By Mickey Gitzin, NIF Director in Israel
The following was first published in Haaretz in Hebrew. It has been translated, edited and abridged for NIF. You can find the full original Hebrew here.
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What is a state? A state is an idea, a system of institutions, and a group of citizens. The Netanyahu government has launched a coordinated assault on all three.
Here are just a few examples:
- The Minister of Communications is trying to dismantle the Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN), a pluralistic, successful media organization. At the same time, he is gathering signatures to fire the attorney general, seeking to empower government ministries to violate the law with impunity.
- The Minister of National Security has publicly declared that the police’s role is no longer to enforce the law, but to advance his ideological objectives.
- The Minister of Culture is deploying the police to prevent screenings of films that challenge the status quo.
- The Minister of the Environment is out to get environmental organizations.
- The Prime Minister’s Office is establishing a private intelligence unit to ensure that otherwise illegal intelligence leaks are legalized.
- The Minister of Justice is undermining the judicial system, and there is even a proposal to prohibit the creation of a commission of inquiry into October 7, Israel’s worst-ever security failure, out of the fear that it might point to Netanyahu as a responsible party.
In short, this government is replacing democracy with a new ideology: public institutions are no longer meant to serve the public but rather those who win elections. They believe that television should not promote culture but rather broadcast government propaganda. The police are not tasked with upholding the law but with assisting ministers (and their extremist allies). Knesset members should have even more legal immunity to escape the lawsuits filed against them by citizens. The government should control investigative bodies, with its own subordinates investigating themselves. And the legal system, instead of protecting citizens from the government, will give its stamp of approval to the government ministers’ schemes.
This attack is so dizzying and relentless that it is hard to believe that it can be stopped. It seems that all the dams have been breached, the liberal public is worn out and the threshold for reacting to right-wing actions has grown alarmingly high. There is a growing sense that there’s nothing left to do but put our heads down and accept the dictates of the right as reality.
But that reality is not inevitable. We can fight back — and we can win.
The constitutional and political battle in Israel is far from over. Every time the Israeli public has taken to the streets in protest, it has succeeded in thwarting right-wing agendas. When the opposition is united, with determination and creativity, even seemingly inevitable legislative moves have been diluted, diminished, or blocked.
To a large extent, this government’s actions stem from desperation. Despite their best efforts to spin it in the media, this coalition consistently loses in polls. Over time, the voter gap sometimes narrows, but it always widens again. The explanation is simple: Netanyahu’s victory in the last election was razor-thin, and even before his government’s attempts to overhaul the judiciary and the events of October 7, he lost the popular vote. Many patriotic right-wing voters, disillusioned by Netanyahu’s leadership, have realized that he is the real threat to the State of Israel — and they will never vote for him again.
In the wake of our national disaster fourteen months ago, the main thing that appears inevitable to me is the fall of this right-wing government. It is precisely this fact that holds the coalition together.
The liberal public is tired. But exhaustion cannot turn into resignation. Fatigue must not turn into helplessness. We cannot allow the limited influence of opposition leaders to make us believe there is no alternative to this government. There is always an alternative.
Despite the coalition’s majority in the Knesset and the barrage of right-wing media support, this is a minority government. Its days are numbered. The members of the coalition know this. Eliminating key checks and balances of democracy is not just an ideological move for them — it’s a matter of survival.
Now, it’s time for us to believe in our own strength. It’s time to return to the fight on the home front. Victory is not just possible — it’s closer than we think.