Protecting the majority, restraining the minority: Constitutionalism in the wake of World War II and Israel’s early constitutional debate

Abstract This article analyzes how demographic dynamics between Jews and Palestinian Arabs during Israel’s founding years shaped the country’s constitutional debate, highlighting a largely unrecognized factor: the central role of the national conflict in determining Israel’s early constitutional trajectory. It challenges the prevailing view that post-World War II constitutionalism primarily sought to protect minorities and constrain majority rule, showing instead how demographic concerns informed constitutional design. Drawing on archival sources, the study demonstrates that the nascent Jewish majority’s primary concern was that the Arab minority might leverage its political position to destabilize the new state’s institutions. The constitution was therefore conceived as a majoritarian instrument—one intended to secure control over state structures rather than to entrench minority protections. Fundamental rights and judicial review, typically regarded as core components of postwar constitutional frameworks, were consequently treated as secondary or even dispensable. As demographic realities shifted and the Jewish majority consolidated, the perceived need for a formal constitution diminished. Israel thus presents a postwar case in which constitutionalism was driven by the interests of a numerically insecure majority rather than by the protection of minorities. More broadly, the article suggests that “sufficiently numerous” and “not sufficiently numerous” do not always correspond to conventional distinctions between majority and minority.