Mickey Gitzin, NIF’s director in Israel, authored the article below. It originally appeared in Hebrew on Haaretz’s Hebrew website. It has been translated here in full and edited for clarity. Click here for the original Hebrew text.
The Attack on Civil Society Is No Different Than the Threat to the Supreme Court. Why Are Politicians Silent?
Try to imagine what Israel would look like without civil organizations: no volunteers to help evacuees from the Gaza Envelope and the north after October 7: no organizations fighting for workers’ rights or assisting the elderly security guard or the cashier who was fired, no one warning about pollution in rivers or organizing beach cleanups. Would that be a better country to live in?
The Israeli government is preparing for a new phase in its assault on civil society. The coalition is advancing a bill that would impose draconian taxes on NGOs receiving international aid—with a carveout for those favored by the state. The head of Israel’s Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, recently submitted an affidavit to the High Court about Netanyahu’s behavior. In it, he explained that Prime Minister Netanyahu had asked him to track pro-democracy protest leaders and their funders. This is the path this government is on—the idea that they can surveil, track, and then thwart their opposition is what’s in store for everyone if the government is not stopped. And Israel’s NGO sector is next.
Netanyahu’s coalition is following in the footsteps of populist regimes in Hungary, Turkey, and Russia, which began by simultaneously attacking civil society, the media, and the judiciary—and ended with distorting election law and entrenching corrupt autocracies. They often did so claiming that because they were elected by some majority, however slim, anything they did constituted the “will of the people,” and to disagree with them was to transgress against the entire “people”. In none of these cases did their actions—as they claimed to be the truest expression of what their nation wanted—make their nations freer, more just, or more democratic.
NGOs and civil society organizations are at the heart of democracy. They allow citizens to shape their lives beyond voting once every few years. They serve as a bridge between individuals and the complex mechanisms of modern society. The public doesn’t always connect the dots, but so many policy shifts, reforms, and new programs that the state adopts were first born in civil society organizations. When things change—there is suddenly more public transportation available, more buildings are built to be accessible, or the minimum wage rises—it is, very often, because civil society pushed for those things to happen.
To put it slightly more concretely: civil society organizations give voice to those who would otherwise go unheard in the corridors of power: minority communities, people living in poverty, single parents, and people with disabilities. Civil society acts as an early warning system, identifying social problems before they escalate into crises and alerting to failures and injustices. This is a service to the state and society that contributes to stability and resilience far more than expanding the police force or building more prisons.
Eliminating these organizations won’t lead to a more efficient government. In countries that weaken their civil societies, corruption indicators have sharply increased. In countries without organizations to promote transparency and equality, public funds leak into the wrong hands: contractors seize lands, industries dump waste into rivers, and national projects fail due to unqualified political appointments. Things get dirtier—both literally and figuratively.
It’s easy to understand why any government views oversight as a nuisance, but under populist regimes, the threat becomes especially severe. These regimes need enemies, and civil society organizations are convenient targets. They are associated with intellectual elites and often represent agendas that seem esoteric or fringe. This makes them easy to portray as disconnected from what they call “the people.” Almost always, human rights organizations are marked as the first target, as they deal with difficult issues that lack broad public consensus. But these very organizations are the most vital for democracy. Those who defend the rights of the accused criminal or the stateless refugee are the last line of defense before the slide begins to affect ordinary citizens. But regimes that target human rights organizations never stop there.
The fight for civil society is inseparable from the fight for a free press or judicial independence. It is always troubling to see centrist politicians rush to defend Israel’s Supreme Court while remaining silent when human rights organizations are attacked. Doing so paves the way for a purge that will ultimately eliminate them as well. Those who remain silent when leftists are called “traitors” should not be surprised when there are calls to jail the head of the Shin Bet, fire the attorney general, or imprison opposition figures. In regimes that reach the end of their populist coup, these calls become reality.
The good news is that this version of extreme populism does not enjoy the support of a majority of the Israeli public. The only places where it rules continuously are places where democracy has been entirely dismantled. In the rest of the world—places like Slovenia, Poland, and Brazil—it has been proven that liberal and democratic forces can stop populism when they act in unity and with awareness of its dangers. Despite the aftershocks of Trump’s election or the renewed judicial coup in Israel, democratic activists in America, Israel, and around the world can support each other—and win.