April 2, 2023
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
Re: “The Solution to Israel’s Crisis Is in America’s Constitution,” (Opinion by Yuval Levin, April 2, 2023, p.5)
To the Editor:
To supplement Yuval Levin’s insightful column, America’s constitutional convention succeeded because it was composed and debated in secrecy to forestall grandstanding that paralyzes political compromise. Proceedings to write an Israeli constitution should likewise be shielded from public glare.
Moreover, America’s convention’s delegates were unhandicapped by the existing Second Continental Congress acting under the Articles of Confederation. The 55 who attended were chosen by individual states. They ignored their mandate to revise the Articles in favor of superseding them with a Constitution featuring separation of powers to be ratified by popularly elected state conventions. That model does not fit Israel’s dispensation, but Chile’s is closer. Chile voted in a 2020 referendum to rewrite a constitution deformed by dictator Augusto Pinochet. The handiwork of Chile’s popularly elected delegates was disapproved in a referendum in September 2022. Nothing in Israel’s Basic Law forbids the Knesset from following Chile’s example and authorizing an Israeli constitutional convention with popularly elected delegates to propose a constitution subject to approval in a referendum.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy
300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728; 703-963-4968
Email: bruce@feinpoints.com