Trump Defeated Israeli Democracy Even Before Being Sworn in -
The return of the three hostages and the cease-fire are of course joyous events, but they also symbolize the depths Israeli democracy has reached. Democracy is tested by its ability to manage fundamental disagreements over government policy. The importance of such disagreements rises in times of war, when critical issues are on the agenda.
This was not the case for 2024 Israel – different, for example, than the Israel of the First Lebanon War. Long before the government's attempt to overthrow the legal system shaped the arrangements to limit the freedom of _expression_, the center-left, those with the education and resources needed to initiate political action to publicly challenge the government –forced itself into paralysis of its own free will. Or to be more precise, this is the Jewish public of this camp, after all the Arab public already had restrictions placed on its freedom of _expression_ and assembly.
From the very beginning of the war, the center-left stood behind the demand to free all the hostages. To a great extent it positioned its identity around this – and not around proposing an alternative to the war's goals. It made do with a hollow call to discuss "the day after," while shirking its responsibility to provide content for the day after. It has stuck to the demand to free the hostages without demanding the end of the war, even when it was already clear that extending the war was endangering them.
Ignoring the contradiction between the goals of the war was expressed in the empty slogan: "Bring them home now," which was adopted by most of the public. This expressed the tendency to depoliticize the struggle to free the hostages, and in doing so they avoided making the simple demand, even if it wasn't popular, to end the war as a condition for bringing them home. The coherent right set up camp in opposition to the center-left, and was aware of the contradiction between the war's goals – and clearly preferred its continuation, even at the price of endangering the hostages.
The center-left dug in around the exclusive demand to free the hostages, even when it was clear that extending the war did not serve any strategic purpose – but was only dragging the IDF into more killing and destruction. The accusation of ethnic cleansing, an inherent result of extending the war, was actually heard from the right wing former IDF chief of staff and defense minister Moshe Yaalon, not from the spokespeople of the left. The increase in the number of Israeli deaths did not rescue this camp from its freeze either. The center's great hope, Gadi Eisenkot, said Jabaliya was conquered four times, but instead of calling for an end to the fighting he called to ask "what went wrong?"
A mural of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump covers Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024.Credit: Matias Delacroix,AP
Even this weak cry did not awaken a political debate over the war's goals. Even the claim that the demand to free the hostages was accepted by the majority of Israelis, and expressed the Israeli values of mutual responsibility – as the commentators poeticized in front of the pictures of the first female hostages released – is not true, as a survey conducted in December by the Israel Democracy Institute showed. Only a small majority of the Jewish public supported a comprehensive deal to free all the hostages in return for agreement to Hamas' demands to end the war.
Even this small majority was unable to organize itself to force the government to act, but made do with just symbolic protest actions. This is why it's no surprise that the war was halted not because it was not bringing any benefit – and not because of any internal fight – but because Donald Trump had stepped into the shoes of the center-left camp and forced it to happen. He defeated Israeli democracy even before being sworn in as president, and the intoxication over Trump as the new savior will only help the center-left in shirking its responsibilities even more.