8 | MARCH 16 • 2023 

PURELY COMMENTARY

opinion

Ameinu Detroit’s Position on Israel’s Current Government

E

very Saturday night 
for the past six weeks, 
hundreds of thousands 
of Israelis have taken to the 
streets around the country 
to protest the 
Netanyahu 
government’s 
attempt to 
destroy checks 
and balances in 
Israel’s political 
system by 
curtailing the 
independence 
of the judiciary and granting 
ultimate authority to the 
legislative branch.
These protesters come from 
all strata of Israeli society 
— they are religious and 
secular, left wing and right, 
Jews and Arabs. What unites 
them is the recognition that 
Israel’s democratic system is 
at risk, and that the so-called 
“judicial overhaul” is really 
the first stop on the way to an 
illiberal autocracy — a system 
in which the majority of 
Israelis do not wish to live. 
Prime Minister Netanyahu, 
who is facing corruption 
charges, has established 
the most right-wing, anti-
democratic government in 
Israel’s history. 
After dragging Israelis 
to the polls five times over 
a four-year span, one of 
Netanyahu’s policy goals may 
be to avoid prosecution. He 
has shown he will stop at 
nothing.
Ministers in his latest 
government include 
Kahanists, racists, Jewish 
supremacists and anti-
LGBQ rabbis. When this 
current government was 

formed at the end of 2022, 
it quickly became apparent 
that its new ministers would 
likely not be committed to 
the preservation of Israel’s 
imperfect and fragile 
democracy.
There are those who say the 
current government is merely 
a reflection of the democratic 
will of the citizens of Israel 
and that free elections have 
consequences to which all 
must abide, winners and 
losers alike. 
To claim, however, 
that this government is 
representative of the majority 
of Israeli voters is simply 
untrue. Between them, the 
six parties that comprise 
this government received 
fewer than 50% of the votes 
of the Israeli electorate in 
the election that was held 
in November 2022. The 
election essentially ended 
in a tie, with a mere 30,000 
votes separating the ruling 
coalition and the opposition. 
Moreover, Meretz and 
Balad, two long-standing 
political parties, both 
failed to cross the electoral 
threshold and did not receive 
any seats in the current 
Knesset, leaving their 
combined 300,000 voters 
disenfranchised. 

TAKING A PUBLIC 
POSITION 
There are voices saying that 
it’s not the place of Jews 
who live in the diaspora to 
take public positions against 
Israel’s government. They 
believe that our role should 
be one of cheerleader and 
fundraiser, leaving dissent 

for the people who live in the 
country who are solely able 
to speak on domestic Israeli 
issues. For decades, Jews 
around the world abided by 
this unwritten rule and, for 
the most part, saved their 
criticisms for private discus-
sion. 
But the risk Israel faces 
today has upended that 
equation, and we are 
beginning to hear voices from 
places we’re not used to. Abe 
Foxman, the former head of 
the ADL and one of Israel’s 
staunchest defenders in the 
United States, has warned 
that “if Israel ceases to be an 
open democracy, I won’t be 
able to support it.” 
Around the country, 
rabbis and other communal 
leaders have also begun to 
speak out from their pulpits 
and their organizations. In 
recent weeks, Israeli expats 
around the globe have begun 
protesting in solidarity with 
their relatives and friends 
back home. A group called 
UnXeptable has organized 
protests in Washington, 
D.C., New York, Los Angeles, 
Silicon Valley, Toronto and 
other North American 
cities.
So, what should North 
American Jews do? 
 We should take our 
cues not from the legacy 
organizations that tell us to 
keep quiet and mind our 
own business, but from our 
brothers and sisters in Israel 
and from Israelis living 
abroad who are marching in 
the streets, protesting and 
striking, refusing to remain 
silent.

Bradley Burston, one 
of Israel’s most respected 
journalists, has a message for 
North American Jews: “Bibi 
is betting everything he’s got 
that in the end, the Jewish 
world will let him get away 
with turning Israel into a 
slave state. A state which will 
permanently and irrevocably 
deny millions of Palestinians 
the most basic of human 
rights. A state empowered 
to intrude into and oppress 
and control and embitter 
with impunity the lives of all 
women, all LGBTQ people, 
all non-Jewish Israelis, all 
non-Bibi-voting Israelis, all 
asylum seekers, Reform and 
Conservative.”
He added that this could 
be end of Israel as we know 
it. “The end of pluralism and 
tolerance in Judaism. The 
intentional end of the concept 
of tikkun olam.”
He pleads for people to 
support a democratic Israel 
by joining the protests. “Not 
just for the sake of Israel,” he 
writes, “for your own. For 
the sake of your family and 
the future. Think with your 
heart. Stand up. Make noise. 
Draw a line. It is literally now 
or never.” 
The stakes couldn’t be 
higher. In 2023, showing 
your support for Israel means 
standing in solidarity with 
the hundreds of thousands 
of Israelis who are on the 
front lines of Israel’s fight to 
preserve its democracy. 

Mark Phillips is treasurer of Ameinu 

Detroit, on whose behalf he is writing. 

He lived on Kibbutz Adamit for 17 

years and is an Israeli citizen.

Mark 
Phillips
Ameinu 
Detroit