Conclusions

Unamendability has never occupied the centre stage of constitutional debates in Israel. The reasons for this are obvious: the existing constitutional arrangements are seen as partial only and fall short of a full constitution, and they lack provisions about constitutional amendments.

The situation in Israel presents a good case study of both the expressive and the preservative functions of unamendable clauses and principles and the tension with democracy. The unamendable ‘Jewish and democratic’ values declare their supe­riority over other norms and announce that they cannot be changed through democratic ways, and in essence put the Jewish character above democracy.

Equally important is the preservative function. Whether through section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset and its role in blocking any potential change before it materializes, or through the Rules of Procedure of the Knesset which play a similar role, the preservative impetus is clear to see.

This analysis of unamendability in Israel shows some of the negative aspects of unamendability and its potential instrumentalization to introduce hierarchy among the citizenry and to entrench a special and favourable status for certain groups at the expense of others. Unamendability in this context also raises questions about the constitutional order itself and its democratic credentials, for it is not clear whether ‘the people’-which according to the Supreme Court is the political unit that holds sovereignty and authorizes making and changing the constitution includes the entire collective of citizens.^[782] Are the Palestinian citizens part of this unit given the hierarchy that unamendability contributes to? Could they be part of ‘the people’ when the constitutional order a priori informs them that they cannot even try to change it to remove one of the sources of their legal inferiority? These questions that arise from examining unamendability in Israeli constitutional law highlight the importance of context. Any examination of unamendable provisions or principles should always be situated in the social, political and economic context, for in many cases, unamendability goes beyond mere technicalities and could have a profound impact on state, society and individuals.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the participants of the ‘Workshop on Unamendable Constitutional Provisions’ for their comments and feedback. Special thanks to Richard Albert and Bertil Emrah Oder for organizing the workshop, to Esra Ozcan and Zeynep Kocer for helping host the workshop, and to Yaniv Roznai for thorough and very helpful comments.