The Purse and the Sword

Daniel Friedmann, The Purse and the Sword: The Trials of Israel's Legal Revolution (Oxford Univ. Press 2016).

"The Purse and the Sword presents a critical analysis of Israel's legal system in the context of its politics, history, and the forces that shape its society. This book examines the extensive powers that Israel's Supreme Court arrogated to itself since the 1980s and traces the history of the transformation of its legal system and the shifts in the balance of power between the branches of government. Centrally, this shift has put unprecedented power in the hands of both the Court and Israel's attorney general and state prosecution at the expense of Israel's cabinet, constituting its executive branch, and the Knesset--its parliament. . . . the aggrandizement of power by the legal system led to a backlash against the Supreme Court in the early part of the current century, and to the partial rebalancing of power towards the political branches."

—From publisher's description