Israel/Palestine

Influential sectors of the Israeli public are in a state of panic — and for good reason. The dominant narrative among virtually all Israelis who do not support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is that a coup is underway. Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s plans for judicial overhaul, which will give unchecked power to the government at the expense of the Supreme Court, do indeed represent a drastic change in the Israeli regime. People who see Israel as a liberal democracy (very often by omitting millions of Palestinians) say the country is on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. The general feeling is that Israel as we know it is on the brink of collapse.

Some are calling this moment the end of democracy. Others, more precisely, describe it as a deterioration into fascism. Most of the hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets are focusing on Levin’s reforms, while left-wing Israelis and the Palestinians cannot but point to the intensification of the occupation’s violence under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and the escalating oppression toward Palestinian citizens. Irrespective of precise political orientation, there is a general sense of emergency.

This collective panic is widespread but is especially potent among the upper classes – both upper-middle-class supporters of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, and the millionaires and billionaires who sit atop Israel’s finance and tech sectors. In the past few weeks, since Netanyahu and Levin announced their plans for judicial overhaul, substantial portions of Israeli and foreign capital have gone into defensive mode: venture capitalists are contemplating withdrawing funds from Israeli businesses, wealthy Israelis are gradually moving their money abroad, and young, privileged professionals who do not possess an EU passport are scrambling for one.

Now, however, Netanyahu’s messianic coalition partners are catching up with him, and he is no longer in full control of the situation. The business elites see this, and they are worried. The prime minister cannot be seen as a responsible moderate when his top ministers are avowed racists such as Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Yet he also has no political alternative: the divide between pro- and anti-Netanyahu factions in the Knesset is so broad that Netanyahu has only one possible coalition, and his partners expect action. They demand a complete legal overhaul in order to see through their grand plans for this country: entrenching apartheid, advancing annexation, and expelling Palestinian representatives from the Knesset. And they won’t budge.