On the State of the Jewish Democratic State
Michael Feuer*
One version of the joke about pessimists and optimists has the former worrying about World War Three… and the latter worrying about World War Four. In these post-October 7 days, when evidence of Hamas depravity stirs memories that should be locked safely in the “never again” vault, it may be too soon to worry, so to speak, about “the day after.” But that would break with tradition: Jewish history has had many (too many) occasions when resilience and hope were mobilized against evil, when a glimmer of light at the end of the darkest tunnels allowed people to imagine life. The father of a murdered daughter and son-in-law at Kibbutz Kissufim (where plans were continuing for a new maternity hospital to treat Gazans and Jews), told me he was thinking ahead to rebuilding and replanting.
In awe, and in hopes that Israel’s military objectives are achieved and the remaining hostages returned, here is some guarded optimism. I am not alone in starting to think of the post-war. Just about everyone who lives in Israel or follows events there anticipates a full-throated argument — on everything from the possibility of a two-state solution to the impossibility of living with genocidal terrorists at the fence, to the future of Jewish cultural and religious renewal in the homeland, to the resurgence of global antisemitism, to relations with many diasporas — an activity that distinguishes democracy from systems where core values and policies are dictated, not deliberated.
Which begs the question: How sturdy is Israeli democracy?
As I suggested to colleagues preparing for a study mission to Israel in January 2023 (coincidentally a few months after Bibi Netanyahu came back to power), in the contest over whose democracy is at greater risk our friends in Jerusalem may have taken the lead, at least temporarily. People we met said that not since the Yom Kippur War had they felt as fearful for their country. (Many of us were brought back to the morning after the November 2016 presidential election.) Thank God (and the IDF) Moshe Dayan’s warning that “the Third Temple is in danger” did not materialize. Fifty years later, as Israel recovers from October 7 and must face the reality of adversaries who are not arguing about borders but are hell-bent on its elimination, the big question is whether the country will resist what Anne Applebaum calls “the lure of authoritarianism.” To prepare for that test, now is a good time to tackle the flawed charge that Israel cannot be Jewish and democratic. Spoiler alert: pace H. L. Mencken, I will argue that you won’t make big money betting against Israel as a light unto democratic nations.
My optimism is based in part on the paradox of protest: with the proposed judicial overhaul and the broader religious/right agenda, perceived as endangering Israel’s core democratic structures, came popular opposition that broke world records. Estimates ranged from 60,000 demonstrators weekly in Spring to 250,000 as momentum built, just in Tel Aviv, with smaller numbers in other cities secular and religious. (For context, 200,000 would be equivalent to about eight million Americans — weekly. Even in the best days of the anti-Vietnam war movement we didn’t get close to that.) In Jerusalem demonstrators carried banners saying “SOS” — שומרים על הבית המשותף — saving our shared home. Among the protestors were doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scientists, labor leaders, bankers, and, most startlingly, air force pilots and army reservists. Some of these loyal citizens warned of other existential threats — from Hamas and Hezbollah — but their pleas were ignored by zealots whose tunnel vision, let’s just say, obscured their view of tunnels.
Backers of Bibi blamed the protests on snobby Ashkenazim [Jews of European descent] afraid of being “replaced” by Jews from North Africa, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere. This was hypocrisy of the highest order: top leaders of the coalition are scions of the Ashkenazi elite who, if the simplistic rhetoric held, would have been leading the protests! At Ben Gurion airport when I was there in July, the crowd reflected Israel’s shifting mosaic: my favorite tee shirt, with bold letters spelling “democracy” (דמוקרטיה), was on the sweaty torsos of young and old, religious and secular, Moroccan and Ethiopian and Parisian and American — in many cases layered over army fatigues. A brilliant decision was to have protestors drape themselves in the Star of David flag. I wrote myself a note: anyone who thinks Israel cannot be Jewish and democratic should see this.
Much of the Netanyahu agenda was delayed, if not permanently defeated. But the metaphor of the temple-at-risk again became relevant, on the day now marked by the largest and most obscene atrocity in the history of the state. Israel is steeped in archeology, and even grief comes in layers: beneath the anguish at the physical death and destruction visited by Hamas, there is a thick layer of emotional and cognitive shock. In the past, the time it took for security forces to descend on scenes of bus bombings was measured in minutes. Now, as victims huddled in their “safe rooms” and as survivors began loading body bags with children and parents and grandparents and neighbors, everyone wondered, aghast: where is Tzahal [the IDF]? Another survivor at Kissufim, asked how long it felt waiting for help, said this: נצח [eternity].
Overcoming this trauma of disbelief will depend on a renewal of trust in government. In recent years, the US and other democracies have fallen victim to demagogues intent on inflaming bigotry and xenophobia to undermine trust. Israel, too, has suffered creeping polarization encouraged by toxic rhetoric coming from the top political echelons. But the unity demonstrated since October 7 is stunning. As the army started to mobilize, the protest movement pivoted: with the deftness of speed skaters stopping suddenly and changing direction, mass opposition on October 6 became a national rescue mission on October 8. The civilian i-nfrastructure — a world-class internet and social media system — was retooled to organize aid for displaced families, trauma counseling, clothing donations, temporary schools. A major foundation dropped its usual protocols for grant making, and reallocated large amounts to purchase and deliver protective equipment for soldiers. But such activism poses a challenge: how to bring coordination to the thousands determined to stand up, show up, and make a difference. Civil society is stepping in, as the government tries to overcome bureaucratic commotion. The Jewish Agency for Israel has launched an ambitious program to help coordinate recovery in communities of the Gaza envelope. Jewish philanthropic institutions in Israel and the US have raised billions.
Voluntary civic engagement is necessary and desirable in liberal democracies. But it cannot be the long-term substitute for competent government entrusted with the authority to design and enforce collective action for the common good. Rebuilding trust is especially challenging in this time of uncertainty: How can Israel and the Jewish people cope with neighbors pointing precision missiles for a five-minute ride to Tel Aviv, supported by millions scattered around the world whose avowed aim is erasure of the Jewish state and people? Is the promise of Zionism, to prevent the kind of massacre perpetrated on October 7, compromised? What can be done about the revival of global antisemitism?
Against such questions, is there room for optimism? Yes, assuming the guardrails of democracy hold — which is more likely if its adherents are buoyed, rather than bullied. A common complaint, for example, is about Israel’s electoral rules. Bibi’s party got less than 25% of the vote — so how come he’s Prime Minister? That’s a fair question, which would be fairer still if placed aside the equally disturbing fact that Hillary Clinton had three million more votes than her opponent in 2016. Just as the electoral college is an imperfect bulwark against tyrannies of the majority, anomalies in Israel’s election arithmetic originate from democratic (and egalitarian) instincts. The system gives outsized power to tiny parties largely for the sake of ultra-representativeness (excuse the pun). Indeed, hyper-inclusivity has long been part of Israel’s cultural DNA, with religious strands twisted differently than in the American model. One reason there are four publicly funded but separate school systems, for example, was the decision to not impose on diverse groups repopulating the ancestral homeland beliefs they didn’t share; David Ben Gurion underestimated the effects of concessions to religious parties that enabled him to sustain his coalition. The unintended consequence, tribalism, might seem familiar to Americans accustomed to our red and blue map. Is polarization a predictor of democracy’s demise? Only if allowed to thrive uncontested, which is clearly not the case in Israel.
Arguments over religious and secular definitions of Judaism, spiced with ethnic loyalties rooted in multiple diasporas, have been raging only for about two millennia. I am often saddened to see American Jews unable or unwilling to cut Zionism a break: you mean, after 2000 years of wandering you could not, in eight decades, solve all the puzzles of Jewish peoplehood? As Amos Oz reminded us, Zionists were dreamers: some wanted Tel Aviv to replicate high-brow Vienna, others hoped for Stalinist collectivism, others favored spiritual renewal over sovereignty, others would have been pleased to recreate their shtetls… and they all saw their dreams deferred or diluted by realities of compromise for the greater good. As Robert Alter notes in his recent biography of Oz, “this…explains in part the disorderly politics of Israel today…” Indeed, Israel’s attempts to cope with its “melting pot” — often boiling over — are evidence of a democratic pluralism that should arouse affection and admiration, especially among Americans for whom the contest between pluribus and unum has been the national political sport for two centuries.
And then there’s the matter of personality. A focus of contempt for Israeli policies, if not for the idea of a Jewish state, is its current Prime Minister, who oozes narcissistic corruption, lack of dignity unbecoming of a statesman, a wily capacity to manipulate public opinion, and a willingness to put personal interest above the public good. Any of that sound familiar? Having survived Father Coughlin in the 1930’s, Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s, George Wallace in the 1960’s, the Proud Boys of 2021, and … you see where this is heading … Americans should be grateful we have (so far) dodged fascist bullets and go easy in denunciation of Israel’s “failed” system. That would be more valuable than what Robert Satloff aptly called “jeremiads of self-righteous columnists” who tell the IDF what to do, or the puffery of pundits who distract themselves from the specter of November 2024 by sniffing at the peccadillos of Zionism, or who perpetuate tropes that validate Israelis’ sense of loneliness. In any case, Israel is not in worse danger of backsliding than western Europe and the US, and all bets are on Netanyahu’s departure before or after the next round of elections.
Which brings me to another layer of grief. Israelis are coping not only with daily announcements of fallen soldiers and graphic images of sadistic violence, but with the betrayal of traditional allies, manifest in their hemming and hawing about “context,” in sloganeering about “Palestine free from the river to the sea,” in shifting blame to the victims, in calling for an immediate cease-fire, and in suddenly deciding that women’s allegations of gang rape require more proof. South Africa’s manufactured charge of genocide against Israel, in the light of the history of Jewish activism against apartheid, stretches incredulity to the breaking point.
Nothing will dissuade haters of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish, from their celebration of the Hamas butchers. For others, though, including lovers of Zion who are troubled by Israel’s unfulfilled egalitarian goals, easily accessible data would be illuminating (and good to keep handy at cocktail parties where fellow intellectuals squirm in embarrassment over those obnoxious Israelis). For example, there are more Arab students in top Israeli universities, proportionately, than there are people of color at MIT and the University of Maryland; life expectancy in the occupied territories is six years higher than in southeast Washington, DC; there are currently ten Arab members of the Knesset and a Muslim justice on the Israel Supreme Court; Palestinian women are among the most educated, and LGBTQ rights in Israel the most developed, in the Middle East; the population in Gaza grew by 17 percent between 2017 and 2023. Does that sound like apartheid and ethnic cleansing?
October 7 was a cruel reminder that the price of relaxation for Jews is high. At one hundred+ days into the nightmare, signs everywhere in Israel say “only united can we win.” It is a plea more than a declaration; a vow of guarded confidence, not smug invincibility. Is there hope? Earlier this month the Israel Supreme Court struck down efforts to repeal the “reasonableness” clause, a sign that the pillars of checks-and-balances, though a bit wobbly, are holding. The protest movement seems to have pivoted again, with peaceful assembly mobilized to demand action for release of the hostages and new elections. As Mark Twain might have put it, reports of the death of democracy are exaggerated. Israel is facing its past and planning the future. The state of the Jewish democratic state is strong. The Third Temple stands.
*Michael Feuer is Dean and Professor of Education Policy at the George Washington University and nonresident fellow of the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is Can Schools Save Democracy: Civic Education and the Common Good (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). The views here are his own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of GW or Brookings.
