Deadlocks · defusion
End the Ottoman remnants
Take personal status out of the religious courts, allow civil marriage, and modernise land law, removing inherited rules that no one chose and that give religious parties leverage.
Israel's marriage and divorce still run through each community's religious courts, a system inherited from the Ottoman millets; there is no civil marriage for anyone. Land law in the West Bank still rests on the 1858 Ottoman Land Code. Reform would give citizens choices they don't have and reduce the coalition leverage of parties whose power depends on the religious monopoly (see 'What the Ottomans and the British left behind').
The deadlocks it addresses
Where it has been tried
- Turkey's 1926 civil code — worked. Replaced religious personal law with a civil code in the Ottoman Empire's successor state, from above and at a price.
- Israel's recognition of civil marriages performed abroad — partly. A workaround that shows the demand; couples fly to Cyprus to marry.
What you have to believe for it to work
- A coalition without the religious parties' veto can be formed
- Changes to personal law can be separated from the national conflict
These are the assumptions the future solution builder will let you set yourself.
What has to happen first
- A governing majority not dependent on the religious parties
How it can fail
- It is fought as a culture war and blocks everything else
- Religious communities, Jewish and Muslim alike, see it as an attack