The idea of rights has been central to U.S. political and constitutional discourse from the beginning. The Declaration of Independence appealed to “inalienable rights,” and the first amendments to the Constitution were universally described as a bill of rights. Yet, something distinctive appears to have happened to the idea of rights over the course of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, rights-claims were being asserted in locations, such as schools and prisons, where they had not been found at the century's beginning, and they were being asserted on behalf of claimants, such as fetuses and new arrivals to the United States, who were outside the domain of rights earlier. Even the content of rights-claims changed. Much of the Warren Court's work completed a constitutional agenda outlined, albeit unclearly, in the 1940s and early 1950s as part of the New Deal's constitutional vindication. The Warren Court added something new—an emphasis on personal autonomy—to the New Deal's concerns for fairness in the political process.

Reading Tushnet's careful analysis of the history of the American rights revolution filled me with envy. One of the great advantages of writing about law in the U.S. is the ability to experience and benefit from centuries of sustained legal evolution. The world of an Israeli law professor whose horizons barely reach the middle of the twentieth century is impoverished in comparison to the enriching experience of living in a mature and rich legal tradition such as that of the U.S.

Living in a different legal tradition and being ignorant of legal history—a field which only began to develop in Israel in the late 1990s—it will be pretentious on my part to try and challenge Tushnet's findings or even to try and explore the similarities and differences with the rights revolution in the Israeli legal system. Instead, I wish to explore the relevance of Tushnet's findings to constitutional theory and argue that constitutional theorists have some important lessons to learn from Tushnet's careful historical observations.

It is my pleasure to contribute to the workshop on Mark Tushnet's manuscript. Good literature is sometimes identified by its ability to elicit responses on different levels. While reading Tushnet's compelling manuscript, my thoughts about the validity of the historical analysis were supplemented by immediate comparisons to the much shorter history of the rise of “rightspeak” in Israel. Then there were some thoughts about the possible links between this manuscript and Tushnet's earlier works and between this manuscript and other studies of the subject. Finally, I found myself linking and comparing Tushnet's implicit normative arguments with my own views on the role of courts in liberal democracy.

This is yet another manuscript by one of the most interesting and prolific American constitutional law professors that the Critical Legal Studies movement has produced. Mark Tushnet has written extensively and influentially in the fields of both American and comparative constitutional law. He is a known expert on twentieth century American legal history, bringing this expertise to bear in writing his ambitious and most recent book, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century.

This review of an early draft of the book will consist of three parts. The first portrays Tushnet's descriptive enterprise in a nutshell. The second discusses the historical dimensions of Tushnet's work. The last evaluates its contribution to legal theory along the lines suggested by Alon Harel.

In this brief response I address two issues raised by these generous comments. Rivka Weill and Margit Cohn prod me to provide a more theoretical underpinning for the historical account I offered, and all three commenters suggest that the U.S. experience does not shed much light on the normative case for constitutional review presented by Alon Harel in other work. I sketch a theoretical account of the historical narrative, grounded in the structure of U.S. government and politics. That sketch may have some implications for conceptualizing the course of constitutional development in other polities. Then I raise some questions about Harel's theory of constitutional review as a mechanism for providing individuals with a forum in which they can receive an explanation of why they are properly being subjected to treatment that harms them individually, if one is available. I end with a suggestion connecting the two components of this Rejoinder.

Constitutional judicial review in Central and Eastern Europe has become an entrenched and powerful factor in the politics and constitutional life of these countries; indeed, it would be impossible to give even a rough account of these new democracies without bringing constitutional courts into the picture. For all their importance and activism, their introduction had not been preceded by any thorough debate concerning the merits and demerits of the model transplanted from Western Europe—especially, from Germany—and the developing jurisprudence of the courts was strangely silent about the grounds and the limits of the courts ‘legitimacy, especially when replacing parliamentary choices on rights implicating matters with the courts’ own views about the proper articulation of vague rights-provisions. This Article explores some of the reasons and consequences of this silence.

Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip has created a situation in which this territory is dependent on the supply of various necessities by Israel, in particular the supply of electricity, In 2008 Israel decided to withhold 5% of the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip, prompting several Gaza residents as well as human rights organizations to petition the Supreme Court of Israel against this decision. In Jaber Al-Bassiouni Ahmed v. The Prime Minister the Court assumed that the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip had ended with the disengagement and treated this issue on the basis of general humanitarian law. The basic questions of whether the occupation had ended, and whether certain duties remained with Israel, even assuming that Gaza is no longer occupied, have not been explored. This Article addresses these two questions.

It is the conclusion of this Article that regardless of the terms imposed by Israel after disengagement and other reservations that have been raised in this regard, occupation ended following the complete withdrawal of any Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip. Israel's disengagement raised difficulties that are not only unique to the Gaza Strip; these difficulties emerge in most cases when occupation is replaced by a process of self-determination rather than the return of the former sovereign. The contention presented herein is that Israel continues to have certain post-occupation duties even after the occupation of Gaza. These duties correspond to the occupant's duties to care for order and civil life in the territory during the occupation. These obligations will end once the new regime in the area is able to perform the duties that fell upon the shoulders of the occupant during the occupation, or until the non-performance of the new regime is attributable to its own failures and not to the ending of the occupation. In light of these contentions, Israel is still under certain obligations regarding the Gaza Strip, among them the regular supply of electricity to that area.

The Article argues for a new assessment of the significance of Israel's Law of Return—that the Law of Return reflects not the sovereign prerogative of a state to control immigration, but the right of every Jew to settle in the Land of Israel. This understanding of the Law of Return explains why Section 4 proclaims that as far as the Law is concerned, the status of Jews born within the State of Israel is the same as those arriving to Israel from abroad. Resolving the anomaly of Section 4 dispels several misinterpretations of the Law of Return and the critiques of the Law which grow out of these misinterpretations. The Article also surveys and answers several liberal objections to Israel's policy of granting preference in immigration and naturalization based on ethno-national identity and presents an argument, for giving priority to Jewish immigration and naturalization based on the extra benefits (religious, political, and communal) that Jews receive from such immigration and naturalization. Finally, it is submitted that the State of Israel has an obligation of justice to admit Jews into the state as full citizens upon their demand, since this was a reasonable expectation of those in past generations who had contributed to the existence and maintenance of the state.

This Article aims to provide the first thorough description of the developing asylum system in the State of Israel. It argues that despite the inherent moral and doctrinal differences between asylum and immigration regimes, the Israeli asylum system is essentially an extension of Israel's immigration and citizenship regime, which excludes the non-Jewish refugees and frames the refugee as the “other;” with the Palestinians and other enemy nationals facing maximum exclusion. While this phenomenon is not uncommon in today's world, which suffers from “compassion fatigue,” diluted protection, and adherence to national self-interest, the Israeli example is exceptional for a number of reasons: 1) it came into being only decades after the rest of the democratic developed countries developed their asylum systems; 2) it is rooted in challenging—albeit not exceptional—geo-political conditions; and 3) it works against the background of a very unique immigration law.