The political culture: israel and its nonl-iberal culture of alternative politics

Violations of human rights in democratic systems are usually case-related rather than the result of a consistent, articulated policy. This is also the situation in Israel, where governmental authorities are required to safeguard the individual's fundamental “natural” rights and the Israeli Knesset (parliament) is required to uphold the fundamental rights outlined in the Basic Laws of 1992, namely Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. As a result, human rights organizations usually adopt a case-related strategy in which they help people in specific cases defend their rights, rather than attempting to inculcate attitudinal changes in society in support of human rights. This is also the reason why these organizations regard the Court as their natural ally in defending human rights and helping people in litigation. However, in the long run, such an approach may prove ineffective in societies such as Israel, in which the norms of human rights have not been internalized in the political culture. In such societies, the case-specific strategy may achieve results in the short term, but in the long run may create the impression that human rights are the interest of elitist groups rather than the whole society. Given that the Court is heavily dependent on the legitimacy granted to it by the public, this process of alienating the public from human rights procedures may lead to a decline in the legitimacy given to the Court in defending human rights. Therefore, human rights organizations in Israeli society must consider these conditions and design a long-term strategy for defending human rights through the internalization of norms in society. A number of significant changes in Israeli political culture in recent decades make the possibility of instilling such norms in society more feasible.