Netanyahu Faces His Own ‘Israeli Spring’

Twelve years ago this spring, protests shook the Arab world in what became known, at least in Western circles, as the Arab Spring. Today, in the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities throughout Israel, we may be witnessing an Israeli Spring of sorts.

Unlike their counterparts in the Arab world though, where the protests formed against cruel dictators seeking to maintain a repressive authoritarian status quo, protesters in Israel are rallying to oppose an extremist and fundamentalist government that is trying to change the status quo and reshape the country’s character.

The Arab Spring ended badly in most countries, with massive state violence, civil war, and ultimately the triumph of authoritarian repressors. With a robust—if imperfect—democracy, Israelis are certain to fare far better. But as Israel approaches its 75th independence day in May, the identity of the country and the borders that define it remain very much unsettled. This year may well hold both promise and peril for a country that has experienced more than its share of both.

With no written constitution, a unicameral legislature, and a government that can pass legislation with the slimmest majority of 61 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Israel’s Supreme Court remains the only check on governmental power. If these laws are passed in their current form, the government’s judicial reforms will accord the Israeli government tremendous power over the country’s Basic Laws—quasi-constitutional laws, many related to critical individual rights, that have been adopted over time.

Given what’s at stake, perhaps no one should have been surprised by the Israeli public’s reaction. There have been significant demonstrations in Israel before.

In 1952, demonstrations protesting the government’s decision to accept reparations from Germany actually turned violent. In 1982, Israelis turned out in massive protests against the government’s policy in Lebanon and handling of accusations of Israeli involvement in the massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. During the 1990s, when there was a peace process worthy of its name, there were large gatherings in support of peace (including a notable one in 1995 where then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a far-right extremist opposed to the peace process); in 2011, Israelis protested the rise in the cost of living, especially housing, as well as the deterioration of public services in health and social welfare in demonstrations that the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg described as an “Israeli Spring.” And in 2020 and 2021, there were the so-called Balfour Street protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the demonstrations and protests now playing out in Israel are unprecedented in both their size and composition. According to Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, they involve sectors of the public that don’t usually participate in such political action, including Israel’s comfortable middle class as well as tech employees, army reservists, and former high-ranking government officials from the country’s military and intelligence organizations. Increasing numbers of religious Zionists from the same party that initiated the judicial reforms, including settlers and right-wing mayors, are also reportedly taking part. Last week’s demonstrations in front of the Knesset took place on Monday, meaning more than 80,000 Israelis chose to miss work to attend.

The durability of the protests—now in their eighth week—represent more than opposition to judicial reform; instead, there’s a perception that the new Netanyahu government—which includes three ministers who proudly and publicly assert views that are supremacist, racist, anti-democratic, and homophobic—represents a threat to Israel’s way of life and its image as a liberal, tolerant democracy. Haaretz editor Amir Tibon describes the dynamic today as “a ‘cold’ civil war, so far without much physical violence (thankfully).”

On one side is the government, which Tibon said is “determined to use its power to crush the liberal elements of Israel, and it views the Supreme Court as one of the most important liberalizing forces in Israeli society. It was often the court, not the Knesset, that delivered equal rights for LGBTQ Israelis, women and minorities.” On the other side is at least half of the country, who see themselves as engaged in a battle for the “soul of Israel,” in Tibon’s telling.

By all accounts, Netanyahu now faces a situation he’s never confronted before. He came back into power hoping to move toward normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia and toughening up Israel’s response to Iran. Having riled up half the country, he’s now in a bind. Each of his coalition partners want to muzzle the Supreme Court for their own reasons—as does Netanyahu, himself, to clear the path for legislation to delay or even cancel his ongoing trial. His government’s survival depends on those coalition partners’ support, so he can’t cross them. But can he afford to go against the demonstrators, including the business elite?

Warnings have been pouring in from business and finance leaders—including the head of Israel’s central bank, the CEO of the Israel Discount Bank, and the president of the Israel Innovation Institute, which represents around 2,500 start-ups—that moving ahead with judicial reforms could undermine investor confidence in Israel and its well-earned reputation as start-up nation. S&P Global Ratings’ primary credit analyst for Israel even warned that the reforms could affect the country’s future credit rating.

Netanyahu has also been pressed on judicial reforms by the Biden administration. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken weighed in publicly on a recent visit to Israel and reportedly had a strong message privately for the prime minister as well. And in an unanticipated and rare reaction, U.S. President Joe Biden, in response to a query from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, reaffirmed the importance of Israel seeking consensus on the judicial reform package—a not so subtle criticism of Netanyahu’s government trying to ram these reforms through.

With everything else on its plate, the Biden administration isn’t looking for a fight with Netanyahu and is unlikely to continue to press him hard on what is clearly an internal matter for Israelis to decide. But it’s also not eager to reward him either—especially when Israel has just announced the legalization of nine illegal outposts and a large expansion of housing units for West Bank settlements. Indeed, there had been talk of an early Netanyahu visit to Washington, but that seems to have been put on hold for now.

For many reasons—including the public’s deference to the state on security matters, the threat of Palestinian terrorism attacks and violence, the perception that Israeli peace proposals over the years have gone unanswered, and the fact that most Israelis can easily separate themselves physically from the reality of the occupation—the Palestinian issue has rarely driven Israelis into the streets in recent decades to rally against their government’s policies or in support of any peace settlement. And any hope for a settlement remains more distant now than ever.

Recent polling indicates that support for a two-state solution among Jewish Israelis is at its lowest ebb since the early 2000s, and 30 percent of Israelis polled believe the occupation does not harm Palestinians.

Still, even while Israelis rally in defense of their democracy, a perfect storm is brewing on the Palestinian issue that will be hard to ignore. Against the backdrop of a 56-year occupation, forces are congealing that are likely to create an explosion. The Palestinian Authority, which recently severed security cooperation with Israel, has lost credibility on the streets and is unwilling or unable to assert control in the West Bank areas of Jenin and Nablus, where groups—such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, and Fatah’s Tanzim—continue to plan terrorism attacks. And a new Israeli government that is barely two months old has asserted an exclusive and unquestioned right to the West Bank and all of Jerusalem and has implemented steps toward that goal. Already this year, Israelis have killed at least 60 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This month in a speech at Georgetown University, CIA Director Willian Burns warned of the possibility of a major outbreak of violence reminiscent of the Second Intifada.

Looking to avoid a veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning recent Israeli settlement activity, the Biden administration appears to have brokered a deal that will temporarily halt Palestinian efforts at the United Nations in exchange for Israel temporarily freezing settlements and other unilateral actions toward the West Bank. Welcome as they are, those arrangements are likely to only postpone the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation certain to come. Just days after these understandings were announced, Israel conducted a raid in Jenin, killing at least 10 Palestinians and wounding more than 100 people. Hamas retaliated with rockets from Gaza, which produced Israeli air strikes in response.

If there’s any good news in this sorry set of circumstances, it’s that representatives of both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been meeting secretly for weeks.

But one thing is clear: 2023 will be a critical year for Israel. As the country approaches its 75th anniversary, it has much to appreciate. It is more secure, prosperous, widely recognized politically, and integrated economically into the world economy—and with the Abraham Accords, it is more accepted in its own region than at any time since its independence.

Yet even after 75 years, neither the borders nor the identity of the Israeli state is fixed—let alone agreed on by large numbers of Israeli Jews and Arabs or Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Comparing Israel and the United States can be fraught, but 75 years after U.S. independence, the American republic faced similar circumstances. In 1851, just 10 years short of the greatest calamity that could befall any nation—civil war—neither the United States’ borders nor its identity as a nation were fully formed. The United States would come to have extraordinary advantages that Israel lacks: nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south and what one historian brilliantly described as America’s “liquid assets”—its two oceans to the east and west.

Even for a nation with an ancient past like Israel, it’s early days. And while Israel’s challenges seem hopelessly complex, with the right leadership and national resolve, one can always hope that a better and brighter future beckons.