Crisis of Israel's Democracy, 1948–2025

The Crisis of Israel’s Democracy, 1948 - 2025: Origins, Developments, and Consequences focuses on Israeli democracy, its deep historical origins, development over seven decades, long-term consequences, and possible resolutions. While most commentaries on Israel’s crisis focus on the proposals for judicial reform by the Netanyahu government, this study focuses on what it identifies as the fundamental problems of the Israeli regime—its ethnonational (rather than liberal-democratic) form, its lack of a written constitution undermines the country’s deeply divided society, the greatly dysfunctional relations between the secular majority and the sizeable Orthodox minority, and above all the seemingly permanent occupation of the Palestinian-inhabited West Bank. Peleg and Amir offer a broad perspective on these causes, covering the historical failures of the country’s founders, an analysis of Israel’s constitutional order and regime type, commentary on sociopolitical cleavages and the dominant social psychology of Israelis, and analysis of the charismatic populism of longtime Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The volume concludes with analyzing future scenarios and possible solutions for Israel’s democratic crisis. The Crisis of Israel’s Democracy offers the most comprehensive analysis of Israel’s democratic backsliding to date, comparing it to similar worldwide processes.