Israeli Democracy in Crisis

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What's going on in Israel is extremely alarming. The fact that they could have a constitutional crisis where the judiciary and the Knesset are staring each other down is unprecedented, with the judiciary threatening to strike down the law that's intended to neuter the judiciary.

Mass protests, members of the government calling for the arrest of opposition leaders? Democracy there has never been more at risk. Of course it's easy for me to blame Bibi, and I do, for cozying up and elevating extreme elements.

But honestly, one can blame the center opposition parties as well. Was it worth rejecting Netanyahu so utterly that you end up with a coalition like this?

The only stable coalition that would govern from a normal center-right place, that would preserve democracy, is a national unity government with Likud, Yesh Atid, and a few others. That would be stable, would still lean to the right, as Likud voters obviously wished for. And you wouldn't have this moment of crisis.

Lapid, Gantz, Sa'ar, Lieberman, etc should have swallowed their pride and made a deal with the devil, being as careful as possible to cross all the T's and dot all the I's to make it as hard as possible for Netanyahu to double cross them. I know they hate the idea of Netanyahu as prime minister, but he's prime minister anyway now, so what has their principled stand accomplished?

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