An important civics lesson for the world

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Israel’s crisis offers everyone – in America and Europe too – a much-needed primer on the nature, importance and fragility of true democracy.

I have discovered the silver lining in the Israeli government’s attempted authoritarian overhaul: Israel is providing the entire world with a much-needed lesson in the nature, importance and fragility of democracy.

My experience as a foreign correspondent around the world leaves me with little doubt that this lesson is badly needed. Rare is the society where a solid majority appreciates what genuine democracy is. Everywhere, people tend to define democracy as free elections and majority rule.

The remaining supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu are not alone in forgetting the important nuances: that democracy is also, and perhaps mainly, guaranteed civil rights such as freedom of expression and association, protection of minorities and marginalized populations, equality before the law, separation of powers, and most importantly, limits on government power.

And what limits the power of government? Who prevents it from canceling elections or imprisoning the opposition? What will prevent an ultra-conservative government from outlawing homosexuality, or a hyper-secular one from banning religion?

Only the judiciary. It’s best if the judiciary operate under the auspices of a constitution, but it’s essential that it not be beholden directly to the government — for then we will be dealing with not gatekeepers but puppets.

Almost everywhere, it is the so-called “elites” who tend to remember these nuances: academics, lawyers, philosophers, senior officials, cultural figures, and yes, journalists. This is one reason why their freedom of action is important. From these circles will come the drafters of constitutions, all over the world, when the time comes. That is why the populist right despises the educated and incites against them.

Once somehow elected, the populist right will eventually demand unlimited power based on the argument that „the people have decided.”  There will be practically no limit to the import the populist right will attach to any happenstance victory.

In Israel on Nov. 1, for example, the parties of the ruling coalition received 49% of the vote and the main one, Netanyahu’s Likud, had no platform. Overhauling the system did not even appear in Netanyahu’s top goals proclaimed upon assuming office in December. Now the spin machine tells Israelis a vast majority voted for the overhaul.

Normally at such times, the educated rebel but remain in the minority, dismissed as “elites” clinging to “privilege” in defiance of “the people.” If the ploy succeeds, the populists’ next step – as in Hungary and Russia – is machinations to perpetuate their reign. Backed by the puppet-courts, of course; these are to be respected.

It is clear what the Israeli variant would do with unbridled power: religious coercion, oppression of LGBT people, marginalization of the opposition in all its forms and oppression of the  Israeli Arabs, in hopes they will no longer vote. All this will cause a brain drain and capital flight. Demand for the shekel will drop, weakening it, which will the per capita GDP which had already reached $55,000/year – higher than in Germany, France and Great Britain. Israel’s gravy train will go off the rails.

Perhaps it is that calamitous opportunity cost — the thing that would be sacrificed — that compelled what has been something of a miracle: the educated and the liberals actually got their act together and attracted others to a mass protest movement to block the “reforms.”

Almost every senior official in the country’s security, business, technology, academic and media communities came out against the overhaul, and many appeared ready to fight. The shekel has fallen by almost 10% and investments have slowed to a crawl with all three global ratings agencies issuing warnings.

Reservists — including 37 of 40 pilots in the country’s elite squadron — said they would refuse to report for duty, along with many others, deepening an understanding that national security is at stake. While Israel’s friends are in despair, its enemies rejoice. Indeed they are tempted: recent days have seen terrorist attacks coming (for the first time in many years) from every corner: from Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and from within Israel itself.

The government’s disregard for all this over long months has been reckless. Finally, two weeks ago, Netanyahu “paused” the plan, but says it will resume next month. after a period of negotiations with the opposition. It will not end well if that occurs.

The fact that this tragedy is happening in a nuclear power poses a real danger to all, so the world is paying attention – some with concern and some with morbid curiosity (as when faced with roadkill on the highway).

I know of no other nation since World War II that has provided the world with such a riveting example of the danger of giving rein to fanatics. And while Israel’s religion-based madness has no exact parallel in the modern world – other countries do face a similar challenge.

Across the United States and in parts of Europe, there is at this time a similar rage that coalesces in the populist right: against progressives, immigrants, globalization that has destroyed local industries, technology that is eliminating jobs in general, crazy income disparities, and a feeling that tradition is disrespected by the educated.

Populist leaders like Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Narendra Modi in India try to cultivate the same hatred of „elites,” to harness the anger into personality cults and to turn their countries into autocracies. Netanyahu’s Israel seems to be on the vanguard at the moment — but he is merely trying to drag Israel down a path Poland has already blazed. Trump would try the same once more in America, if elected again.

One reason the populist right occasionally wins elections is that the public in many places is asleep at the wheel regarding the brittleness of their freedom. The citizens in most Western countries do not tend to take the danger seriously, until the house is on fire. They’re more concerned with the quotidian. They’d rather not be “political.”

And that’s why it’s so helpful that the populist right in Israel has volunteered to provide the world with so spectacular an example of exactly what can happen. And the world is mesmerized. The Economist, the New York Times, CNN and the Wall Street Journal are all covering it prominently. Members of Congress pressured President Biden to intervene. Most political parties and major media in Germany urged Chancellor Olaf Schulz to reprimand Netanyahu during his visit. In London, supporters of Israel demonstrated by the thousands, and there too a cold shoulder awaited the prime minister (and his grasping wife, who insists on joining his every preposterously extended and utterly unbidden excursion).

Among those who are captivated by the story here are the potential conspirators in other countries – and therefore it is very important, for the entire democratic world, that what can fairly be called the coup attempt in Israel should fail. It is important that the unmasking of the Israeli populist right – after it largely hid its plans during the election – will remove it from power for a good, long time.

That outcome would be an instructive lesson for the citizens of many democratic countries. Then they, too, might rise up when similarly assaulted. If the Israeli populist right is punished, as polls suggest it might be if elections are held soon, perhaps counterparts abroad will think again, and retreat to their darkened caves.

As Peter Gabriel sang in „Biko,” about the twilight of apartheid in South Africa: The eyes of the world are watching now.

Needed: a radical centrist government in Israel

 

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