There is something extraordinary about Israel's election, and it is easily overlooked amid the noise, recriminations and apocalyptic warnings surrounding the campaign: Israelis may be about to remove a government that has presided over a great catastrophe, undermined its democratic institutions and brought it to international isolation. And they may accomplish this through the simple, peaceful act of voting.
The presence of a true liberal democracy in the Middle East is an inconvenient truth for Western anti-Zionists who too often find themselves defending repressive tyrannies in their opposition to Israel.
Israel is surrounded by countries where meaningful elections are non-existent, tightly controlled or endlessly postponed. Palestinians have not been allowed to vote in 20 years. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are absolute or highly centralized monarchies. Syria has emerged from decades of dictatorship without establishing a fully democratic system. Across much of the region, the idea that citizens might simply dismiss their rulers through competitive elections remains fanciful.
Israel, by contrast, has a genuinely competitive multiparty system, a vigorous opposition, an independent press and a judiciary that has continued to resist political interference. Arab citizens of Israel are also able to vote. Its democracy is flawed, because thousands of Palestinians live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank without voting rights for the Knesset—but Israel has not annexed the area and this can still be fixed.
In a region where political change so often comes through violence, coups or dynastic succession, all of this is no small achievement. Moreover, Israel is a society that is capable of having the most wrenching conversation with itself about the future.
Nor is it a foregone conclusion that the system will deliver change. Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition has been polling short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset. An October 23 Maariv poll projected just 48 seats for his governing bloc, with a potentially substantial majority for parties opposed to him. The opposition's leading figure, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, heads a party projected to be its largest.
But even if Netanyahu loses his majority, the opposition may struggle to form a government because several of its leaders have ruled out relying on Arab parties, whose parliamentary support will likely be indispensable—and which, in the current tense environment, is awkward. Nonetheless, Israel retains a vital capacity for democratic self-correction.
Why did Israel develop this democratic tradition in the first place? Part of the explanation may lie in Jewish tradition itself: centuries of Talmudic argument, communal self-government and a culture in which disputation was not merely tolerated but celebrated.
But the more immediate explanation lies in Zionism's origins in the European national movements of the 19th century, which combined the demand for national self-determination with ideas of popular sovereignty and political representation. Long before Israel existed, the Zionist movement held congresses, elected representatives and developed competing political parties. The future state was practicing parliamentary politics before it had a parliament.
There is a contrast with the Arab world, where authoritarianism has proved remarkably durable. Religion is surely part of the story, particularly where rulers claim religious legitimacy or religious authorities resist pluralism and individual freedoms. But colonial legacies, oil wealth that enables governments to function without taxing their citizens, and foreign powers willing to support dictators have all contributed to the problem.
Even after years of war and internal division, Israelis still possess a mechanism for peacefully changing their country's direction—which makes the election so potentially pivotal.
There are, in effect, two competing visions of Israel. One is the country that produced one of the most remarkable national success stories of modern times. A people scattered across the world, nearly annihilated in the Holocaust, returned to their ancestral homeland and built a thriving modern state despite hostile neighbors, scarce natural resources and almost-continuous security threats. The achievement is extraordinary by almost any measure.
Israel has become a technological powerhouse. It has pioneered advances in cybersecurity, medicine, agriculture and communications, while producing globally successful companies and a flourishing cultural scene. Tel Aviv is among the world's most vibrant and tolerant cities, with a thriving arts scene, a substantial gay community and an entrepreneurial culture.
This Israel is internationally connected, largely secular or moderately religious, and dependent on the rule of law, personal freedom and functioning democratic institutions. And it is the Israel that the opposition, led by Eisenkot, is determined to strengthen and preserve.
The competing vision is increasingly religious, nationalist and insular. Its political expression is Netanyahu's alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties and the messianic far-right. It seeks to weaken judicial constraints on government power, expand settlements in the West Bank and preserve a system of exemptions and subsidies for the ultra-Orthodox population.
The catastrophe of October 7, 2023 has intensified every one of Israel’s internal tensions. The Hamas attack exposed a devastating weakness in Israel's defenses. The wars that followed brought immense suffering and loss of life, while Israel's international standing deteriorated dramatically.
Israel is hardly above reproach. But its demonization by Western anti-Zionists rests on an astonishing double standard. Those fixated on trashing Israel ignores the fact that it's a functioning democracy, where women, religious minorities and gay people enjoy extensive legal rights, citizens can openly challenge their leaders, and governments can be removed through the ballot box.
Meanwhile, many of Israel's most implacable enemies—including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime—are subjected to remarkably little scrutiny, despite their horrifying records of repression. These are systems in which justice and equality are not even a distant dream, yet Israel's hypocritical critics seems either not to know, or not to give a damn.
And the concern about Israel’s survival is not necessarily hysterical. An Israel weakened economically, increasingly isolated from its principal trading partners, losing American public support and struggling to maintain its technological and military superiority could eventually become more vulnerable to external threats.
These concerns are real, but as Israelis head to the polls, they should appreciate, and the world should take note, that a hugely consequential democratic choice is underway in a part of the world where this is vanishingly rare.
Dan Perry is the former London-based Europe-Africa Editor and Cairo-based Middle East Editor of The Associated Press, chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem and the author of two books.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.