Ayelett Shani talking to Daniel Blatman in Haaretz, a professor in the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University. ‘My fields of interest are the Holocaust, Nazism, fascism, genocide and East European Jewry during the Holocaust. At the moment I’m in Poland. I am involved in establishing the Warsaw Ghetto Museum [scheduled to open in 2025].’

(…)

‘Yes, and as I said, there won’t be brown-shirted soldiers in the streets. But one thing we do see here is a regime that is starting to execute a speedy judicial, political, moral revolution – like in Germany. From January 1933, it was all over. Within half a year the country became unrecognizable. A dictatorship was institutionalized that hung on until 1945. That means one thing, from my point of view: that German society was ready to swallow it. If 50 million Germans didn’t bring the country to a halt when Hitler came to power, apparently that society was ready to accept [the new order]. That is Israel’s great test today.

Isn’t the conclusion from this conversation that Israeli society has already failed the test? That there is something sick, impaired, not only in the populist government but in the public that wants such a government?

Israeli society has undergone a process of radicalization. There is a large mass that does not sanctify democratic and liberal values. The radicalization can be explained in all kinds of ways – the strengthening of religion, security reasons, demonization of the Arab enemy. In the previous government, too, most of Israel society didn’t want to see the United Arab List there. Which is why I think declarations by opposition leaders to the effect that “with half a [Knesset] seat here and half a seat there, we would have won,” are nonsense.
Populism wins when society is ripe to receive it. Israeli society was ripe to receive the present government. Not because of Likud’s victory, but because the most extreme wing pulled everyone after it. What was once extreme right is today center. Ideas that were once on the fringes have become legitimate. As a historian whose field is the Holocaust and Nazism, it’s hard for me to say this, but there are neo-Nazi ministers in the government today. You don’t see that anywhere else – not in Hungary, not in Poland – ministers who, ideologically, are pure racists.
What we are seeing today is a kind of genie that is bursting from the bottle, and I’m not sure it can be stopped. I am not embarrassed to say that I am afraid. I think that a demonstration of 100,000 or 200,000 won’t help. If two million people don’t rise up now and fight for democracy, fight for liberalism, the conclusion must be that Israeli society accepts what’s going on. That it’s already there.’

Read the article here.

It’s already there. And Mr. Blatman is right of course, in many countries where democracy is getting weaker and weaker the population is ready to swallow it.
Israel is not unique. Some countries just produce the politicians that will make the population swallow everything. I’m not saying this to absolve the population, it’s just that we are taught to be obedient. The idea that an uprising can change a situation for the better lost its attraction after so many uprisings turned into a disillusion. (Arab spring, to name just one example.)
And it was a blessing that Trump was rather weak.

A commentator under the article suggested that the Jews in the diaspora might be able to influence the situation in Israel.

I’m skeptical. American Jewry by large does not identify strongly with Israel anymore, and for decent reasons. Many Jews in Europe might not completely like Netanyahu but will defend Israel against all odds, and then there are antizionist Jews. They see in all this just the Verelendung they were hoping for.

I’m not sure if there is more hope for Putin’s Russia or for Netanyahu’s Israel, I would say: equally bleak.
Netanyahu is a reluctant killer, he prefers the status quo to war, and the Israeli army is not as rotten as the Russian one, but given the influence of Putin on Israeli foreign politics, (America still has bigger influence needless to say) and the fact that all the Russians living and voting in Israel changed the country, I can say that Putin and Netanyahu are brothers in despair.