Israel is presented, to the world and to itself, through two different images:
On the one hand, we have a country of occupation and settlements that defies international law and evades its dictates. This image can be seen in a broad array of actions taken on a daily basis, and it has led many of Israel’s former sympathizers from across the globe to renounce it or question that sympathy.
On the other hand, there is an Israel that has seen hundreds of thousands protesting for 30 weeks, without tiring of stopping, to defend the Supreme Court against the executive authority. They are fighting a battle in defense of democracy, against the populism undercutting it and the cult of personality eating away at it.
While occupations and settlements are an unfamiliar sight in our day and age, the sight of hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting in defense of their country’s Supreme Court is less common, at least in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it is not at all a popular cause in any of our countries.
The combination of these two features leaves us before what could be called an old democracy, or a colonial democracy. This refers to cases in which politics is advanced and vigorous inside the country and its community, while he who does not belong to that “interior” is seen as outsider and other. This other is lower and less worthy by definition; he could even be seen, as was the case in ancient Athen, as a “barbarian.”
If apartheid South Africa was a strikingly horrific example of this model, Myanmar has also provided us with one. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for democracy and civil rule against the military, for which she was persecuted and imprisoned for long periods, turned her into a global democratic icon. Thus, for example, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and she was constantly celebrated across the globe.
However, once the military regime fell and she became the actual ruler of Myanmar, she oversaw a massacre against her country’s Rohingya Muslims. By becoming the generals’ accomplice, and then covering up this mass atrocity, she negated the military’s need for her and her democratic cover. As a result, the generals ousted her after toppling the regime in 2021, despite her party having won the general elections just a few months prior.
In other words, democracy, after having become a universal value, cannot be democratic “here” but an occupation “there,” as this kind of sharp divide between the inside and outside swiftly extends into the “here” and splits it. This is an efficacious prescription for eliminating democracy and politics.
This kind of behavior, however, goes against the historical trajectory we all know. Indeed, modern democracy initially emerged in colonial countries and then evolved, with decolonization and anti-colonialism becoming among its essential features. This battle was decided in France, after Algeria gained its independence. It had become clear then that perpetuating the occupation would not only topple French democracy, but make civil war among the French themselves a real possibility.
The likelihood of democracy’s regression to a bygone era that it had moved beyond is strengthened by the rise of populist movements led by nationalists whose allegiance to nationalism and their role as leaders is far more robust than their allegiance to democracy.
Going back to Israel and its incomplete democracy, which is now under threat, it is hard to imagine how it could be salvaged if things continue to go along the same path.
In this sense, there is no avoiding a combination of defending the Supreme Court’s powers and pushing back against settlements and the occupation. This is a task that the Palestinians could help advance, if they want to, by showing more concern for this pivotal Israeli event and contributing more to it.
The fact is that the democratic camp in the Jewish state, even if it is not a full democracy, is influenced by the rest of the world and the pressure that other countries can exert. Moreover, it is receptive to appeals to universal values that could be developed, to say nothing about the fact that this camp would be the disaffected party in the event of a democratic collapse. On the other hand, the camp of religious and nationalist parties rallying around Benjamin Netanyahu offers nothing but an uncompromising position and outright hostility for others.
And regardless of the rosy hyperboles of Iran and its Palestinian and Lebanese armed factions, the dynamics of Palestinian society do support the assumption that they can benefit from an Israeli collapse, contrary to what many among us keep repeating. In fact, Israel’s collapse could precipitate another Palestinian collapse, adding it to a series of others, especially since the Palestinian Authority, thanks to how it and its rivals have been conducting themselves, has failed to make any kind of tangible positive impact. For their part, the Arab neighbors surrounding Palestine and Israel are undergoing new peaks of fragmentation, from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and vice versa.
In the end, it is the responsibility of many parties that are not brought together by love, but could and should come together around their shared interests. This is the lesson that both Mandela and de Klerk learned in South Africa, and we do not have anyone who could draw the same conclusion here.
