The Reconciliation Cabinet: It is time to establish a state-public body whose role is to heal the rifts | Liora Minka

The month of Elul invites us to social soul-searching, and this year Elul meets Israel in the midst of a deep crisis: political activists pursue artists and public figures; politicians make polarizing statements; AI videos run wild on social networks. Data from the Israel Democracy Index indicate that the tension between right and left is the sharpest rift in society.

This dangerous reality is not surprising, as researchers have been warning for years about the growing trend of polarization and the erosion of solidarity. However, it seems that today the rifts have become a fundamental structure that threatens our ability to live here together. The Israeli polarization, which is prominent on election days, is particularly frustrating after the sense of cohesion that prevailed here after October 7.

In Israel, where religious, national, and communal identities are intertwined, the processes of radicalization could undermine the very possibility of living together. The time has therefore come to establish a national reconciliation cabinet: a state-public body whose role is to heal the rifts, create a connecting discourse, and lead processes of building trust. The world offers us models that have already been tested, and it is permissible to learn from them: in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created spaces where the pain of apartheid was acknowledged; in Ireland, steps were taken to create social calm; and there are other examples.

National reconciliation requires an institutionalized body with authority and resources, one that acts continuously and not reactively. In order for the Israeli reconciliation cabinet not to be a symbolic decorative committee, it must be built correctly. At its head should stand a statesman who is not politically identified. It will include professionals: social researchers, social psychologists, mediation experts, educators and intellectuals, representatives of civil society: Arabs and Jews, secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox, women and men, Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, new immigrants and native-born, representatives of the periphery and residents of the center.

The reconciliation cabinet will have operational powers: it will establish a research unit that will analyze the centers of the rift and provide an up-to-date picture of the situation, including public trust in government institutions. It will have an executive arm that will operate regional reconciliation tables and regular meetings of community leaders, educators and intellectuals, opinion leaders, and others, who will create an agreed-upon common language. The reconciliation cabinet will lead professional educational initiatives in schools and the army, create safe spaces for meetings between groups, launch a national campaign for respectful discourse, and operate professional mediation teams.

It must be emphasized that the role of the reconciliation cabinet is not to erase differences, but to set the boundaries of the dispute. The body will have the authority to set a "standard for state discourse" and reward conduct accordingly. It will have the right to apply economic sanctions on operators of bot platforms and on fictitious profiles that spread hatred, and it will have powers to operate mediation. It is clear that the activity of the reconciliation cabinet must be defined by broad consensus and in a legal manner, so that its activity does not infringe on freedom of speech.

The author is an educator and former chair of "Emunah" – a movement of religious Zionist women.