The Israeli public has been awash with talk of threats to our democracy in recent weeks, following the elections to the 25th Knesset, and the resounding victory of both the Ḥaredi and national-religious political factions. These five parties won a combined 32 mandates, and the government that appears to be forming will likely be equally split between them and the Likud.
But certain segments of the Israeli public are claiming that the ascension of these groups marks the end of Israeli democracy, and the rise of a fundamentalist Jewish regime.
The outgoing government failed at the polls and has taken to the press, with outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Defense Minister Benny Gantz (National Unity) leading the charge. They’ve made accusations that the government being formed is illegitimate and they’ve called on the public to protest a coalition that has yet to even be sworn in.
Lapid is currently waging a dangerously irresponsible crusade to convince the people of Israel that the new coalition poses an existential danger to the nation’s future. With support from the media, the outgoing prime minister appears to be fomenting an atmosphere of fear and desperation reminiscent of the Oslo years that could easily lead to violence if not scaled back (the fact that Netanyahu has reportedly replaced the drivers of his motorcade should speak to how seriously he’s taking this threat).
At surface value, this may be no more than the hysterical rabble-rousing of a defeated politician, trying to get an early start on his work in the opposition so as to win back disgruntled voters. But it’s possible that something more sinister lies behind his actions.
Gantz’s position as outgoing defense minister, former army chief of the staff, and bitter rival of Israel’s designated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) can’t be overlooked.
One of the most bitter points of contention in the coalition agreements that are shaping up is the issue of civilian control of the military and the police, by way of relevant government ministries. While in democratic societies throughout the world, this civilian control is often seen as essential for maintaining democracy, Gantz would have the public believe that increased governmental oversight in matters of security is a threat to Israel’s democratic character.
Gantz is not alone in his sharp attacks on Netanyahu. Gadi Eisenkott, another former IDF chief of staff who joined Gantz’s party for the most recent elections, has criticized Netanyahu for undermining the authority of the generals and has threatened to march a million men into the streets against the government yet to be formed.
In light of these attacks, it’s especially concerning to note that the recently appointed incoming chief of staff, Hertzi HaLevi, made a precedent breaking visit to the Pentagon earlier this week.
Never before has an appointee made such a trip before completing his training and officially assuming office. But Washington reportedly wants to maintain direct channels of cooperation with Israel’s military that could potentially circumvent Netanyahu’s new coalition.
Washington’s behavior shouldn’t be seen as anything new. For decades, the Americans have openly support local politicians amenable to US interests. Before the polls even closed on election day, Biden administration officials had made their distaste for certain political figures clear to Israeli President Yitzḥak Herzog, hinting that they would find it difficult to work with a government including Betzalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit).
While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has publicly walked back this position, promising to judge a new Israeli government based on its actions and not on its personalities, HaLevi’s meetings at the Pentagon and the history of US behavior abroad hint at a darker reality.
If we take a look at events in Egypt, circa 2013, we see that only shortly after winning the country’s first ever democratic presidential elections, Mohammed Morsi was overthrown in a military coup on the grounds that he had sought to establish himself as an unchecked center of authority in the Egyptian state.
In order to ensure that no such “threat to democracy” succeed, the coup opened elections that saw General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi elected by 97% of the vote. He has since ruled with an iron fist that many Egyptians consider even heavier than the regime of Hosni Mubarak that was overthrown during the 2011 Arab Spring. Following the coup, it was discovered that civil society groups that led the overthrow of Morsi had been funded by the US State Department in the name of promoting “democracy” – a word often used synonymously for westernization and advancing US interests in the region.
The State Department, at the time under John Kerry, expressed deep concern regarding the Morsi government. And just as Kerry met with el-Sisi and opposition leaders in Cairo just four months before the coup, there may be cause to be weary of HaLevi’s unorthodox Pentagon visit and the direct communication channels reportedly being established between Washington and the IDF – especially when taken together with Lapid’s irresponsible scaremongering.
Despite the possibility that Lapid may simply be too blind by his own ambition to realize how dangerous his behavior is for the nation, we should at least entertain the possibility that he’s being directed from Washington. While some might dismiss such talk as conspiratorial, it’s important to understand how textbook a play this would be for Uncle Sam.
The classic example often pointed to in the region is the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew democratically elected President Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of Reza Shah Pahlavi.
The Americans and their British allies were threatened by Mossadegh’s oil nationalization policies, which harmed Western economic interests. Then too, the immediate pretext for the coup was that Mossadegh intended to institute an authoritarian regime. One of the CIA’s tactics was to hire instigators to infiltrate Mossadegh’s supporters and rile them up to revolutionary fervor, in order to justify a crackdown on such revolutionaries.
In documents that have recently been made available, it has been revealed that the CIA was actively paying off figures in the Iranian opposition, military, and press.
Even today, the recent ousting of Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, elected as a popular socialist candidate after his involvement in teacher strikes, may prove to be the work of US interference.
Castillo has been accused of aiming to seize authoritarian powers after two failed attempts by the opposition to impeach him, and is under investigation by the attorney general for corruption. But the mass protests against Castillo’s arrest, the refusal of Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia, and Mexico to recognize the new government, and Castillo’s open support for anti-American regimes in Venezuela and Cuba, may point towards a more complicated story. Only time will tell.
So when Israel’s defeated outgoing prime minister and mainstream press start making noise about the anti-democratic nature of the forming coalition; when the incoming chief of staff makes an unprecedented visit to the Pentagon as a government antagonistic to US interests is being formed in Jerusalem; when the temporary head of the finance committee and the designated finance minister’s proposed economic policies are aimed to improve the living conditions of the nation’s poor – and pose a threat to the interests of the ruling class (Lapid’s voter base); and when members of the outgoing coalition regularly blame the incoming prime minister for the radical political atmosphere in the 1990s that led to the assassination of Yitzḥak Rabin (while it has since become known that certain figures in the security apparatus at the time had incited opposition to Rabin), Netanyahu must be especially cautious.
If this analysis is even close to hitting the mark and the Americans are willing to resort to extreme methods to maintain control over Israel, a seasoned diplomat like Netanyahu is likely already alert to the dangers facing the nation.
If he suspects that Lapid’s daily incitement is not merely the extended public tantrum of a sore loser but actually meant to create an atmosphere that could allow large sectors of the Israeli public to at the very least not oppose a military coup, then he probably also knows that his safest (and most in character) move at this point would be to form a coalition with Gantz and the Ḥaredi parties while leaving the national-religious factions in the opposition.
Such a move, while not necessarily in step with the will of the voters, would likely appease Washington enough to prevent any drastic attempts at regime change for the time being.
Aryeh Shapiro suggests that the unprecedented visit to the Pentagon by the incoming Israeli chief of staff, Hertzi HaLevi, might signal efforts to prevent Israel from moving beyond US control. Why shouldn’t the visit instead signal a spirit of cooperation to address mutual concerns, like Iran’s development of nuclear weapons?
A regular meeting to continue ongoing work against Iran would be conducted between Pentagon officials and the current Ramatkal until the Halevi’s official transition into the office. That’s part of what makes the meeting unprecedented. There’s a lot of precedent for handling rising threats in the region, but this breaks all of the molds.
Not sure. As Sgan Ramtkal, there’s nothing unordinary about Halevi visiting the Pentagon. I assume he makes this trips regularly. Just checking quickly on Google, it seems he made his first visit already in 2014 when he was ראש אמ”ן. There’s certainly some US influence, but it’s hard to see that it’s to the degree that you’re suggesting. More than just evidence–that sort of conspiracy would require motivation. It’s hard to see what the U.S.’ motive would be–namely because, well, we don’t really have oil.
The fact that Halevi met with his counterpart in AMAN as Rosh AMAN isn’t unusual. But a Ramatkal-to-be meeting with the American chief of the joint staffs before entering the office is unusual – if it‘s standard practice, why has it never happened before? Military visits, especially of this caliber are carefully planned on an as needed basis – neither of these guys has time to waste on less than urgent business.
As far as American interests, especially with the US-Saudi relationship on the rocks, the Americans are especially interested in seeing no more friction with their strongest allies/bases of operation in the Middle East, especially with the Russians in Syria and Iran. And while Smotrich may not be the anti-American threat that they think he is, many of his supporters, and Ben Gvir and
Maoz absolutely could be.