Architecture of Dismantling
For decades, politics was perceived as a legitimate space for debating priorities. Right and left disagreed on economic distribution, state borders, and the character of society – but they did so within an agreed-upon framework and a shared reading of a given reality. Over the last decade, however, Israeli politics has descended into a state of absolute, and calculated, chaos. The culture of political deception, now a standard norm, is no longer a mere tactical tool to hide specific failures; it has become a systematic governing strategy designed to dismantle the very foundations of the state and its society.
When lies and conspiracy theories no longer emanate from the political fringes but are dictated from the centers of power, they cease to be a matter of ‘clean hands’ and become a tangible strategic threat to the survival of society itself.
At the base of every stable social structure lies an unwritten pact: we can argue about what should be done, but we must agree on the basic facts. The current political leadership’s culture of institutional lying attacks precisely this foundation. They have embarked on a campaign to de-legitimize every objective body that holds a mirror to reality. When the judiciary, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and even the Central Bureau of Statistics are branded as partners in a ‘Deep State’ or a ‘Regime Coup’, the concept of a singular, shared truth is effectively erased.
The result is a state of ‘Cognitive Vertigo’. The average citizen loses the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. As Hannah Arendt argued in her analysis of totalitarian regimes, the goal of the lie is not to make people believe a specific thing, but to destroy their capacity to distinguish between reality and fiction. When truth becomes a matter of political affiliation, rational debate becomes impossible. It is no coincidence, then, that the government demands a ‘People’s Commission of Inquiry’ – an act that undermines the ‘agreed-upon arbiter’ in favor of a public clash between two irreconcilable ‘realities’. Once a society loses the ability to agree on ‘what is actually happening’, it loses its ability to function rationally. In this state of vertigo, truth is derived from tribal loyalty, and the possibility of reform vanishes. In a society without truth, there are no mistakes, no accountability, and thus no need for change – let alone repair.
In Israeli society, this culture of deception is no longer confined to the Prime Minister’s Office; it seeps like a slow-acting poison into the very institutions meant to serve the public. To maintain a false reality over time, the government is forced to bend the ‘gatekeepers’ – from the courts to the security services. Citizens, witnessing these systems buckle or become conscripted into the service of a partisan narrative, develop a toxic cynicism and alienation. Institutional trust collapses at the moment the state stops being seen as an objective entity and starts being perceived as a coercive mechanism for narrow interests.
History offers chilling warnings about the cost of such a culture. In 1920s Germany, the ‘Stab-in-the-Back’ myth – the narrative that the army was not defeated on the battlefield but betrayed from within – destroyed social solidarity and turned political rivals into existential enemies.
Built upon this strategy of deception is a ‘poison machine’ designed to ensure perpetual rule, turning public discourse into a violent battlefield. Today, the lie serves as a primary engine of polarization: its purpose is not to make us love the leader, but to make us hate the ‘other’. When disinformation replaces dialogue, the social fabric unravels, and society devolves into a collection of hostile tribes living in separate information bubbles.
The culture of lying practiced by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government is not merely a breach of political etiquette; it is a deliberate architecture of national dismantling. It educates an entire generation that integrity is a weakness and manipulation is genius, thereby corrupting the genetic code of Israeli society. Therefore, it is clear that the remedy for this culture cannot be found simply by replacing one politician with another. It requires a fundamental restoration of our most precious institution: public truth.
We must understand that the lie is an existential threat to our national architecture. A society that rewards the liar and perceives the truth-teller as weak is a society that has lost its moral compass. Returning to the truth – bitter and complex as it may be – is a prerequisite for our existence as a free people, capable of defending itself and building a shared future.
