The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) issued a new report titled “Toward the 2025 Knesset Summer Session: From Destroying Democracy to Building Dictatorship.” The report summarizes and analyzes a sweeping set of legislative proposals for the summer Knesset session, and warns that the Israeli government is headed down a very dangerous path.
Many of these legislative moves will target Arab citizens and Palestinians and lay the groundwork to undermine civil liberties and eliminate democratic gatekeepers. The result, ACRI says, will be a much more active expansion of authoritarian power.
The report—which you can read in full here—divides the kinds of bills that are coming up into two categories:
1. Bills aimed at continuing the destruction of democratic institutions: After previous Knesset sessions concentrated on weakening and delegitimizing the judicial system, government gatekeepers, and the rule of law, the government now appears to be expanding its focus to include restricting freedom of expression and silencing government opposition. It also seeks to turn elections, the most prominent and identifiable feature of democracy, into a hollow farce.
2. Bills laying the foundation for authoritarian rule: These bills seek to increase government control over citizens: expanding arrest and surveillance powers; reducing judicial oversight of law enforcement agencies; taking over the media; and attempting to control public and national identity through legislation aimed at immigration, citizenship, and representation.
With this report, ACRI is issuing a warning in no uncertain terms: the cumulative effect of this legislation will be the transformation of Israeli democracy into a system that prioritizes loyalty over rights. “Only public awareness,” they write, “civic mobilization, and determined protest can stop the advancement of an authoritarian regime change.”