Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Why I love Israel

Credit: Getty Images

Israel is marking 75 years of its existence in one of the most difficult peacetime periods the country has ever seen. Peacetime is a relative concept in the Middle East but the past six months have been extraordinarily trying for Israelis and their friends overseas. Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power 16 months after being ousted by an improbable coalition of left and right, secular and Islamist – everyone except the voters. But his comeback was only possible by doing a deal with the devil and bringing the far right into his government. Unsavoury allies like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the Laurel and Hardy of Israeli ultranationalism, have proved comically inept in ministerial office but have also become more extreme with power. 

The defining issue of Netanyahu’s latest term is a suite of judicial reforms designed to rein in Israel’s activist supreme court but which opponents say would undermine the judiciary. In a country with no constitution, the prospect of far-right ministers being able to legislate at will with fewer judicial checks spooked many Israelis. For the past four months, the Jewish state has regularly been brought to a standstill by street demonstrations of unprecedented size. Eventually, this forced Netanyahu to shelve the reforms but his opponents expect he will find other ways to weaken Israeli liberal norms.

These developments have only exacerbated troubling trends in how Israel is viewed internationally and in particular in the United States. In March, Gallup reported that, for the first time ever, more Democrats side with the Palestinians than the Israelis in the Middle East conflict. Polling published on Tuesday by the centre-left Brookings Institution showed one third of Americans consider Israel a segregated or apartheid state, one third deem it a flawed democracy, 16 per cent say it limits minority rights, while just one in five agree that it’s a vibrant democracy. 

So there are plenty of reasons for Zionists to be gloomy on this, Israel’s 75th birthday, but there is one reason for optimism that outshines them all: Israel is 75.

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