Haviv Rettig Gur

Haviv Rettig Gur is The Times of Israel's senior analyst.

Israelis opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan block a highway during a protest moments after the Israeli leader fired his defense minister, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 26, 2023 (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

March 27, 2023, 1:07 pm

The firing of Defense Minister Gallant brings to a climax an astonishingly fast and wholly self-inflicted collapse of the Israeli right

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a Likud Knesset faction meeting, March 13, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

March 22, 2023, 2:42 am

The implosion of Israel’s ruling party

Under Netanyahu, Likud transformed from a raucous party proud of its internal democracy into a monolith without debate or dissent. That change shapes the fight over the judiciary

By Haviv Rettig Gur

A demonstrator waves the Israeli flag seated on a highway while flanked by border police during a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

March 14, 2023, 1:52 pm

Anatomy of a self-sabotaging reform

The judicial reformers claim to want democracy, which requires compromise, which requires trust. Why, then, did they start with such an extreme version of their reform?

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Illustrative: IDF reservists patrolling along the Lebanese border near the Israeli village of Zar'it. (Roy Sharon/Flash90)

March 8, 2023, 9:40 am

No longer willing to carry the burden: Reservist protest hints at deeper crisis

The IDF is deeply worried that refusal to serve over judicial overhaul will spread. Such threats have been made before, but this time feels different

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Burned cars are seen through a broken window in the town of Huwara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, February 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

February 27, 2023, 2:32 pm

In Netanyahu’s Israel, from fiery riots to boardroom bedlam, chaos reigns

A ‘pogrom’ in Huwara and a fake state budget in Jerusalem all tell the same story of a government losing control on all fronts

By Haviv Rettig Gur

President Isaac Herzog at the funeral of former Knesset speaker Shevach Weiss on February 5, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

February 20, 2023, 6:39 pm

The sudden, surprising indispensability of the Israeli presidency

As the judiciary fight escalates, only one institution has proven determined to bring the sides to the table, demand compromise and push back against narrow sectarian politics

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Israeli reserve soldiers, veterans and activists rally outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, protesting against the government's planned judicial overhaul, on February 10, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

February 14, 2023, 6:14 am

The judiciary fight is fueled by deep distrust; that makes compromise elusive

Why Justice Minister Yariv Levin is in such a rush, foreign investors are increasingly worried, and President Herzog’s call for dialogue may fail

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Israelis protest against the government and its planned judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv, January 28, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

February 7, 2023, 6:39 am

In the Knesset and in the streets, the leaders of the Israeli center-left are MIA

Opponents of the judicial overhaul offer no alternative, no vision and no strategy. These are given to a political movement by its leaders, which the center-left doesn’t have

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and members of his new government look on as the government is sworn in at the Knesset, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022, in Jerusalem. (Amir Cohen/Pool via AP)

February 1, 2023, 8:44 am

Why Netanyahu’s government treats every issue like a war

The new generation of right-wing politicians is bound by the belief that entrenched leftist elites lurk behind every institution and policy problem. The result is chaos

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu (center) seen after coalition talks at a hotel in Jerusalem on November 16, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

January 24, 2023, 2:56 am

Who runs Netanyahu’s Israel?

The fight over a tiny West Bank outpost pits the PM against the radical factions in his coalition and opens a window into the inner workings of the new government

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Minister Aryeh Deri attends a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on January 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

January 20, 2023, 10:54 am

How 3 decades of Deri’s legal troubles now see Israeli judicial independence at risk

It was the Shas leader’s corruption imbroglio in 1993 that helped launch the right’s war on judicial activism, a war that now stands to cripple the courts

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Israelis protest against the Israeli government, at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, on January 7, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

January 11, 2023, 1:44 pm

Battle over High Court exposes frailty of Israel’s piecemeal system of government

The center-left’s fears are reasonable, the right’s arguments authentic; both sides should get past the current shrill debate and restructure a broken system of checks and balances

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Ultra-Orthodox Jews watch as their rabbi votes in Bnei Brak, Nov. 1, 2022 (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

January 4, 2023, 4:20 pm

Are Haredi parties standing in the way of their community’s prosperity?

As Haredi factions return to power, can the inward-looking politics of yesteryear rise to the challenge of a community grown too big to live at someone else’s expense?

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Labor party leader Merav Michaeli casts her ballot at a voting station in Tel Aviv, during the Knesset elections on November 1, 2022. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

November 7, 2022, 5:48 am

The Israeli left has lost more than an election

Israel’s left has been in freefall for 3 decades. It didn’t lose ground in the election; it simply woke up to the mismatch between its political institutions and the electorate

By Haviv Rettig Gur

L-R: MKs Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich at a rally of their Religious Zionism party in the southern city of Sderot on October 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP)

November 1, 2022, 11:51 am

How Smotrich and Ben Gvir led an uprising, wrapped in a bear hug, against Netanyahu

At the ex-PM’s urging, Israel’s extreme-right factions united into an electoral juggernaut that feeds off right-wing discontent with Netanyahu himself

By Haviv Rettig Gur