The roots of the country’s fight over democracy, and where it could go next
BY KARL VICK
FOR DECADES, THE THREATS THAT defined Israel arrived from without, and produced a basic cohesion. On security, Jewish Israelis spoke as one, historically giving the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) approval ratings near 90%. But the paroxysm convulsing the country in its 75th year is wholly internal. The current crisis rises not from any Arab neighbor—several of which now enjoy cordial relations with the Jewish state—but over how Jewish Israelis choose to live. The question is fraught, and appears to threaten the fabric of the nation.
Like its borders, Israel’s government structure is not fixed. It’s a parliamentary democracy without a constitution. The Prime Minister sits in the Knesset, the legislature, and the only check on the majority is the Supreme Court, which at times decides its role for itself. Now, however, the Knesset has moved to take control of the court. A law narrowly passed on July 24 that bars justices from overruling government actions. The power play, pushed by the most right-wing government in the country’s history, had already sparked 30 weeks of massive street protests at the time of the vote, with no end in sight.
RIGHT-WING ASCENT To win in last November’s elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to assemble a coalition that included parties so far right that they existed on the fringe. (His National-Security Minister was deemed unfit to serve in the IDF because of his extremism.) Their grudge against the high court dates to 2005, when the justices approved the government’s removal of 8,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip. Now their eagerness to expand Jewish control in the West Bank and their antipathy toward Arabs, including the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian, has found traction in the 73% of young Israeli Jews who identify as being on the right. With young people the least liberal demographic, time is on the conservatives’ side.
INTERNAL DIVISIONS Israel has long been led by European, or Ashkenazi, Jews even though most Israelis today are Mizrahi, who trace their origins to the Middle East and other parts of North Africa; they are more likely to be working class and religious, and are historically underrepresented in positions of power. Netanyahu, though Ashkenazi, has long channeled Mizrahi resentments. They see the real goal of the protesters, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. argued in a recent op-ed, as “to preserve the power lost at the polls by the Ashkenazi elite.”
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