Detroit Today: Why the protests in Israel are important for democracy

For weeks, Israel has seen mass protests flood its streets in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Natenyahu’s plans of judicial overhaul. More recently, those protests only picked up steam — 500,000 Israelis engaged in street protests earlier this month.

Natenyahu was indicted on corruption charges and feared that he would be sentenced to prison.

The country is so close to authoritarianism, that even former center-right prime minister Ehud Olmert declared, “The government of Israel is the enemy of the state of Israel,” and that people need to be protesting it.

As of Monday, Netanyahu announced that he would delay judicial changes in an attempt to tame the protests.

Is the trend in Israel indicative of rising democratic backsliding going on in places like Brazil, India and right here in America? How should Americans react to the protests and undemocratic practices happening in Israel?

Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor and Century Foundation fellow Dahlia Scheindlin join Detroit Today guest host Nick Austin to discuss the current crisis in Israel and how the U.S. could respond.

“It’s very unclear to me the extent to which the Biden administration is willing to exert any of its leverage over this Israeli government.” — Ishaan Tharoor, WaPo columnist

Listen: How the Biden administration reacts to Israel’s potential authoritarian moves

Guests  

Dahlia Scheindlin is a fellow at The Century Foundation. She is a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. She says Israelis are considering how to move forward after the prime minister delayed action.

“Today there is something like a tense pause while everybody tries to figure out their new position going forward, both the government, the opposition and the protestors that are not exactly political,” says Scheindlin.

Ishaan Tharoor is a Foreign Affairs columnist for the Washington Post. He says protestors against the government are afraid that Israel’s democracy is imperiled.

“Among the protestors and those rallying against these judicial overhaul bills, you have this view that Israel is drifting a certain way down the path of other illiberal democracies, like Poland or Hungary,” says Tharoor.