I mentioned earlier what Justice Barak Chief Justice Barak said that Israel is the primary official language in the state, but Arabic is the language of a sizable native minority deserves a special status.
So there is no real change in reality there. And actually, in a way, it’s a recognition of the collective right of the Arab minority. The law talks about the governments supporting Jewish settlement, and some people try to argue that that is an overruling of the Ka’adan case. But actually, I have to say that in the bill, the draft bill, it said that the government can support separate settlements.
That was changed, that could not go through the Knesset, which again is a good sign. The Knesset wouldn’t legislate something. Talking about segregative settlements. It did say Jewish settlements in the court says, you know, let’s see what that means in the future. It may mean like a Jewish state, a community who whose culture is Jewish. But clearly and by the way, even some of the initiators of the lawsuit, clearly any Arab can live in a Jewish community.
It’s not an idea to segregate them, maybe sort of more intentional religious communities. We don’t know. Let’s wait to see how that is used. So the court interprets the law as very benign. Now, it’s been used by some judges as a leader. First of all, the number one use of this law since then is by Jewish criminals petitioning the government not to extradite them because of the clause, the state’s commitment to protect Jews.
But that never succeeded. There were a few cases where judges in the lower instances used the court once to deny Arab petitioners who asked for support of the reimbursement on expenses of students driving to Arab schools somewhere else from their municipality. And the lower instance judge said, Well, the municipality has the right to be a Jewish settlement and it doesn’t have to support that.
But that has been overruled, I have to say. Not the outcome but the argument. So the the impact was not dramatic officially. That said, there are social implications, right? There is a message coming with this bill. It was not necessarily embraced by the judiciary and not necessarily embraced by parliament, but definitely pushed by certain factions in the parliament that says we want to remind you who’s the boss, and that has all kinds of effects.
Also, lawyers say on our willingness to fight the state in some fronts out of fear, future interpretations of this law will be very problematic. And the courts are changing what happened so far is not necessarily what will happen.
Ellie Gettinger
In this moment of heightened political rhetoric. How can we temper our responses in dealing with something as politically charged as minority rights in Israel? If you could nuance the conversation. These are the things that I want people to know in order to get to that gray area. What would you want to present?
Roy Peled
So one would be I myself am a Zionist. I believe strongly that there is no reason that a Jewish state identified as such should not exist and at the same time be democratic. But to begin with, I want people to understand that not everybody has to believe that, and that when people question that, that doesn’t immediately turn them to illegitimate, antisemitic.
Some people argue that out of antisemitic views, but definitely not everybody. And by saying you can only enter the discussion if you accept that you’re limiting the discussion way more than necessary and you’re losing just lots of people you can talk to. So that’s one thing. The other is that there are many different ways to think of a Jewish state.
It’s easier here in the States to explain that a Jewish state isn’t necessarily a halachic state, but quite a few Israelis think that they don’t really want the restaurants to be closed on a Saturday or not to be able to go to a movie on Shabbat. But they sort of implicitly accept that there is some inherent preference to Jewish religious or Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox practices in the state of Israel and I don’t accept that.
I think that we need to remember that a Jewish state can mean many different things and that we sort of have to break the nexus between the culture of the state, its its symbols and its laws and its use of of force, of power, and that not everything with our Palestinian citizens is a zero sum game that we can give space to Palestinian aspirations for a better life.
We don’t have to accept any of their demands if there is such a thing as there. There are many different pastimes or political leadership. Not municipal, not local. National leadership is often quite radical. I have my criticism of it. I don’t expect many of their arguments and demands from the state. But that’s fine. I don’t have to. And I and I can acknowledge their issues, their problems. The harm that the state inflicts on them without having to submit myself to all their demands.
Ellie Gettinger
In closing his comments at the convening, Dr. Peled begins talking about how change can happen. Spoiler alert he comes back to the question of the Israeli constitution.
Roy Peled
Nothing is going to change without a political change. Good things happened in the civil service in the past decade. At the same time, horrible things happened on the political level and there was an ongoing, escalating rhetoric against the Arab population in support of, if not explicitly, definitely implicitly, Jewish supremacy and no real change in the current. That can happen without change on the political level.
That said, and if that happens, we do see signs of more willingness, political integration of Arabs. Conflicting signs sometimes. But that that is also there. We do see a more economical integration again, mostly because of the civil service, understanding how crucial this is for the state, not for the minority. I mean, they’re not mutually exclusive, but the motivation was how important it is for the state.
And at the end of the day, if we really come to an actual Israeli constitution, it will have to answer the question which some may not want to deal with, but will never settle in a sort of secure and sense of coming to an actual permanent nature of the state without giving some sort of recognition one way or another to the fact that there are not just non-Hebrew speaking citizens in Israel, but an actual national minority within the state.
Ellie Gettinger
Where do you find kind of hope or promise in this challenging moment?
Roy Peled
I have to search very thoroughly to find it these days. I find it, so one, as I said in there and the current Arab leadership and how it responded to October 7th and in lots of local initiatives between Arab municipalities and Jewish ones in the civil society on the political level, in in more willingness than in the past to accept the need for integration.
We saw that in the so-called change government by Bennett Lapid. But then we have to say Bennett was here last month in Columbia and said that he won’t repeat that, that the government needs to be composed of Zionist parties. Now, again, I’m a Zionist. I want Israel to be honest, but that doesn’t say that it has to be exclusively Zionist.
I can’t say I hope because I think even as a political statement it’s harming, but I hope that will change. Let’s say if people like him are back in power, I think that in the long run, after years that the courts have sort of got us used to the idea that equality is part of our Constitution, that we see more Arabic in the public sphere, that we see more Arabic, not just as sweepers, but as doctors and heads of departments in hospitals and in high ranking civil service positions.
People are more open to that. I think with the right leadership and with a bold leadership, things can change rather quickly.
Ellie Gettinger
Thank you so much. The need for a constitution and the challenge of ensuring rights without one came up repeatedly at the convening. Israel at a Crossroads. Dr. Roy Peled provided an excellent framework for understanding these complex issues, and particularly in addressing the shift in the passage of Basic Laws since 2014. I keep going back to the question. He turned back on me. How are we in the U.S. talking about minority rights in Israel?
Thank you for listening. This audio was recorded at the JTS Convening, Israel at a Crossroads. I hope you will expand this conversation, sharing your concerns and questions, and maybe this podcast with friends and family members. If you want to see complete footage of this session or of any of the sessions of the meeting, Israel at a Crossroads.
You can find a link on our website jtsa.edu/podcasts. Look for the “Expanding the Conversation” icon. Each episode includes discussion questions for individuals or groups to consider and links to our speakers, organizations and publications. If you would like to attend a Convening, you can find information about our upcoming programs at jtsa.edu/convenings
I’m Ellie Gettinger, director of Outreach for JTS. This podcast was produced by me with technical support from Chris Hickey, director of New Media. This is a production of the Jewish Theological Seminary. No part of this podcast may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The views expressed here in may not be those of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
