1000 Days. What has changed?

By Leon Orbach & Nirit Eylon

One thousand days ago, many of us woke to messages we could not comprehend.

For Israelis, it was the deadliest day in the history of the State. For Jews around the world, it shattered an assumption many of us had carried our entire lives: that, whatever disagreements we had with Israel, it would always remain a place of safety for the Jewish people.

Nothing has felt quite the same since.

Over these 1,000 days we have lived through emotions that few generations have experienced all at once. We mourned the murdered. We waited for news of the hostages. We celebrated the rescue and return of some while grieving those who never came home. We watched young soldiers leave for reserve duty again and again. We witnessed families displaced from the north and south, children growing up under the shadow of war, communities torn apart, and an entire nation living with trauma that will take years, perhaps generations, to heal.

Here in Australia, we experienced our own transformation.

Almost overnight, antisemitism moved from the margins into the mainstream. Many Jews who had never hidden their identity began thinking twice before wearing a Magen David, speaking Hebrew in public, or sending their children to Jewish schools. Friendships fractured. University campuses became hostile. Our community rallied week after week in support of Israel and the hostages, while simultaneously finding ourselves increasingly isolated in wider Australian society.

Perhaps that has been one of the greatest emotional burdens of these 1,000 days.

As Zionists, we love Israel. As Jews, we feel connected to its people. Yet increasingly, many of us have felt that our love for Israel has been confused with unconditional support for the policies of the government of the day.

Those are not the same thing.

Supporting Israel’s right to exist, defend itself, and remain the homeland of the Jewish people does not require silence when we believe its leaders are taking the country in the wrong direction. Patriotism is not measured by unquestioning loyalty to a government. Democracies are strengthened when citizens, both in Israel and throughout the Diaspora, speak honestly out of love and responsibility.

Hatikvah Australia rejects the growing attempt to conflate Zionism with support for any particular government or political leader.

Our Zionism is rooted in Israel’s Declaration of Independence: a Jewish and democratic state that guarantees freedom, equality, justice and peace. Governments come and go. Our connection to Israel does not.

That is precisely why the conduct of the Netanyahu Government over these past 1,000 days matters so deeply.

Following the greatest failure in Israel’s history, many expected a government that would first unite the nation, accept responsibility, establish a State Commission of Inquiry, and begin rebuilding trust between Israelis and between Israel and the Jewish world.

Instead, much of the government’s energy has remained focused on advancing a judicial overhaul and reshaping Israel’s democratic institutions.

How has the Netanyahu Government responded during those 1000 days? 

Against a backdrop of calls for a Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 massacres, looming elections, inequality in shouldering the burden of defending the State, unresolved criminal proceedings involving the Prime Minister, increasing violence both within and beyond the Green Line, continuing displacement of tens of thousands of Israelis, years of disrupted education for many children, and wars with no clear diplomatic horizon, the Netanyahu Government has remained resolutely focused on one overriding objective.

Even before the catastrophic events of October 7, 2023, the government embarked on a sweeping judicial overhaul package aimed at restricting the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, allowing a simple Knesset majority to override court rulings, and granting the executive greater control over judicial appointments.

This agenda triggered one of the largest protest movements in Israeli history. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in defence of Israel’s democratic institutions. Initially presented as one comprehensive reform, the strategy evolved into an incremental approach, governing by what many have described as “a thousand cuts.”

Many assumed that the horrors of October 7 and the ensuing war would pause these deeply divisive reforms. A nation fighting for its survival, mourning its dead and seeking unity would surely put constitutional battles aside.

Instead, the opposite occurred.

The trauma of war became the backdrop against which the government continued, and in many respects accelerated, its broader institutional agenda.

The strategy has rested on four interconnected approaches.

Fog of war

With the public consumed by war, bereavement and the hostage crisis, significant legislative and institutional changes attracted far less public scrutiny than they would have before October 7.

Scapegoating the judiciary

Government figures increasingly portrayed judges and legal advisers as obstacles to effective governance, shifting blame for national failures while weakening public confidence in independent institutions.

Incrementalism

Rather than pursuing one sweeping reform, the government advanced numerous smaller legislative and administrative changes. Individually they appeared technical. Collectively they reshape Israel’s democratic architecture, governing by “a thousand cuts.”

Security-based populism

Legitimate security concerns have repeatedly been used to justify expanding executive power and limiting institutional checks, presenting democratic safeguards as obstacles rather than strengths.

What were the “Thousand Cuts”?

Judicial appointments and court manipulation

• Freezing the Supreme Court Presidency by refusing to officially recognise or cooperate with Justice Isaac Amit after his election as Supreme Court President.

• Engineering judicial vacancies by deliberately delaying the appointment of three replacement Supreme Court justices.

• Altering the Judicial Selection Committee to increase coalition control over future judicial appointments.

• Changing the appointment process for the Judicial Ombudsperson responsible for disciplinary oversight of judges.

Targeting law enforcement and oversight

• Attempting to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara despite her constitutional role and ongoing supervision of the Prime Minister’s corruption trial.

• Expanding ministerial authority over police investigations through the Ben-Gvir Law.

• Seeking greater political control over the appointment and operation of the Shin Bet.

• Altering the appointment process for the Civil Service Commissioner to favour political appointments over independent professionals.

Curtailing civil society and democratic checks

• Weakening the independence of the Israel Bar Association.

• Introducing measures restricting media independence and public broadcasting under wartime justifications.

Targeting political opposition

• Advancing legislation to heavily tax foreign-funded civil society organisations.

• Making it easier to disqualify Arab political parties from contesting national elections.

Perpetuating inequality

• Advancing legislation designed to institutionalise military draft exemptions for Haredi men despite Supreme Court rulings.

• Delaying implementation of court decisions through recurring security emergencies.

• Attempting to anchor exemptions through the national budget once military crises subside.

The Supreme Court’s response

Throughout this period, the Supreme Court has acted as the principal institutional check on the government’s efforts to reshape Israel’s constitutional system.

Invalidation of the Reasonableness Law (January 2024)

For the first time in Israeli history, the Supreme Court struck down part of a Basic Law, ruling that removing judicial review of “extremely unreasonable” government decisions caused severe damage to Israel’s democratic character.

Judicial Selection Committee hearings (2026)

The Court sharply criticised legislation giving the governing coalition greater influence over judicial appointments, warning that future judges could be viewed as political appointees, undermining public confidence in judicial independence.

Freezing the dismissal of the Attorney General

The Court intervened to suspend the government’s decision to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, protecting one of Israel’s most important independent constitutional offices from direct political interference.

The challenges ahead

The next chapter of Israel’s story has not yet been written.

Israel must rebuild public trust after the greatest national trauma in its history. It must honour those who were murdered, support the families and communities who were shattered, and ensure that the failures of October 7 are never repeated. It must restore confidence in democratic institutions while addressing genuine security threats. It must also find a political horizon that offers future generations something more hopeful than endless war.

The Jewish world faces its own challenge.

Will Diaspora Jews continue to be judged by the actions of whichever government happens to hold office in Jerusalem? Or can we reclaim a broader understanding of Zionism, one grounded in democracy, pluralism, justice and the enduring right of the Jewish people to self-determination?

One thousand days after October 7, our grief remains.

So does our love for Israel.

It is precisely because we refuse to give up on either that we continue to speak.