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Michael Berkowitz's avatar

Or, perhaps, the "backsliding of democracy" is just something that progressives complain about whenever they lose power.

If Israeli Supreme Court justices were appointed by its government -- which is not actually the law being proposed, but nevermind -- that would make it like the USA. If its ability to override legislation were curtailed -- by, say, rules of standing -- that would make it like the USA. On the matter of overriding the court with a simple majority, I'd agree that's a bad thing, but my understanding is that it's applicability is heavily circumscribed (I'm still against it, but I have a sense of proportion).

Changes to state-owned media and such are equally reasonable, given the progressive hegemony there. There's no whisper, as far as I know, of affecting private media (something that was not the case under left-wing governments).

The lawlessness of the Bedouins, the ultra-Orthodox and the Settlers are wildly disparate phenomena and largely overstated in this essay. There are, for example, effective "no-go zones" among the Bedouins, but not among the other two groups.

Note, by-the-way, that none of this improved under the previous left-of-center government.

As for the terrible problem of the Israeli left having lost clout among the electorate, it's not because the populace has become jingoistic. It's because the left failed spectacularly with Oslo and then Gaza, and has since been unable to admit to its failures or correct its course in any way.

President Herzog has called on the sides to meet and discuss compromise -- and has been vilified for it by the left -- not because of any plans announced by the new government but because of the catastrophizing response of the left to the new government's plans to, you know, govern.

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Unset's avatar

If only I had a dollar for every time Persuasion wrote an essay about how Democracy is in Danger Because People I Don't Like Were Elected and Pursue Policies I Don't Favor

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