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Alon Harel (Hebrew U) and Alon Klement (Tel-Aviv U) propose a solution: Download Separating substance from procedure (1) (003)
Reader comments on their proposal are welcome from interested readers. Signed comments (full name, valid e-mail address) will be strongly preferred.
I am persuaded by the Alons' underlying idea that resolving the "urgent substantive issues" could in theory make it easier to resolve what they call the procedural issues; this reminds me of the 1789 constitutional convention in the US, in the sense that the adoption of the various "procedural mechanisms" constituting the US constitution reflected an underlying political compromise between the various political and economic factions in the US ruling elite.
However, one note of caution: the Alons focus entirely on substantive issues stemming from the various conflicts between secular and religious Israeli Jews. They never mention substantive issues arising from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. My understanding is that these kinds of issues do come before Israel's judiciary, and that the intra-Israeli debate over the Israel-Palestine conflict has a tremendous influence over domestic Israeli politics. Thus, one question I would ask the Alons is whether the substantive-issues stage in their proposal could be successful without resolving substantive issues stemming from the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is a genuine question. If the answer to that question is "no," then I'd have significant doubts about the feasibility of this proposal, because I fear that substantive issues stemming from the Israel-Palestine conflict would be much harder to resolve than the substantive issues stemming from the secular-religious divide within Israeli society.
Regrettably, you are right. It cannot solve the problem of the occupation. But we have to remember that even now the Court is not a very effective instrument to solve the issues of the occupation.
You need a meaningful "budget constraint" on the number/importance of issues to prevent any group from effectively saying "everything matters to us." It doesn't have to be "either conscription or kosher food", but there should be some meaningful restriction on what a group decides is really, actually crucial from those issues which are merely "nice to haves".
Presumably the existence of Tel Aviv's pride parade or public transit running on the Sabbath (both of which the orthodox might like to prohibit) are not as big a deal as conscription, but something needs to force that prioritization and ranking decision internally. You want a small, manageable number of crucial issues for each side.
I don't see an easy way to make this budgeting workable but I think it's important. (You also need a procedure to decide what to do when these basic principles themselves conflict, which is generally what judicial review is for – I don't know where those conflicts are going to be adjudicated?)
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