Oral Yosef argues that Israelis who serve in reserve duty keep fulfilling their duty again and again, while the state continues to operate without a stable constitutional framework. He says a “thin constitution” could restore public trust by creating agreed rules of the game, even amid deep disputes.
The column opens with the image of another reserve call-up arriving by email, no longer as a surprise but as a sign of detachment. Yosef says the suffering of reservists, including strained relationships and collapsing businesses, has become background noise in public discourse. He describes the war as having demanded an entire Zionist generation to live a life of self-sacrifice, and says that reality is most visible in the constant tension between the front and home life.
Yosef says many Israelis who lived through October 7 expected Israeli society and politics to change the next morning, with greater responsibility, restraint, and broader consensus on basic rules. Instead, he argues, Israel has returned to a prewar political culture in which every dispute becomes a crisis and basic state arrangements remain hostage to short-term politics. He quotes former Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who said basic laws are too easily amended and asked how anyone could have imagined, because of political constellations, that Basic Law: The Knesset would be amended more than 50 times.
The proposed thin constitution, Yosef writes, is not meant to settle questions of religion, identity, nationality, or disputed rights. It would instead establish stable governing rules that do not change with each temporary majority, because the real naivety is believing the country can keep going without fixed limits on power and stable decision-making mechanisms. He cites Niccolò Machiavelli to argue that states rely on institutions and arrangements, not just good intentions. Yosef says the army calls up citizens through an efficient system, but the system that decides on war still rests on patchwork arrangements. The constitution, he writes, would force leaders too, and would ensure that no side can unilaterally set the rules.
Yosef concludes that the goal is not to end disputes, but to create a framework that allows Israelis to live with them without each crisis threatening to tear apart the home they are fighting for. In his view, the country should at least provide the national stability that it asks of those serving it. He identifies himself as a researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute.
