Israel's Democratic Crisis and the Threat of Unlimited Power

Netanyahu's actions threaten Israeli democracy by dismantling checks and balances, risking unlimited power, and inciting widespread social and political unrest.

### Yuval Noah Harari: Netanyahu's Threat to Israeli Democracy and the Future of the Middle East
* 🇮🇱 Netanyahu is "**tearing apart the social contract** that held Israel together for 75 years" and "**destroying the foundations of Israeli democracy**."
* 🏛 In Israel, the Supreme Court is the only significant check on government power, as there are no separate elections for the **executive branch**.
* 🔥 Netanyahu's government is openly trying to **gain unlimited power** and has prepared laws to **neutralize the Supreme Court**.
* 🛑 If the Supreme Court loses its power, Netanyahu's government plans to **restrict the rights of Arabs, LGBT individuals, women, and secular Jews**.
* 🌍 The situation in Israel has implications beyond its borders, as it is a **nuclear power** with **advanced cyber capabilities**.
* ☮ Achieving peace in the Middle East requires motivation, but currently, neither Israelis nor Palestinians have **sufficient motivation for peace**.
* 📉 Israel's technological advancements have made it feel less dependent on compromise, leading to a **lack of motivation for peace**.
* 🕊 Harari sees the long-term trend in history as **different national and religious groups, even those who hate each other, sometimes merging**.

you've said recently that um the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may go down in history as the man who destroys Israel. Can you explain what you mean by that? Yes, I mean he is basically tearing apart the social contract that held this country together for 75 years. He's destroying the foundations of Israeli democracy. You know, I don't want to go too deep unless you want to because I guess most of our listeners, they have bigger issues on their minds than the fate of some small country in the Middle East. But for those who want to understand what's happening in Israel, there is really just one question to ask: What limits the power of the government? In the United States, for instance, there are a lot of checks and balances that limit the power of the government. Um, you have the Supreme Court, you have the Senate, you have the House of Representatives, you have the President, uh, you have the Constitution, you have 50 states, each state with its own Constitution and Supreme Court and, uh, uh, Congress and Governor. If somebody wants

to pass a dangerous legislation say in the house, it will have to go through so many obstacles. Like if you want to pass a law in the United States taking away voting rights from Jews or from Muslims or from African Americans, even if it passes, even if it has a majority in the House of Representatives, it is a very, very, very small chance of becoming the law of the country. Because it will have to pass again through the Senate, through the president, through the Supreme Court, and all the federal structure. In Israel, we have just a single check on the power of the government, and that's the Supreme Court. There is really no difference between the government and the legislature because whoever there is, there are no separate elections like in the U.S. If you win a majority in the knesset, in the parliament, you appoint the government. That's very simple. And if you have 61 members of knesset who vote, let's say, on a law to take away voting rights from Arab citizens of Israel, there is a single check that can prevent it from

from becoming the law of the land, and that's a Supreme Court. And now the Nathaniel government is trying to neutralize or take over the Supreme Court, and they've already prepared a long list of laws. They already talk about it. What will happen the moment that this last check on the power is gone? They are openly trying to gain unlimited power, and they openly talk about it. That once they have it, then they will take away the rights of Arabs, of LGBT people, of women, of secular Jews. And this is why you have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. You have aeroforce Pilots saying we, we are stop, we stop Flying. This is unheard of in Israel. I mean we are still living under existential threat from Iran, from other enemies. And in the middle of this, you have Air Force pilots who dedicated their lives to protecting the country, and they are saying that's it, if this government doesn't stop what it is doing, we stop Flying. So as you said, I just did the interview, and as we were doing the

interview. There's protests in the streets. Do you think the protests will have an effect? I hope so very much. I'm going to many of these protests. I hope they will have an effect. If we fail, this is the end of Israeli democracy probably. This will have repercussions far beyond the borders of Israel. Israel is a nuclear power. Israel has one of the most advanced cyber capabilities in the world, able to strike basically anywhere in the world. If this country becomes a fundamentalist and militarist dictatorship, it can set fire to the entire Middle East. It can have destabilizing effects long far beyond the borders of Israel. So you think without the check on power, it's possible that the Netanyahu government holds on the power. Nobody tries to gain unlimited power just for nothing. I mean you have so many problems in Israel. Again, Netanyahu talks so much about Iran and the Palestinians and Hezbollah. We have an economic crisis. Why is it so urgent at this moment in the

face of such a position why is it so crucial for them to neutralize the Supreme Court. They are just doing it for the fun of it. No, they know what they are doing. They are adamant. We are not sure of it before. There was a like a couple of months ago. They came out with this plan to take over the Supreme Court to have all these laws. And there are hundreds of thousands of people in the streets against soldiers. Saying they will stop serving a general strike in the economy. And they stopped and they started a process of negotiations. Uh, to try and reach a settlement. And then they broke down. They stopped the negotiations and they restarted this process of our legislation trying to gain unlimited power. So any doubt we had before. Okay, maybe they changed their purposes. No, it's now very clear. They are 100 focused on gaining absolute power. They are not trying a different tactic. Previously, they took. They had all these dozens of laws that they wanted to pass very quickly within a month or two.

they realize no this is there is too much opposition. So now they're doing what is known as salami tactics, slice by slice. Now they're trying to one low. If this succeeds, then they'll pass the next one and the next one and the next one. This is why we are now at a very crucial moment. And when you see again hundreds of thousands of people in the streets almost every day, when you seem resistance within the Armed Forces, within the security forces, you see high tech companies saying we will go on strike. You know it's our private businesses, high tech companies. That's I think it's almost unprecedented for private business to go on strike because what do we, what will economic success benefit us if we live under a Messianic dictatorship. And again the fuel for this whole thing is to a large extent coming from Messianic religious groups, which just the thought what happens if these people have unlimited control of new of Israel's nuclear Arsenal and Israel's military capabilities and cyber capabilities. This is very, very scary. Not

just for the citizens of Israel it should be scary from for people everywhere so it's it would be scary for it to uh go from being a problem of security and protecting the piece to becoming a religious War. It is already becoming a religious warming the war. The conflict with the Palestinians was for many years and National conflict. In essence, over the last a few years, maybe a decade or two, it is morphing into a religious conflict, which is again a very worrying development. When nations are in Conflict, you can reach them compromise, okay, you have this bit of land, we have this bit of land, but when it becomes a religious conflict between fundamentalists, between Messianic people, compromise is becomes much more difficult because you don't compromise on eternity, you don't compromise on God, uh, and and this is where we are heading right now. So I know you said it's a small nation somewhere in the Middle East, but it also happens to be the epicenter of one of the longest running, one of the most tense conflicts and crises in human

history so at the very least it serves as a study of how conflict can be resolved. So what are the biggest obstacles to you, uh, to achieving peace in this part of the world? Motivation, I think it's easy to achieve peace if you have the motivation on wealth on both sides. Unfortunately, at the present, uh, juncture, there is not enough motivation on either side, either the Palestinian or Israeli studying peace. You know, in mathematics, you have problems without Solutions. You can prove mathematically that this mathematical problem has no solution. In politics, there is no such thing. All problems have Solutions if you have the motivation. And but motivation is the big problem. And again, we can go into the reasons why, but the fact is that on neither side is there enough motivation. If there was motivation, the solution would have been easy. Is there an important distinction to draw between the people on the street and the leaders in power in terms of motivation? So are most people, uh, motivated and hoping for peace and the leaders are motivated and incentivized to continue War. I don't

think so or the people also. I think it's a deep problem. It's also the people. It's not just the leaders. Is it even a human problem of literally hate in people's heart? Yeah, there is a lot of hate. One of the things that happened in Israel over the last um 10 years or so. Israel became much stronger than it was before, largely thanks to technological development, and it feels that it no longer needs to compromise. That and this is the many reasons for it, but some of them are technological, uh, being one of the leading powers in cyber, in AI, in in high tech. We have developed very sophisticated ways to more easily control the Palestinian population. In the early 2000s, it seemed that it is becoming impossible to control millions of people against the will. It took too much power. It spilled too much blood on both sides, uh, so there was an impression, oh, this is becoming untenable, and there are several reasons why it changed, but one of them was new technology Israel developed very

sophisticated surveillance technology that has made it much easier for Israeli Security Forces to control 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank against their will uh with a lot less effort less boots on the ground also less blood and uh Israel is also now exporting this technology to many other regimes around the world um again I heard Netanyahu speaking about all the wonderful things that Israel is exporting to the world and it's true we are exporting some nice things water systems and and to make new kinds of tomatoes we are also exporting a lot of weapons and especially uh surveillance systems sometimes to unsavory regimes in order to control their populations can you comment on um I think you've mentioned that the current state of affairs is the de facto three class State can you describe what you mean by that yes for many years the kind of kind of the israeli-palestinian conflict is the two-state solution can you describe what that means by the way yes two states um within between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean will have two states

uh, Israel is a predominantly Jewish State, and Palestine as a predominantly Palestinian state, uh, again into a lot of discussions where the Border passes, what happens with security Arrangement, and whatever, but this was the big solution. Israel is basically abandoned the two-state solution, maybe they don't say so officially, the people in power, but in terms of how they actually what they do on the ground, they abandoned it. Now they are effectively promoting the three-class, uh, solution, which means there is just one country and one government and one power between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, but you have three classes of people living there. You have Jews who enjoy full rights, all the rights, uh, you have some Arabs who are Israeli citizens and have some rights, and then you have the other Arabs, the third class, who have basically no civil rights and limited human rights, and that, that's again, nobody would openly speak about it, but effectively this is the reality on the ground already. So there's many, and I'll speak with them Palestinians who characterize this as a de facto one

state apartheid. Is it? Do you agree with this? I would take issue with the term apartheid. Generally speaking, as a historian, I don't really like historical analogies because there are always differences, key differences. The biggest difference between the situation here and the situation in South Africa in the time of the apartheid is that the black South Africans did not deny the existence of South Africa and did not call for the destruction of South Africa. They had a very simple goal, a very simple demand. We want to be equal citizens of this country. That's it. And the apartheid regime was, No, you can't be equal citizens. Now in Israel, in Israel Palestine, it's different. The Palestinians, many of them, don't recognize the existence of Israel, are not willing to recognize it, and they don't demand to be citizens of Israel. They demand, some of them, to destroy it and replace it with a Palestinian State. Some of them demand a separate state. But you know, if the Palestinians would adopt the same policy

as the black South Africans if you have the Palestinians coming and saying, Okay, forget about it. We don't want to destroy Israel. We don't want a Palestinian country. We have a very simple request, a very simple demand. Give us our full rights. We also want to vote to the Knesset. We also want to get the full protection of the law. That's it. That's our only demand. Israel will be in deep, deep trouble at that moment. Uh, but we are not there. I wonder if there will ever be a future when such a thing happens, where everybody, the majority of people, um, Arab and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian, accept the one-state solution and say, We want equal rights. Never Say Never in history. Uh, it's not coming anytime soon from either side. When you look at the long term of historian, one of the curious things you've seen, and that's what makes us different, human groups from animal species, you know, gorillas and chimpanzees, they are separate species, they can never merge. Cats and dogs will never merge, but different national and religious groups.

in history, even when they hate each other, surprisingly, they sometimes end by merging. If you look at Germany, for instance, so for centuries, you had Prussians and Bavarians and Saxons who fought each other ferociously and hated each other. And they are sometimes also of different religions, Catholics, Protestants, you know, the worst war in European history, according to some measures, was not the Second World War or the First World War, it was the 30 Years War, which largely on German soil between Germans, Protestants, and Catholics, but eventually, they United to form a single country. You saw the same thing, I don't know, in Britain, English and Scots for centuries hated and fought each other ferociously, eventually coming together. Maybe they'll break up again, I don't know, but the power of the kind of forces of merger in history, you are very often influenced by the people you fight by the people you even hate more than by almost anybody else.

Yuval Noah Harari criticizes Benjamin Netanyahu | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

Clips from the Lex Fridman podcast. Visit the main channel for full conversations and other videos.

Lex Clips

The Erosion of the Social Contract in Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu is being accused of dismantling the foundations of Israeli democracy and consolidating unlimited power.

Unlike the US, Israel has minimal checks and balances on government power, with the Supreme Court being the only significant limitation.

Netanyahu's government is seeking to weaken the Supreme Court's authority, leading to widespread protests and resistance, even from within the military.

The protests in Israel are driven by the fear of the government's attempt to gain absolute power and neutralize the Supreme Court.

The potential effects of this power grab are seen as a threat to Israeli democracy and could have far-reaching repercussions beyond the country's borders.

The unprecedented scale of the protests, with involvement from various sectors including the armed forces and high-tech companies, highlights the widespread concern about the situation.

The Shift from National Conflict to Religious War in Israel

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is transitioning from a national to a religious war, making resolution more challenging.

The lack of motivation for peace on both sides is a significant obstacle to finding a solution.

There is a crucial distinction between the motivation of the people and the leaders in power, with the former more inclined towards peace than the latter.

Technological Advancements and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Israel's increased technological development has strengthened its control over the Palestinian population, making it easier for the Israeli Security Forces to maintain dominance.

The development and export of surveillance technology have allowed for more efficient control with less resistance and bloodshed.

The situation has shifted the power dynamics, making it challenging to achieve a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Shift from the Two-State to the Three-Class Solution in Israel

Israel has effectively abandoned the two-state solution and is now promoting a three-class solution, where there is one country with three classes of people, leading to limited rights for many Palestinians.

This situation has been characterized by many as a de facto one-state apartheid, but the historian interviewed takes issue with this analogy, highlighting the key differences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the apartheid in South Africa.

The Potential for a One-State Solution in Israel and Palestine

There is a hypothetical scenario where both Israelis and Palestinians could demand equal rights in a one-state solution, but it is not expected to happen soon.

Throughout history, even groups that have hated each other have sometimes ended up merging, as seen in the unification of different warring factions in Germany and the reconciliation of English and Scots.