In recent years, Israeli democracy has been steadily darkened, its light dimming. The elections of November 2022, which produced the 25th Knesset, brought to power the most extreme right-wing, theocratic government in Israel’s history, led once again by Benjamin Netanyahu.
This coalition rests on two governing principles. The first is the Leader Principle: absolute loyalty to Netanyahu himself. The second is the Autonomy Principle: ministers are free to pursue their own ideological agendas within their ministries, enjoying the prime minister’s full backing regardless of legality, ethics, or public interest. Members of Knesset may advance self-serving, sectarian, and even corrupt legislation, confident of Netanyahu’s support.
Invoking a hollow notion of “democracy,” coalition leaders insist that electoral victory grants them unlimited power. But this argument is fundamentally flawed. Democracy is not merely the rule of the majority; it is majority rule constrained by the protection of minority rights. Strip democracy of this second component, and what remains is not democracy at all but a tyranny of the majority.
On January 3, 2026, former president of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak issued a grave warning. In an extraordinary move for a jurist who has traditionally avoided public rallies, Barak addressed the nation, stating that “our life work – liberal democracy – is crumbling.” He spoke not as a partisan actor but as a guardian of Israel’s constitutional ethos, witnessing its collapse.
Barak did not mince words: “We are no longer a liberal democracy.” He described not a single rupture but a sustained process in which “essential aspects of Israeli democracy are under withering attack.”
In this, I regret to say, I concur. I have argued for years that Israel ceased to qualify as a liberal democracy well before the current crisis. The very construction of Israel as a “Jewish democracy” is fraught with tension, given Orthodox Judaism’s monopoly over key institutions of personal status and public life. Reform and Conservative Judaism remain marginalized and politically weak, unable to mobilize the substantial portion of Israeli society that might otherwise support pluralistic, egalitarian, and humanistic values.
Netanyahu's prolonged tenure has inflicted deep and lasting damage on liberty, equality, tolerance, pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law. In my article, “Is Israel a Liberal Democracy?” I explain in detail why Israel no longer meets the standards of one. Should this government remain in power after the 2026 elections, I fear that even the label “democracy” itself will become untenable.
Barak rightly observed that Israel’s system of governance has been transformed into one dominated by a single political authority, with the prime minister exercising effective control over both the executive and legislative branches. He warned that the judiciary has become the last meaningful check on government power – and that even this safeguard cannot endure indefinitely without public support. “Only the people,” Barak insisted, “can stop the backsliding.”
He is correct. In a democracy, the most vital gatekeepers are not institutions alone but citizens. Without active civic resistance, formal checks and balances will be hollowed out, delegitimized, and ultimately dismantled in the false name of “the people’s will.”
For this reason, Barak has become the government’s preferred bogeyman. Poisonous propaganda portrays him as an enemy of democracy, a relic of an elitist Ashkenazi establishment, and a traitor to Zionism as they understand it. These distortions have taken hold. Despite the profound crises Netanyahu has precipitated, the Likud remains projected to be the largest party in the next elections. My hope – though not my certainty – is that it will be unable to form a coalition.
I therefore doubt whether Barak’s solitary voice can penetrate the consciousness of Netanyahu’s base. He persuades those already persuaded. This is why I have urged the former Supreme Court president and others to mobilize collectively: former Supreme Court justices, former attorneys-general, and senior legal officials must speak with one voice. A unified moral and legal warning, grounded in shared authority and institutional memory, could yet compel broader segments of Israeli society to confront reality – and to act.
Time is running out. Israel stands at the edge of a dangerous descent into authoritarianism. The choice is stark: civic awakening or democratic collapse.
Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor, DPhil Oxford, is a prolific scholar and institutional founder who held distinguished roles at Haifa, UCLA, Hull, Johns Hopkins, Lund, UCL, Jerusalem and The Woodrow Wilson Center, and taught globally. His books span politics, law and ethics, including Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side (2015), Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism (2021) and Resolving the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict (forthcoming 2026).