On saving your neighbor -Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘In America, according to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, a president – as well as both elected and appointed officials – are “bound by Oath or Affirmation” to the Constitution and recite: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Not the president, not the government. The Constitution. In monarchical terms, loyalty is to the kingdom, not the king.
In contemporary Israel, protesters and reserve officers, pilots, intelligence officers and soldiers who honor their oath to the unwritten constitution are deemed by a prime minister gone rogue as “refuseniks.”’

(…)

‘The protest movement, now in its 29th week, put on an astounding display of force this past week. On Saturday, 90,000 Israelis – many of whom marched up a hill in scorching temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) – congregated in Jerusalem. They now number 100,000, or the equivalent of 3.35 million Americans. For comparison, Martin Luther King’s protest on the Washington Mall in 1963 was about 250,000. The total number of pro-democracy protesters in Israel on Saturday night was 600,000 – the equivalent of over 19 million Americans or 4 million Britons out on the streets.’

(…)

‘The commitment to democracy and allegiance to those values is the foundation of President Biden’s current thinking on Israel. Biden sees in Israel the exact same trend and trajectory that he saw in the United States during the Trump years: the constant illiberal backsliding and emptying of democracy.’

(…)

‘In a new NYT op-ed dramatically titled “Only Biden can save Israel now,” Thomas Friedman pleaded with the president to produce a political, Yom Kippur War-esque political airlift to assist and save a crumbling Israeli democracy. But he framed it smartly, not only as a matter of U.S. support for Israel and Biden’s impeccable bona fides when it comes to Israel, but also as a U.S. national security interest after years of massive geopolitical support and heavy investment in Israel’s security.
This not only “undermines shared values between the U.S. and Israel BUT ALSO VITAL U.S. INTERESTS” (the capital letters are the writer’s). The Israeli government, Friedman concluded, “needs another dose of your [Biden’s] tough love,” as Netanyahu is “plowing forward despite your urgings.”’

(…)

‘Neither Biden nor his predecessors got politically or emotionally involved when democracy in Turkey and Hungary (both NATO members) or Brazil (a major hemispheric power) was assaulted. He is getting involved when it comes to Israel. This should be viewed as a compliment and testament to the type of relationship that exists between the two countries, not as a confrontation.’

Read the article here.

This is a bit self-congratulatory, alas.

Friedman is the master of the cliché, but I’m not sure how Biden can ‘save’ Israel from itself.

Sure, the destruction of Israel is not in the interest of the US and the EU, but that’s a different matter. (After millions of Syrians millions of Israelis, this is not what Europe is hoping for.)

Also, Biden is president of a country where millions of Evangelicals see Israel as a tool to hasten the Second Coming. They might think that Netanyahu is paving the way. (He is definitely paving the way, but not for the Second Coming.)

The Israeli elite is clearly not ready for an autocratic theocracy. And as has been noted before, this is a very much a protest of the elites.

In other words, all this is also a sign that we should try to be slightly less condescending about the ‘elite’, especially when we mean by ‘elite’ people with some cultural and scientific capital.