The Eclipse

Abstract

‘It is the only democracy in the Middle East’—this is a standard refrain about Israel. Some stand by it; others refute it. Many argue that Benjamin Netanyahu has been eroding democratic values in Israel over the last decade; others insist that so-called Israeli democracy is premised on the oppression and killing of Palestinians, which thus undermines the universalist principles of liberal democracy. While many disagree on Israel’s democratic credentials, what underpins these debates is an implicit understanding of democracy as an inherently pacifying political and social system, one that has ‘if not banished brutality and physical violence, then [it has] at least brought them under control’. Violence is not necessarily external to democracy, but something that democratic societies have learned to manage through a variety of political, social, and legal institutions.