Where will Miriam Naor go with the Meron disaster state inquiry?
They could have gotten a worse chair for the inquiry, but they may now wish they had not complained so much about the recent possibility of the inquiry being led by former deputy chief justice Elyakim Rubinstein. Naor is a moderate, but she is secular and a moderate activist. Rubinstein has had run-ins with the Haredi community in a series of major Supreme Court decisions, but is orthodox and a moderate conservative. It is unclear though that the differences between the two former Supreme Court justices would have made a huge difference. Both justices have been fairly deferential to the government and the Knesset on laws favoring security a bit more than human rights compared to some other democracies. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });  if(window.location.pathname.indexOf("656089") != -1){console.log("hedva connatix");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";}  For example, both justices routinely voted to approve home demolitions and enhanced interrogations of terrorists, signed off on some controversial IDF warfare tactics and tended to rule for the state when issues like balancing free speech and boycotts of Israel came up. Where Rubinstein was slightly more conservative had to do with decisions by the political class which could appear to be mildly irrational or abuses of power, but were not blatant. He might also have sometimes voted more conservative on some issues related to the settlements, though Naor also sometimes deferred to the state on settlements issues. In contrast, regarding issues of religion and state, both justices, and the vast majority of the court, tend to be more activist in embracing the rights of non-orthodox and secular movements and undermining Haredi control of aspects of peoples lives who are different from them. Naor voted in 2017 to strike down a law favored by Haredim to slow down integration into the IDF as well as to permit private conversion bodies beyond the control of the Haredim. Since retiring from the judiciary, she also started in 2018 to work for Jewish People Policy Institute on questions of balancing religiosity in the dialogue between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. Reports about her appointment suggested that her expertise would be employed to suggest ways to further separate religion and state in Israel so as to make the Jewish state more palatable to the Diaspora, something which would anger Haredim. In terms of Haredi leaders, prior to ascending to the Supreme Court, she served on the district court which convicted Shas party leader Arye Deri of bribery. In 2015, she led the Supreme Court panel which forced then UTJ leader Yaakov Litzman, then deputy health minister, to either become a full part of the government as full health minister or agree to someone else taking control of the Health Ministry. Until then, Haredim had worked out a deal with various ruling coalitions allowing them control of certain ministries as deputy ministers, but without having to have the title minister. The purpose was to avoid their needing to fully recognize and join the secular government, in light of their principled opposition to anything but a theocratic government. So none of the Haredi leaders are excited about her and she has no reason to hesitate to go for some heads. Then again, it could have been worse for them. There are former and current full-throated activist justices from the Supreme Court, and Naor is not among them. She is an institutionalist and favors pragmatic outcomes for the overall good of the state over being overly philosophically principled and progressive. If she thinks that reaching certain conclusions will ruin any chance of even partial cooperation with the Haredi community, she will try to navigate to some kind of middle-ground. It is one thing to take down individuals, and another thing to antagonize the entire Haredi sector. She will probably try to avoid this and when current Supreme Court President Esther Hayut put a former mayor of Bnai Brak on the panel, this also showed some clear intent to dialogue with the Haredi community. In any case, the Haredi political leadership had months to act and gave up the initiative. Now it is Naors move.