BICOM has recently published articles by four experts to raise the level of discussion in the UK about the state of Israeli democracy. We are starting from a position of caring about Israel’s future as both a state expressing the Jewish right to national self-determination, and a democracy for all its citizens. On that basis, we wanted to stimulate a more nuanced conversation about Israel; frank but genuinely expert, and better contextualized that the narrow, obsessional, and frankly boring ‘debate’ dominated too often on the British left by simplistic “anti-Zionism.”

So, Israeli historian Alexander Yakobson told the story of Israel’s democracy, arguing that ‘no modern free society came into being and was shaped under conditions as adverse to liberal democracy as Israel’s,” and noting that, over time, the country has become “more — rather than less, as is often claimed — of a liberal democracy.’ The political scientist Amichai Magen critically examined the quality and durability of Israeli democracy today, measured according to participation, competition, the rule of law, accountability, civil and political freedom, responsiveness and resilience. The Israeli commentator Nadav Eyal focused on the recent efforts of some on the Israeli right to curb democratic freedoms, arguing that these measures represented ‘the convulsive actions of a dead idea’ from a right that is ‘not winning [but] withering.’ The US political philosopher and co-editor of Dissent, Michael Walzer, talked of his concerns about a series of illiberal threats but also of his hope that Israeli society possesses multiple sources of democratic renewal, as demonstrated by the massive social protest movement that shook Israel last summer.

Our contributors do not deny that problems exist. Far from it. Yakobson highlights “illiberal and undemocratic phenomena and forces in Israel,” which “need to be vigorously confronted.” Magen used his health check on Israeli democracy not to send the reader to sleep but to call for vigilance. Our editorial introduction cites Benny Begin, a leading figure on the Israeli political right, criticising those of his colleagues who had “forgotten the basic rules of democracy”.

However, for those who deny the right of Jews to national self-determination, and who have an agenda to undermine Israel’s legitimacy, that kind of informed and contextualized debate about how to strengthen Israel’s democracy serves no purpose. We do not have the space here to take up all of Ben White’s charges, but his method — one-sided demonization, based on a keyhole “history” of the conflict which only misleads — can be illustrated by one small and one large example.

Read the full article at the New Statesman.