By: Thomas L. Friedman
‘There was a time when a meeting between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel brought only pride to both Israeli and American Jews, who saw two democratic leaders working together. Well, I know that I am not alone when I say that pride is not the emotion that welled up in me on seeing the chummy picture of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu meeting in the Oval Office on Monday. It was disgust and depression.’
Read the full article in the New York Times.
Further along in the story, Friedman quotes our own Director of NIF in Israel, Mickey Gitzin, about Netanyahu’s playbook for eroding democracy in Israel.
‘Netanyahu’s aim today is “dismantling all the essential components of democracy,” wrote Mickey Gitzin, director of the New Israel Fund, in Haaretz on Sunday. “The method is a simple one: You create a maelstrom of daring, illegal moves, simultaneously and on all fronts. While the public is reacting to the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet security service, you advance draconian legislation against” nongovernmental organizations. “When everyone is preoccupied with the status of legal advisers, you advance bills that will make it easier to disqualify Arab candidates.’