In a year, Israel will celebrate 75 years as an independent and sovereign Jewish state. Until then, we must hope that its most essential character will be preserved and that it will remain a democratic state.
Democracy is synonymous with health and vitality, we understand its value when it is lacking, when it is partial or when it malfunctions. Without democracy, it is difficult to breathe, to grow, to think, to know, to love. After sometimes long and dark days, non-democracies fall and democracies survive. They survive because they alone are able to adapt to change and reinvent themselves.
Israel has not only survived the seventy-four years since its construction, but its democracy has also survived by resisting the temptation of authoritarianism. Despite the difficult circumstances, despite a hostile environment and despite the deep ideological disagreements among its population.
Or rather thanks to them. Disagreements are the basis of democracy. They are the ones who make the greatness and strength of democracy, which makes it possible to deal with disputes, to progress and quite simply to exist.
The resolute choice of democracy
There is a widespread opinion that it is very difficult for democracies to change political course because any change of course requires debates, compromises and accountability to the people. In other words, democracies would evolve only slowly, if at all.
By contrast, authoritarian regimes would be more capable of introducing change because the final decision rests with an autocrat or a closed circle that is not hampered by checks and balances or the search for balances. In short, authoritarian regimes are more “manageable” than democratic regimes.
But history proves that the opposite is true. At first glance, tyrannies seem more solid and able to react more quickly, when in fact these regimes are rotten from within and stuck on the only path they initially charted for themselves, even when it is obviously leading. at a dead end. Tyrants stick to the scheme they have invented, only listen to the advice of relatives telling them what they want to hear, and fear that any deviation will undermine their infallible status as enlightened guides.
For tyrants, the main thing is not to look weak and not give the impression of giving in to “foreign influences”. And if the people don’t believe in the unwavering sagacity of the leader, they have no choice but to live with it. At XXe and XXIe centuries, there is no shortage of examples of tyrannies with lofty goals that ultimately precipitated their people into regression and collapse.
It is quite the opposite in democracies, where the pressure of public opinion and the voter compels leaders to change course when reality demands it. Change preserves democracies, while over time it destroys dictatorships.
The peril of the single state
Of course, there is no such thing as an ideal democracy, and Israeli democracy has never been and still is not ideal. Flirting with an authoritarian regime, the State of Israel had initially and for a long time denied the fundamental democratic rights of its Arab citizens. [jusqu’en 1966, les 20 % d’Arabes israéliens ont vécu sous un régime de gouvernement militaire]. These anti-democratic aporias were then largely corrected.
In this 74e Independence Day, Israel is a thriving democracy, thriving economy and thriving society. But this democracy is only a reality outside the territories [palestiniens] occupied since 1967.
In the West Bank an Israeli regime of undemocratic occupation prevails. If, contrary to dire predictions [du philosophe et historien religieux] Yeshayahu Leibowitz after the Six Day War [1967]the occupation regime has not yet corrupted Israeli democracy, precisely because it continues to be perceived as undemocratic.
Even if it is sometimes considered as a response to an external security constraint, there is still a majority of Israeli democrats who find it difficult to find this regime natural and acceptable. This is what, until now and paradoxically, has prevented Israel from degenerating into an authoritarian, dictatorial and police regime.
A real problem will arise for democratic Israel when the extremists have succeeded in imposing their vision and when a single, de facto binational state is established between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. This vision is becoming more concrete every day as the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of two independent States moves away. By definition, this unique state will not be a democracy but a hybrid, corrupt and monstrous creature that will have no chance of long-term survival.
It is often said that the establishment of such a binational state will mean the end of the state of the Jews. This is to forget that it will lead first and foremost to the end of Israeli democracy. Now, this democracy is the foundation of our national independence. We Israelis must mobilize all our resources and all our collective intelligence to prevent the danger of the binational state, before it is too late. In this 74e Independence Day, we must remember that without its democratic system, the State of the Jews would never have survived until today.