Absent from any discussion on the future of Iran is democratization, and with good reason. Iran, from ancient times until today, has no history of democracy or even democratic aspirations. Some Iranians may yearn for freedoms as Westerners understand them but democracy as “rule of the people" is utterly foreign to them. It is also because democracy is increasingly difficult to sustain, as we are today experiencing in Israel.
The struggling Washington Post publishes on its masthead the self-serving but hopeful phrase “democracy dies in darkness." Maybe, but in Israel where we always strive to do better, democracy is dying in broad daylight. Israel’s claim to be the “only democracy in the Middle East" has become increasingly farcical. Sure, Israel has elections, like Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan have, but true power is not wielded by the elected officials but by an unelected power structure that barely tolerates the government, humors the legislature, runs roughshod over people’s individual rights, and is beyond accountability. Oh, and all the while accusing the government of being a “threat to democracy." Talk about people who need to buy a mirror and take a gander at themselves.
Let us count the ways that the instruments of the deep state - the Supreme Court, the police and prosecution, and elements of the media - undermine democracy, especially because they cannot win elections. Sadly, this is only a partial list.
The police and prosecution eavesdropped on thousands of Israel citizens not accused of any wrongdoing, and without any court approval. They gathered and still retain personal information on many of them in the hope of finding something incriminating that the authorities could use to blackmail them into framing PM Netanyahu for something, anything. Nothing will come of this.
Attempts by the government to investigate these crimes have been thwarted by the Supreme Court, which is attempting to cover up its involvement and that of the “fired-but-still-reigning" Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara. She, in a remarkable exercise of judicial malfeasance, has been granted 23 adjournments in order to delay appointment of a committee to investigate the mass eavesdropping, thus delaying the case to the point of meaninglessness.
In this and other areas, the AG and the Court are hoping to run out the clock past the next elections where they pray (if they pray at all) that a friendly left-wing government will sweep away all these charges. The Supreme Court has protected her from rightful termination for misconduct in office, even though no statute gives it the authority to do that.
The legal establishment has waged lawfare against the prime minister for well over a decade, with evidence fabricated, witnesses threatened, prosecutors suborning perjury, and the witch hunt dragging on for years. It has perfected the system of neutering disfavored politicians, appointees, or bureaucrats by holding over their heads bogus investigations facilitated by tendentious and false leaks to the media.
Meanwhile, the AG’s son was credibly accused (it is caught on camera, after all) of shamelessly stealing another soldier’s bullet proof vest, even refusing to return it after no charges were filed against him because of collusion between the AG and the Military Prosecutor’s office. Who knew that her self-proclaimed immunity extends to her son as well?
The former Military Prosecutor was credibly accused of fabricating evidence and leaking it to the media, a video that besmirched our soldiers’ names across the world. She was forced to resign after accidentally being outed by an employee undergoing a routine polygraph, but this only happened after the Military Prosecutor informed the Court that the results of her investigation did not expose the leaker. This was quite understandable, as she was the leaker, and was granted the right to investigate herself, which the Court willfully permitted until she was otherwise exposed. Her case is now pending, but (as above) it is pending its way towards quiet disappearance in the mischievous murkiness of the deep state.
The AG and the Supreme Court have asserted powers unknown to comparable officials in any functioning democracy. They fabricate their own laws and simultaneously void or thwart laws passed by the Knesset, Israel’s elected legislature, which has been successfully marginalized as a substantive branch of government. They operate under the risible legal theory spawned by Aharon Barak that “everything is justiciable," something also unprecedented in legal annals. The AG and Court have arrogated themselves the right to pass judgment on every legislation, every policy, every initiative, and every appointment, even when they run afoul of no law but simply reflect the priorities of the government elected by the people.
Thus, the Court functions without any limits on standing, allowing every malcontent to sue the government even when he has suffered no personal injury but simply because he doesn’t like the government’s policies - for which they, not he, were elected to promote. Judges routinely ignore conflicts of interest, sitting on cases involving relatives and occasionally even cases in which they have monetary interests. Apparently, there is no equivalent in Hebrew for the English concept of “judicial restraint."
For example, the law is explicit that the State Comptroller can investigate anything and everything. Nothing is beyond his purview. Yet, the High Court illegally ordered the State Comptroller to halt his investigation of the failures of October 7, because, apparently, they did not like where his investigation was heading. (He allegedly was finding fault with their preferred heroes and little fault with their designated villains.) But no existing statute justifies this Court decision.
Similarly, Ronen Bar, the failed head of the Shin Bet who ruled out any possibility of a Hamas attack on October 7, also refused to be fired. And when even the Court could not prevent his dismissal, his successor, David Zini, appointed by the only body authorized by law to appoint the head of the Shin Bet - the government - had numerous obstacles placed in his way, had his assumption to office delayed for months on the most specious grounds, has been politically, journalistically, and legally harassed since assuming office, and the denizens of the Deep State are actively seeking to depose him even now.
Indeed, every government appointment is scrutinized not for legal disqualification but for crass political purposes: will this person advance or impede the interests of the deep state? If the latter, the appointment will be delayed indefinitely, to the point of meaninglessness.
The same pertains to government decisions. Consider, for example, the government’s ordered closure of Galei Tzahal, the Army radio station, announced months ago to occur next week. Not too long ago, a conservative Galatz director balanced the left-wing hosts with an equal number of right-wing hosts. Had he fired the left-wing hosts, the court would have overturned his decision as a “threat to free speech." When he was replaced, a new director dismissed all the right-wing hosts, who were deemed a “threat to democracy."
But Israel is the only country in the world whose army runs a radio station, much less a partisan, anti-government, and too frequently anti-army radio station. No law prevents the defense minister from shuttering the station; it is a branch of the military like any other branch. But the Supreme Court, acting in its role as High Court of the Deep State and defender of the radical left, has now stopped it, hoping to drag out the proceedings past the next elections and rendering the decision moot. Safe prediction: Galei Tzahal will not be closed anytime soon.
Just as the Court insists that the government subsidize the left wing Galei Tzahal, it is even more undemocratic, if not unconscionable, that the public pays for Reshet Bet, a leftist radio station. Israel TV’s flagship Channel 12 is also government subsidized, and its leftist news division is relentlessly anti-government. Any attempt to reform it by balancing its commentators between right and left, or by letting it privatize and compete in the free market with other networks, is aborted as a “threat to free speech" and a “threat to democracy."
Even the non-astute citizen can grasp that any endeavor that weakens the leftist, secularist segment of society and strengthens the rightist, traditional segment of society, is immediately depicted as a “threat to free speech and democracy."
To be sure, even a left-wing media has its place. But that place need not be eternally subsidized by the taxpayer, especially those who find its offerings and commentary repugnant. The government should get out of the media business, period. It should be obvious that these left-wing, government-subsidized outlets could not survive if they were forced to compete in the marketplace; that is why the Deep State protects them like an etrog. Forcing taxpayers to subsidize only leftist media is a travesty.
Similarly, two years ago, the Government cut off all ties with the radical left newspaper Haaretz and even ordered the cessation of its subsidized distribution to various government ministries. This is understandable, considering that its publisher has called Arab terrorists “freedom fighters" and one of its columnists recently termed the State of Israel “the greatest danger to world peace of any country." (If all Tucker Carlson did every day was read the lies from Haaretz, he would not have to concoct his own lies.) Haaretz is one of the most anti-Israel, anti-Jewish publications in the world. Naturally, the Court ordered the Government to resume its subsidies.
This has nothing to do with free speech. Not a few public officials call for the closure of privately funded, right-wing Channel 14. Those who think that cannot happen should recall the closure of Arutz-7, the first popular right-wing organ. Those who think that the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria by a leftwing government is impossible should recall Gush Katif. Those who think that the left does not still pine for a Palestinian Arab state should recall the delusions of Oslo that are all alive and well in the febrile minds of the unrepentant dreamers of a secular, progressive, state of all its citizens, non-Jewish Israel.
It is delusional to think that the Hamas invasion or the wars with Iran and Hezbollah has disabused the radical left of its starry-eyed fantasies, as it is to think that the legal establishment that investigates itself and mysteriously never finds any wrongdoing will ultimately be brought to justice.
Elections have been rendered meaningless as real power is held by the courts and unelected bureaucrats who cannot be fired or replaced without permission of the elites. The only virtue of elections is that it enables a right-wing government to be a partial brake on the excesses of the Court, the exact opposite of how a democracy is supposed to function. A left-wing government buttressed by a left-wing Court would be catastrophic, an unchecked behemoth that will undoubtedly oppress right wing and religious Jews who will lack any recourse.
It goes on and on. The AG wants to cancel Itamar Ben Gvir - an act devoid of merit, legal precedent, or statutory authority. Surely, the Election Commission will find some way to ban him in the future. The Court is compelling the IDF to integrate women in combat into mixed units, which will inevitably result in yeshiva students refusing to serve in the tank or artillery corps, a suicidal triumph of rigid, radical feminist ideology over Halakha, religious rights, efficiency, and battlefield success.
The Court demanded years ago that Gazans be allowed to approach the border unhindered and unchallenged, itself one of the proximate causes of the colossal failure of October 7, and one which will also be covered up. And not content with its domestic and military interventions, the Court has ordered that mixed prayers be allowed at a sub-divided Kotel, a mockery of Jewish law and all that is holy. If they feel so strongly about it, maybe the Court should order the same at Al-Aksa.
And do not be surprised if the Deep State cooks up a way to disqualify PM Netanyahu from running in the next election, on some pretext, with the goal of so dispiriting the right wing that people see no purpose in voting, the only way the left can win in Israel. By the time it happens, it will be too late to respond, and the elites know whatever turmoil erupts will die down as soon as a left-wing government is in place.
The problem is that currently there is little hope of changing the system regardless of who is elected in the fall. The elites have carved out for themselves an infrastructure of power that is impregnable through ordinary democratic processes, short of a revolution. The judges cannot be impeached, essentially appoint their replacements, they shield corrupt bureaucrats who serve their purposes and harass honest ones who do not. There are no checks or balances on them.
And in a fashion quite evocative of North Korea, the most undemocratic party in Israel - the one that aspires to deprive most of the citizenry of basic rights - calls itself the Democrats. It has no faith in the demos - the people who actually vote - but only in the crats, the ruling class.
Eventually, there will be a constitutional crisis, in which the government and the people who elected it - the majority of the country - simply refuse to enforce the Court’s arbitrary dictates or the AG’s capricious predilections. In a real sense, that crisis is already upon us, obscured only by the necessities of an existential war.
We should not be concerned with democracy in Iran, a pipedream even for optimists. We should be more concerned about the fate of democracy in Israel, dying a daily slow death before our eyes, in broad daylight. And we should pray for the day when “Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her repentant ones with righteousness" (Yeshayahu 1: 27), may that day come soon.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. servesas the Senior Research Associate for the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy and the Israel Region Vice-President of the Coalition for Jewish Values and is the author of six books including “Road to Redemption" (Kodesh Press).