When Daphni Leef, who apparently represents a few hundred people (without ever having been elected), addresses the prime minster with the words, You have until October 29 to make us an offer, she is heralding a new season in Israeli politics, one of arm-twisting and political thuggery. The ultimatum and radical socialist demands of Leef and her friends raise fears that the protest movement has a hidden Hadash (left-wing) agenda, one that is blatantly anti-democratic. It is unfortunate that the Trajtenberg Committee, with its sentimental concern for social issues, is encouraging the regressive desire to expand the failed welfare state. The welfare state in fact created the problems that have given rise to Israel's crippled economy. Neither Montesquieu, who originated the idea of separation of powers, nor James Madison, who believed that the principal role of government is to protect property rights because only property rights can protect the individual from government tyranny, would be proud of Israeli democracy. The democracy shaped by the Jewish yishuv (Jewish settlement in Palestine before 1948) was from its inception the centralized government of a minority. This minority consisted of political and economic elites who herded the public (as one would herd cattle) toward their goals. They used the little people and their resources for their own purposes. As a result we have market concentration, from which we suffer to this day. The transition to a right-wing government -- which, after Jabotinsky, was not guilty of espousing any social or economic doctrine (despite citing Jabotinsky's five mems, which stood for food, shelter, clothing, education and health, and which none of his followers bothered to study carefully) -- did nothing to improve our democratic credentials. The peak of absurdity can be seen in liberal Israeli support and devotion to the establishment of a Palestinian state, with nary a concern that their support for a regime that oppresses its subjects does nothing to advance the cause of human rights. Then the social revolution comes along, threatening to undermine the foundations of democracy in Israel through the tyranny of a populist minority that seeks to enforce its views through verbal violence (verbal for now) and demonstrations. The nation demands social justice, they thunder. Who is this nation and when and how did it appoint Daphni and her comrades -- new Israelis with an old-fashioned communist agenda, a radical minority -- to represent it? Do these new Israelis hope to take us back to the days of Voice of the Nation, enthroning themselves as our chosen leaders and dictating their agenda to the government, under the pretense that they represent the nation, without having obtained the nation's consent? This unelected leadership, rumored to have emerged out of power plays and rivalries worthy of Israel's old-school corrupt political machine, not only presumes to speak in our name, but also to issue threats demanding changes that will cost us billions, without explaining their significance, who stands to benefit and who will pay the price. So here you have it: a protest claiming to rejuvenate democracy but actually seeking to impose a version of the People's Republic.
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Menachem Begin was a big believer in the state and its exercise of power even when he tried to do well for the people, by replacing the Mapai socialist economy with a freer market. Even among Israelis who espouse liberalism, the democratic impulse does not run that deep. It focuses on abstract basic rights that judges interpret arbitrarily, a situation that leads to tyranny of the law.
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