Israel’s ‘Crisis of Democracy’ Is That It’s Not a Democracy

by Gregory Shupak 

For much of this year, widespread protests have engulfed Israel in response to 

the Netanyahu government’s attempts 

to overhaul the state’s judiciary. Corporate 

media in the United States (e.g., LA Times, 

3/27/23; Politico, 3/31/23) present this situation as a “crisis of democracy” in Israel. 

Since the demonstrations began on January 

7, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal

and Washington Post have run a combined 

total of 194 pieces that contain some variety 

of the words “Israel,” “crisis” and “democracy.” Only 77 of these, or just under 40%, 

include some form of the terms “Palestine” 

or “Palestinian.” 

This shortage of references to the Palestinians is startling, considering that the Israeli 

government controls the lives of approximately 14 million people who live between 

the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, 

half of them Jewish and half of them Palestinian. These include 2.6 million Palestinians living in the West Bank under Israeli 

military occupation and without political 

rights, and 2 million Palestinians living in 

the Gaza Strip, where Israel confines them 

to an open-air prison. A further 350,000 Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem, which 

was illegally annexed by Israel in 1967, nevertheless do not have the right to vote in Israel’s national elections. 

Roughly 1.9 million Palestinians, living 

on the land that Israel has controlled since 

1948, do have Israeli citizenship and can 

vote in Israeli elections, but discrimination 

against them is enshrined in law. 

So of the 7 million Palestinians over whom 

Israel exercises authority, approximately 5 

million have no say in who governs them or 

how, while Israel relegates the remaining 2 

million to second-class citizenship. By writing about a “crisis” in Israel’s “democracy,” 

without foregrounding or most often even 

mentioning the fact that Israel completely 

disenfranchises some 5 million Palestinians, 

coverage in the Times, Post and Journal

whitewashes the apartheid that fundamentally disqualifies Israel as a democracy. 

Mischaracterized 

as democracy 

Much of these papers’ 

commentary on the 

crisis in Israel nevertheless mischaracterizes Israel as a democracy. The Times’ Thomas Friedman (3/28/23) said that Israelis are 

demonstrating “to ensure the 75th anniversary 

of Israeli democracy will not be its last.” According to the Journal’s editorial board (3/29/23), 

“If we’ve learned anything in recent weeks, it’s 

that Israeli democracy is alive and well.” 

These are propagandistic descriptions of 

Israel, which holds 4,900 Palestinian political prisoners and has a decades-long habit 

of assassinating Palestinian political leaders. 

As Human Rights Watch (4/27/21) noted, 

“[Palestinians] can face up to ten years in 

prison for attempting to influence public 

opinion in a manner that ‘may’ harm public 

peace or public order.” Can you really describe a country that imposes such a rule on 

roughly 2 million people as a “democracy”? 

‘Better health than believed’ 

Bret Stephens of the New York Times 

(3/28/23) asserted that, “if Israel’s democracy is to be judged...against other democracies...it may be in better health than is sometimes believed.” 

Stephens’ definition of democratic health 

apparently allows for sweeping prohibitions 

of political parties: Human Rights Watch 

(4/27/21) noted that, as of 2020, the Israeli 

Defense Ministry had “formal bans against 

430 [West Bank Palestinian] organizations, 

including the Palestine Liberation Organization that Israel signed a peace accord with, 

its ruling Fatah party, and all the other major 

Palestinian political parties.” 

Nor, HRW goes on to note, are Palestinian parties inside Israel exempt from similar treatment, with “legal measures aimed at 

protecting the Jewish character of the state” 

that “formally block Palestinians from challenging the laws that codify their subjugation.” Or, to put it another way, Palestinians

have the right to participate in Israeli “democracy,” provided they don’t call for Israel 

to become a democracy. 

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal’s Nadim 

Koteich (4/10/23) contrasted “the demonstrations in Israel and the protests elsewhere 

in the region,” where dissenters often face 

“harsh repression in the form of lawless imprisonment and execution.” However, Israel routinely enacts precisely such brutality 

against Palestinians. For example, the UN 

(4/6/20) noted that as a result of Israeli repression of the 2018–19 Great March of Return in Gaza, “214 Palestinians, including 46 

children, were killed, and over 36,100, including nearly 8,800 children, have been injured.” 

You probably won’t read about it in your 

daily paper, but Israel’s real crisis of democracy is that Israel is not a democracy. ■

Extra!

by FAIR

July 2023 Vol. 36, No. 6