Authoritarian innovation… coming to a democracy near you?

For years now, authoritarian attacks on democracy and rule of law have spread through testing and copy-pasting strategies from one country to another, growing out into a sophisticated playbook. When we spot innovation, democracy defenders better watch out, as the same strategies and tactics used in one place are likely to soon be tried elsewhere by a new set of extremists and power-hungry kleptocrats.

European media and decision-makers are gradually picking up the fact that Israel is now undergoing a revolution - an anti-democratic regime change. That is the kind of claim that sounds like an overstatement, but that is the consensus assessment of almost every liberal-democratic commentator and political scientist, economist, or legal expert in the country. Given how bombastic it sounds, it is naturally a little hard to process, and the breadth of the assault is so wide, some of the more significant points need unpacking.

It is especially worth looking out for the new strategies and tactics being deployed here. Israel has seen hundreds of thousands of people, around 400,000 by some estimates, out on the streets protesting every Saturday for weeks on end now. In a country of 9 million people, that is no small feat. People are mobilising to defend democracy for good reason.

Since Netanyahu first returned to power in 2009, he and his political allies have hit out at Israel’s democratic infrastructure with sledgehammers, and despite cracks showing up, Israel’s institutions held up much better than anyone could have ever predicted. Now, with a coalition in power that is far more extreme than anyone cares to imagine, the sledgehammer have been swapped for bulldozers. There is no moderate coalition partner to reign in the assault. In the EU, we have talked a lot about democracy “backsliding”, which was certainly true of Israel as well. Now, this government is climbing off of the slide, and taking a bungee jump with no rope attached.

So what does all this entail exactly? One thing that gets talked about a lot is the limitation of the power of the Supreme Court and political control of the appointment of judges. These are tried an tested authoritarian tactics that are familiar in the EU, in the US and beyond.

Then, there are a few measures that are almost apolitical, and much more criminal in nature. The government is legislating for convicted criminals to be able to serve as ministers, so that Netanyahu’s political allies can take their cabinet seats. The parliament is also busy passing legislation enabling Netanyahu, who is indicted and standing trial for various corruption charges, to meddle in the appointment of his own judges. This is almost refreshingly honest and transparent. It is not about political ideology, but simply about criminals wanting to grab power rather than accept the rule of law. It is brash and upfront, and it gets the job done.

Among the pile of more familiar attacks, there is a more profound and far-reaching step. Legislation is on the table now to ban judges from applying an argument of “reasonableness” in their decisions. This means that judges will be forbidden for determining whether a government minister or agent acted reasonably in executive action, and that in turn could have further repercussions for other areas of law. In essence, this is an abolition of the legal system as a whole. The entire basis of the Western legal tradition is judgement by the standards of the community. The question of “what would a reasonable person do?” is central to legal decisions on almost anything (historically, this has always been put as a “reasonable man”, where misogynist are also looking to turn back the clock). This technical sounding and relatively opaque legislation turns the law into merely the whim of whoever happens to be in power. That upends hundreds of years, if not thousands, of a Western legal tradition, and turns the rule of law into mush. In a full frontal and multi-faceted assault on democracy, this is an edgy new feature.

If it is allowed to go through and play out in full, what this package of legislation would do is convert the legal system and democratic institutions into a rubber stamp for corrupt kleptocrats in a system akin to Putin’s Russia. It may not happen overnight, but the way would be paved and wide open.

In the meantime, Israelis have not been taking this quietly. With hundreds of thousands on the streets across the country for weeks on end, economists, lawyers, judges, media figures, military, security, and intelligence leaders, army reservists, and Israel’s tech sector, all have acted out their opposition vocally, visually, all over the country, going on strike, disrupting traffic, refusing army reserve service, and taking investments out oversees. The pressure is on, providing a demonstration of what lively civil society might be able to do. Still, Netanyahu’s extremist government seems to show no signs of slowing down. One sure thing is that if Israeli democracy crumbles, it will not go quietly.

So what happens next? We are likely to see the government push all of this legislation through, which will then be struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. If Netanyahu then ignores the Court’s ruling, as there is every indication he will, the country will be in full-fledged constitutional crisis, with ever intensifying protests.

Israel and Palestine are complex places, and of course those who are most likely to suffer the most are the most vulnerable, including Palestinians, Arab citizens of Israel, the LGBTI+ community, as well as women across the board who’s rights are under attack. A short space cannot do justice to all that complexity, and so I intentionally focus on specific components here.

As this situation unfolds, defenders of rights and democracy need to keep their eyes peeled – to understand what is happening, support those on the side of rights, to watch out for innovations from authoritarians, and see that democracy has the tools to defend itself and fight back. ??