To Bibi or not To Bibi? That was the question

Those commentators who have derided Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon for refusing to serve under Netanyahu, talk as though the two are motivated purely by personal animus. Let’s be clear: this is a man facing criminal trial on three counts of corruption, including the most serious political crime of bribery. Had it not been for the corona crisis, a Jerusalem courtroom would already now be the venue for “The State of Israel vs. Benjamin Netanyahu”. It is beyond absurd that the State of Israel is also being led by Benjamin Netanyahu. This is banana republic territory.

No less importantly, we don’t need a courtroom to determine that Netanyahu is guilty of a number of offenses which, whilst not illegal, should disqualify any candidate for high office in a serious liberal democracy. Under Netanyahu, Israel has begun to drift away from the norms of liberal democracy, threatening to join a growing list of what Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban proudly calls “illiberal democracies”; countries where the facade of democracy remains, but liberal principles like the rule of law, freedom of speech and minority rights have been systematically curtailed.

Leading democracy scholar Larry Diamond is one of many who has written on how today’s crisis of democracy is not the result - as in the past - of military coups or violent revolutions:

“Not today. The death of democracy is now typically administered in a thousand cuts. In one country after another, elected leaders have gradually attacked the deep tissues of democracy…”

The domino-like victories of populist nationalists in Europe (Hungary and Poland and – to a lesser extent – the Czech Republic and Italy) and in two giant non-western democracies, India and Brazil, has combined with the distinctly authoritarian tendencies of the current President of the United States to shake the foundations of what used to be called “the liberal world order”.

Israel is not a Hungary, where courts have been packed with judges loyal to the regime and journalists critical of the government have been fined financial penalties or fired; but the Likud and its allies do plan to prevent the Supreme Court from acting as a check on executive power, and demonization of the mainstream media has become a feature of Netanyahu election campaigns. We should not take lightly the warnings of Diamond and others such as Robert Kagan – serious scholars, with no record of anti-Israel animus – that Israel has started marching to this new illiberal tune

Lest this all sound terribly hyperbolic, try a thought experiment: Imagine a country in which the following has taken place:

1.     A long-serving prime minister adopts increasingly populist measures at election campaigns; in one, seeking to boost turnout of his supporters by ‘warning’ of the allegedly high turnout of an racial minority community.

2.     Criminal investigations into his conduct lead the Attorney General – an independent civil servant appointed by the prime minister himself – to recommend indictments on charges of bribery and corruption. The prime minister (despite being on record calling for one his predecessors who faced similar charges to stand down for the good of the country) refuses to resign. Instead he incites a campaign of demonization against the Attorney General and Police Chief. Both are smeared as ‘leftists’ conspiring against a right-wing prime minister (despite both coming from notably right-wing backgrounds).

3.     The election campaigns that follow the indictments are the cue for the prime minister to lead campaigns of incitement against the media and the judiciary, smearing political opponents with blatant lies and empowering far-right extremists – including deliberately maneuvering to bring into parliament a far-right racist party that had previously been shunned by all mainstream parties.

4.     Legislative proposals designed to limit the powers of the Supreme Court are embraced by the prime minister, even though he had for many years openly opposed such measures. It becomes apparent that this is part of a plan to gain immunity from prosecution; to prevent the judiciary from overturning what would be a clearly authoritarian use of majority parliamentary power.

Now try to argue that doesn’t sound like a democracy in serious trouble.

It is not for nothing that a senior aide to Orban said recently that his boss and Netanyahu “belong to the same political family”.

Both Gantz and Lapid have spoken out against this direction of travel. (And Lapid denounced the red carpet treatment afforded Orban on his 2018 visit to Israel.) Ya’alon is a former Likud minister and has spoken in similar terms to other former Likudniks such as Benny Begin, Dan Meridor and President Ruby Rivlin, about the abandonment of the party’s liberal heritage.

Gantz may feel he can do the job of protecting Israeli democracy better from within the government. Perhaps. But the rotation agreement he plans to sign off on will give us Netanyahu as prime minister for at least another 18 months, while facing criminal trial. Worse, rumors abound that Likud will insist on immunity legislation allowing him to continue in public life even after he leaves office.

Time will tell if Gantz’s move was worth the price. And that price is considerable: breaking apart the only serious challenger to Likud, a coalition of center-left and center right Zionists, offering a vision of a liberal and inclusive Israel, with a commitment to clean government. Now Lapid and Yaalon will have to rebuild in opposition, ready to fight for that Israel at the next election. Those who view both parts of “Jewish and democratic” as equally important should hope for their success.