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Unrest in Israel Reveals a Broader Debate About National Identity

Mar 30, 2023 | 14:14 GMT

Israeli military veterans wave national flags during a rally against the government's judicial reform bill along a highway near Netanya on March 28, 2023.

Israeli military veterans wave national flags during a rally against the government's judicial reform bill along a highway near Netanya on March 28, 2023.

(Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel is having an identity crisis. As the country reels from nationwide protests over the right-leaning government's proposed judicial reforms, which primarily aim to increase the Knesset's control over the Supreme Court, long-simmering culture wars are boiling over in the streets and parliament. Some politicians, like Israeli President Isaac Herzog, warn of impending civil war; others, like Israeli author David Grossman writing in The Atlantic, say the country is sliding into dictatorship. Many media outlets have warned the country could become an "illiberal" democracy akin to Turkey or Hungary, where elections are still free but rarely fair, and where cultural conservatives often push policies that target ethnic and sexual minorities. For them, Israel's secular, liberal and democratic national identity is about to be supplanted by something entirely different....

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