The debate over the judicial overhaul draws arguments from three main academic fields: law, political science, and economics. Allow me to add another field: statistics.
People often tend to make decisions based on statistical value alone, but doing so is wrong. The statistical outcome should only be one determining factor in following through with a decision.
To illustrate the point, let’s say a storm is approaching my house, and there’s a 10% chance that my home will collapse. At first glance, there’s nothing to worry about since there’s a 90% chance that nothing will happen.
Yet, any sane person would rather not sleep in the house out of fear for their life should this 10% come to be. Therefore, it’s acceptable to make decisions not based on probability, but on expected value which is determined by multiplying the probability of something happening by the outcome it will produce: good or bad.
Israel had already made serious miscalculations in the past when it failed to account for the expected value. For example, prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where Israel was caught unprepared, there were signs indicating that Egypt and Syria will launch an offensive soon.
The IDF Intelligence Corp determined that the probability of war was low, and based on those estimations the military failed to prepare itself. It made sense not to enlist reserve units due to economic, political, and social costs, but there was no reason not to prepare for war with the mandatory army who may not like the fact they're being mobilized.
In other words, the result of multiplying the low probability of war with the devastating outcome of being unprepared for one is much worse compared to multiplying the high probability of war with the negligible outcome of disgruntled soldiers.
This analysis also has a lot to do with what's going on today. Judicial overhaul opponents say that the coalition's moves will crash the economy and badly hurt Israel's standing on the international stage.
Supporters, on the other hand, would respond that these things won’t happen. But the question isn’t who’s right between them.
Let’s say the probability of bad things happening as a result of the overhaul is 20%, meaning that there’s 80% that the good outcomes lauded by the supporters will come true. Should that happen, those opposing the overhaul would still be in the right.
The reason for that is simply the expected value. Even if there’s only 20% that the worst will happen, the outcome would be severe. The expected negative value in such a scenario will be much higher than the expected positive value should the good things the overhaul suggests happen, even at an 80% probability.
The truth is that the probability of such an overhaul to turn Israel from a democracy to a dictatorship is much higher than 20%.
There are three parts in the proposed overhaul that “ensure” Israel will develop an undemocratic regime: the Supreme Court won’t be able to intervene in the legislation of Basic Laws, which are regular laws that have no unique legislative status in the country.
Basic Laws are akin to constitutional laws and deal with the formation and role of the principal institutions of Israel, and with the relations between its authorities.
Finally, Israel lacks a constitution that will guarantee the “natural” rights currently anchored by the Basic Laws.
In this state, the coalition could decide, for example, that the freedom of occupation is a Basic Law that doesn’t apply to women or to the Arab sector. Many parts of the coalition believe that this is how things should work.
Therefore, this overhaul must be stopped, at least until natural rights are enshrined through a “special Basic Law” that can only be amended with a majority of at least 90 Knesset members.