Angry unrest characterizes Israeli society, with an emphasis on the elites.
Its part is anchored in the Jewish heritage: a nation that has been persecuted for thousands of years and only a few generations ago went through the worst of all, conditioned to over-identify warning signs of a threat;
A nation that specializes in identifying new opportunities, at the same time develops a hypersensitivity to the signs of advantage erosion and a dead end.
Another part involves Israel's extraordinary success: a small and threatened country - until just two generations ago also poor, undeveloped and dependent on external factors - populated by a people that has only recently converged and crystallized, not yet accustomed to its status, recognized in the Middle East and the world arena as a regional, established power. And a leader in important fields, and adhered to the old anxieties.
Another part, especially important and unfortunate, of a feeling of unease - is related to the judgment of the Israeli reality without an appropriate comparative framework. Striving for the ultimate desired requires an equation that weights the constraints that make its full realization difficult. Thus one can judge the achievements and failures in a relevant comparison to the degree of success of the good and impressive among the other societies, which maintain a similar value and cultural system. The assessment of the reality in Israel without such a comparison is not only analytically distorted, it also undermines the construction and reform processes.
The most obvious example is in the field of democracy. Even after sifting through the hysterical chatter about fascism, the collapse of democracy and "Erdogan's rule" in Israel, many are rightly concerned about the poor functioning of the political system: A stable majority for some way and the sectoral ethnon payments derived from it. In the shadow of the frustration of all this, one can despair of parliamentary politics, demonstrate under pink and black flags and ridiculous performances in the company of dubious partners, and protest loudly in front of the homes of politicians and senior officials. It is also possible to long for "clean politics", in the service of unknowingly manipulative politicians from the opposite camp, or to offer a cure for the disease: legislation that would regulate politics, and effectively rule the prosecution and courts over the rest of the elected system. It is possible, but it is a matter of harm or "occupational therapy."
Anyone who wants to take the problem in Israel seriously must place it in the broader context of the global democracy crisis. Such an incorporation would convince that in the new age of social networks and the brutal struggle for the attention of the masses, there is no option to return to the previous format of the parties and their activists. The primaries system recently brought Trump, Hillary Clinton and Biden to the forefront of the political stage, among a nation of 330 million people. In January of this year a rioting mob stormed Capitol Hill. In London, the British "Mother of Parliament" is experiencing exercises that overshadow the "tricks and tricks" in Jerusalem. German politics has failed for many years in forming a majority for some way, even under the leadership of a chancellor with rare political skills. In France, the existing party system collapsed without a suitable replacement. Israel "in good company."
The bad news is that the adaptation of the democratic system in response to the new era of populist shallowness involves a long and frustrating process.
A wide-ranging and ongoing accumulation of required adjustments, such as the splitting of the roles of the Attorney General in Israel, will gradually correct certain failures, but in the near future there is no comprehensive move that will ensure good functioning of the system.
Nor is nostalgia what it once was;
Even in the past, the democratic system has adapted with great difficulty to profound social changes.
The good news is that in all established democracies - in the US, UK, France, Germany, and many others - the system has proven its resilience, faces most national challenges satisfactorily, and allows civil society to function well, without real danger to people's sovereignty and fundamental freedoms. Israel is one of them.
