Israel’s Fading Democracy

[bemildred]

WHEN an American presidential candidate visits Israel and his key message is to encourage us to pursue a misguided war with Iran, declaring it “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” for America to stand with our warmongering prime minister, we know that something profound and basic has changed in the relationship between Israel and the United States.

My generation, born in the ’50s, grew up with the deep, almost religious belief that the two countries shared basic values and principles. Back then, Americans and Israelis talked about democracy, human rights, respect for other nations and human solidarity. It was an age of dreamers and builders who sought to create a new world, one without prejudice, racism or discrimination.

Listening to today’s political discourse, one can’t help but notice the radical change in tone. My children have watched their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, kowtow to a fundamentalist coalition in Israel. They are convinced that what ties Israel and America today is not a covenant of humanistic values but rather a new set of mutual interests: war, bombs, threats, fear and trauma. How did this happen? Where is that righteous America? Whatever happened to the good old Israel?

Mr. Netanyahu’s great political “achievement” has been to make Israel a partisan issue and push American Jews into a corner. He has forced them to make political decisions based on calculations that go against what they perceive to be American interests. The emotional extortion compels Jews to pressure the Obama administration, a government with which they actually share values and worldviews, when those who love Israel should be doing the opposite: helping the American government to intervene and save Israel from itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/israels-fading-democracy.html?pagewanted=all

[oberliner]

1. He wrote essentially this same article ten years ago

Except it was about Sharon, not Netanyahu.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/15/comment

[bemildred]

2. I have seen such sentiments many times.

Used to be more common, I would say, I suppose the old guard is dying out.

[Ken Burch]

4. That means nothing's improved in ten years.

n/t.

Israelis need to make a real fight for democracy now...they can't let the obsession with "security" trump everything else and still have a country worth preserving. Security is meaningless if it leads to authoritarianism.

[holdencaufield]

5. If Obama doesn't win his re-election bid in November...

... I think you will see a lot more articles bemoaning the state of American democracy than you will see about Israeli democracy.

Glass houses, people

[Ken Burch]

7. Nobody's being tougher on Israel than on the United States.

We hold the U.S. to even higher standards.

[oberliner]

6. Alternatively it means that this person has a fixed point of view

And it hasn't changed and most likely won't change.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Lot of truth in this, though 'one state for all peoples' won't be a possibility for at least 30

Last edited Tue Aug 7, 2012, 04:15 AM - Edit history (1)

years if ever.

I doubt though that Israel would become a theocracy - unless secular Jews leave en masse, which seems unlikely at this stage. The real danger if democracy fails is IMO that it may become another Lebanon, with irreconcilable conflicts between several rival groups, sometimes being barely suppressed from above, sometimes erupting into civil war.

And even without that, there is the danger of increased McCarthyism and suppression of internal dissent.

On the other hand, Israel may go more the way of Northern Ireland. We can hope.

10 years ago, the situation was already becoming evident. The difference was that there was absolutely no hope then of a working democracy in other Middle Eastern countries (there may or very likely may not be now); and that the 'established' democracies in other parts of the world seemed safer then than now. We may also fear for democracy in Europe if the economic issues are not resolved and far-right parties rise, in America if the Tea Party gains control, and more subtly in the UK if this bloody government continues to pursue radical policies with no mandate.