Thomas Friedman has often described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being to the wider East-West clash of civilizations what Off Broadway is to Broadway. As he put in a New York Times column back in 2014, “Whether it is airline-hijacking, suicide-bombing or trying to do nation-building with the other — Israelis called it “Lebanon invasion” and “Oslo”; we called it “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” — what happens there often moves to the larger stage.”
That seems like many eons ago, but still the analogy has held in many different respects, and so does it now regarding democracy.
Take today’s lead editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz:
That editorial appeared because just yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered officials to boycott the left-leaning newspaper for investigating major scandals involving the Gaza War, and on the same day, the government also announced plans to try to privatize (and thus eliminate) the Public Broadcasting Corporation. Are you listening, PBS? Perhaps Elon Musk will buy it.
See the article from the front page of Monday’s Jerusalem Post:
Americans dealing with the prospect of Trump 2.0 need look no further than to our friends in Israel as to what can happen when a far right government attempts to circumvent the popular will and subvert democratic norms. That happened in Israel in 2023, right up until the October 7 attack. Throughout the year Israelis recognized the five alarm fire for what it was and took to the streets in unprecedented masses to upend Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms. Those radical transformations (“reforms” sounds misleadingly benign) would have all-but-eliminated Israel’s few remaining guardrails against autocracy and a police state. That in turn would have freed the government’s hand to annex the West Bank, roll back individual liberties, minority rights, an independent judiciary and a famously free press.
The people of Israel took to the streets then, and they have continued to do that through the war, only now with the focus being the release of hostages.
One wonders whether the people of America, who just have allowed Donald Trump to slither back into power, albeit without a majority, will have the stomach to do the same thing, to stand up for democracy when the moment of truth arrives.
We have no way of knowing precisely when that will happen, though January 20 is a good guess. And we have no way of knowing what, exactly, the triggering action will be. Attacks on the media have already begun. But I do have confidence that Americans will be ready for this test and will pass it, in part because I saw how Israelis rose to their challenge, under similar circumstances. Like us, they could not rely on politicians to lead them. The opposition holds no power in the legislative body. The media was and is still independent, but like our corporate press, has been beaten down by a relentless leader determined to manipulate the levers of power to stay out of jail. There the resistance came from the grass roots, and it turned out to be not just bipartisan, but non partisan. It was not led by the usual suspects and the predictable parties.
And that is beginning to happen here.
In Israel, the resistance just happened. Organically. Like 500 million cranes, pelicans and herons hearing nature’s call and migrating annually through the Hula Valley, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in 2023, week after week, spontaneously. They stopped the reform and even caused the dismissal of the defense minister to be reversed. The pressure from the public was too great even for the unflinching prime minister to oppose.
For us, the Matt Gaetz nomination was a trial balloon, like those tests of the emergency broadcast system that we sometimes hear at 3 AM. The farcical nature of the nomination and its cartoonish central character masked the utter horror of what easily could have happened had he become attorney general. And it’s not like we are off the hook. It was a small victory for the small d, and democracy lives to fight another day. But few of us even had to get off our couches for that one. Gaetz is so hated in Washington, even by his own party, that this was almost too easy.
But we’ll take any victory at this point.
The Israeli precedent is instructive. Many American Jews have long tried to explain to their non-Jewish friends and classmates that it is possible to both love Israel and loathe the policies of the current government. From 2016-2020, during the prior Trump administration, I felt the same way about America, and I suspect I will again after January 20. It is possible to both love your country and be very mistrustful of the government, in both places, and for essentially the same reasons. But never would I give up on America or, for that matter, on Israel.
Because, we must understand that, despite the xenophobia, the racism, the checkered history, there is an undying nobility to what is good about both America and Israel - as that speech from Field of Dreams rings in my head. To explain this, I’d like to summon not the words of James Earl Jones, but, of all people Sarah Palin. It was Palin who in 2008 spoke of “real America” in an effort to divide us that, as it turns out out, was just a hint of the divisiveness that her movement spawned.
Here’s what she said at a fundraiser in North Carolina:
We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.
Funny thing. I can take those same words and apply them to those who are going to be on the front lines of Protest 2025, who will stand up for our democracy. Because I know that they care about our country. And not just the majority who voted against Trump - plus the 89 million who didn’t vote at all - but the 64% of all Americans who, according to Pew and despite all the demagoguery, say undocumented immigrants should have a way to stay in the country legally if certain requirements are met. That means that many Trump voters don’t really believe that immigrants chow down on cats and dogs. They understand that even the undocumented ones are human beings, who have suffered, who have stories of persecution, who have documented children or partners.
I can promise you this: real Americans won’t stomach having concentration camps set up in our land.
So, two points regarding the Real Ones.
There is a “real America” that is not represented by the ruthless, extremist and illiberal Project 2025, and it includes most Americans.
As a reminder, the Center for American Progress describes Project 2025 as “unabashedly promoting the wholesale violation of norms and laws, consolidating enormous power in a president and trampling on Congress’ constitutional role—to take away Americans’ long-cherished freedoms and opportunities. Not only would this authoritarian playbook make it easier for a far-right executive branch to weaken the independence of public agencies, install political cronies throughout the government, punish people it disagrees with, and control what news the media can report, but it would also allow the government to eliminate abortion access, health care choices, overtime pay, educational opportunities, and countless other programs that benefit communities and families.”
Real Americans don’t want that.
And last year’s protests proved that there is a “real Israel” that does not want to live by the ideals of the Kohelet Policy Forum.
That’s the right-wing think tank (with strong American connections) that incubated Netanyahu’s plan for judicial reform by, according to Ha’aretz, giving the government complete control over judicial appointments, limiting judicial review of laws and government decisions, an "override clause" which is intended to allow the Knesset to overrule supreme court decisions with a majority of 61 out of 120 votes, and limiting the authority of the government and ministerial legal advisors. And this for a parliamentary democracy with no constitution, where an independent judiciary is the only potential check on executive power.
The systems are different - the insidious goals of the leaders are the same. But the people - the vast majority in both countries - the real people - want a government that is moral, respectful of human rights and minorities, free speech, free press, with strong checks and balances and an end to corruption. The people of both countries just want to be able to live safely, with food on the table and no armed guards at their synagogues or missiles going through their roofs - and real Israelis don’t want to see needless suffering on either side of their border.
If you want to hear what “real Israel” sounds like, listen to an incredible speech given at a recent ceremony in Israel by one of the nation’s top journalists, Ilana Dayan, which was shared, in a special English encore presentation, by the podcast Unholy.
Dayan spoke about the importance of journalism for an open society and the far-reaching implications of the government’s refusal to set up a state commission of inquiry after October 7th. Please share this, especially if you have ever wondered who represents the “real” Israel when the face and voice of the country is most often someone far removed from a person like Ilana Dayan.
An excerpt:
Out of the love for the profession I chose, which has become my mission; out of a simple love for this country, out of my deep connection to this land and its people: We must ask the questions, to try to get answers, but mainly to make sure that we never stop asking.
Because there is no revival for a place where even the questions are dead.
Because what has been broken here must be fixed.
And to fix it, we need to know.
And to know, we need to ask.
The act of questioning is, therefore, the patriotic act these days, and it is not unnecessary to say this.
The father of Hadar Cohen, an observer soldier, who fell at Nahal Oz, did just that about a month ago during the national memorial ceremony, when he stood on stage and said with a broken voice:
"The blood of our daughters cries out to us from the earth... We will not forget, and we will not tire; with our last remaining strength we will ensure that those responsible assume their responsibility."
I saw him with tears in my eyes, and I understood: Of all the sins of those responsible for the disaster, of all the failures of the leaders who survived the disaster, there is no explanation for the sin of refusing to establish a state commission of inquiry, which would simply ask and investigate the most terrible disaster that fell upon us.
Dayan represents the “real Israel” - and we must represent the “real America.”
Israelis sense that the moment of truth for this government is approaching, with multiple scandals and Netanyahu’s trials all coming to a head, with a ceasefire close in Lebanon but, inexplicably, nowhere in sight in Gaza, with the hostages on their last legs and the drafting of the ultra-Orthodox posing nearly insurmountable challenges to the coalition. And amidst all this, the judicial coup is once again peeking out from its lair, with Netanyahu sending signals that he might fire the attorney general, who is perhaps the only check left within the government, standing in the way of unlimited executive power. An independent attorney general is a terrible thing to lose, as we are soon to discover in the US.
Just this past weekend, two ads in Israel’s leading newspaper, Yediot Achronot, show how important segments of Israeli society are concerned that the time to return to the streets may be returning soon (in truth, they’ve never left the streets, with protests for the hostages continuing unabated). My friend and colleague Daniel Gordis wrote about them in his Substack newsletter. The English translations are his.
Translation:
Do you see that, real Americans? That’s how you do it. You establish that we, the people who favor justice and decency, are the overwhelming majority - a fact that is now being clearly established as Trump’s lead in the popular vote slides under 50 percent.
That will help us immeasurably. Ultimately the next four years are going to be won or lost through Vox Populi. The voice of the people will be heard. On the streets, peacefully, as in Israel, and through all manner of free expression: from the press to the pulpit. In particular, new media outlets will need to take the place of those that become tainted or are crushed by the power of the state’s war on truth.
The people have indeed spoken, in our recent vote. But if democracy is to be saved, the majority, which has yet to be heard, needs to echo resoundingly throughout the land.
On this week of Thanksgiving, and with an eye to the great sacrifices made by generations past, and with the example of Israel’s ongoing struggle for democracy to follow, I believe we are up to the task.
