‘Deep state?’ A contemporary, all-too-human witch hunt

Last week, PM Netanyahu let loose with a diatribe against Israel’s “Deep State” i.e., those high-level officials in the civil service that are ostensibly on a conspiratorial campaign to undermine the country’s democratically elected leaders. Among those that he has in mind: the present government’s Attorney-General (Gali Baharav-Miara); Ronen Bar, the recently fired head of the Shabak (Internal Security), and Matan Engelman, the State Comptroller in charge of ferreting out governmental incompetence, inefficiency, etc.

What makes the prime minister’s charge so strange is that all three high-level officials were appointed under his own government! However, this follows a pattern of Bibi’s recriminations over time – the most egregious of all when his hand-picked Attorney-General, Avichai Mandelblit (who earlier also served as Bibi’s head of the Prime Minister’s Office), indicted Bibi for three crimes – crimes for which the PM is currently on trial. Mandelblit has been vilified ever since by the prime minister’s sycophants on social media.

All this follows upon Bibi’s counterpart (and seeming “mentor” in this regard), US President Trump, who started the “deep state” accusations quite a while ago. The term has also been used in Hungary and Poland to justify policies that weaken the checks and balances inherent in the democratic system. Thus, the term “Deep State” is not merely another epithet used in “normal” political discourse but rather represents the greatest threat to democracies around the world since pre-World War II’s Nazism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism.

But why now? Or better put: why is it striking such a deep chord among sizable parts of the population? My surprising answer: the phenomenon in itself is not novel at all, but what is new is the radically changed media environment.
From time immemorial, human beings have believed in things that they couldn’t understand or see: God, the Devil, supernatural forces, evil spirits – and also “other” people. This latter category has included Jews’ killing Christian children for Passover matzoh-making (or the “Elders of Zion”), witches (e.g., Salem, Massachusetts), secret societies (the Masons, Illuminati, and the like). To put this in modern lingo: when things don’t go “the way you want,” there must be some sinister force (usually human) conspiring to undermine the “normal” functioning of society.

The only difference between then and now is the far greater ability to spread such conspiratorial thinking. Centuries ago, most such accusations remained in one’s local province because of a serious lack of intercity, and certainly national, communication. As the age of modern mass communication advanced over the previous two centuries – telegraph, telephone, radio, television, internet – the capacity to “spread the word” far and wide has grown. In today’s social media era, all one needs is a grievance and a reasonably plausible, supposed “coverup” by the authorities to have such fabulations disseminated near and far. Some famous examples: Orson Welles’ 1938 radio-induced, War of the Worlds panic due to his fictional “aliens landing in New Jersey”; 1948 – Roswell, New Mexico: undeciphered aerial photos leading to accusations that the US Air Force is covering up evidence of “alien space ships”; 1963 – JFK’s TV-covered assassination (how could a lone gunman have done this? had to be a Soviet plot – or the FBI itself!); 2020s – social media accusations that Covid was started by the Chinese, or bats, or…

Add to this two other factors: first, modern life has become far more complex than in the past; second, population numbers have skyrocketed over this period. The result: the disconnect between common folk and the political regime has grown incommensurably. This renders the communication task (PR etc.) of elected leaders that much more difficult, and conspiratorial ideas that much easier to believe, despite the general rise of education.

Political leaders like Trump and Bibi are well aware of this set of circumstances and have turned the art of disinformation into a science. Yet, reality has a way of setting roadblocks to such prevarications. A recent example: President Trump ordered the release of all the JFK assassination files. What have we found in the no longer redacted sections? No conspiracy at all, but rather how the US spy system worked against the Soviet Union.

One can expect similar things to emerge in Israel. “Qatargate” is the most recent example. It can hardly be a coincidence that Netanyahu has fired the head of the Shabak (and issued his “Deep State” speech) just as that organization started to seriously investigate the very serious goings-on in the PM’s office, with one of Bibi’s closest aides (and probably a few others too) receiving money from Qatar during the Gaza War! When (not really “if”, as we have already heard hard evidence) the whole story emerges – whether soon, or later at trial – the Deep State will then be seen to be protecting Deep Democracy. Similarly (probably), once the judicial verdicts of Bibi’s own triple-indictment trial(s) are issued in the coming months.

Recent polls show that most Israelis are not Deep State believers; the massive protest demonstrations back in 2023 and most recently are further proof of this. Bibi, Trump, and other Deep State accusers would do well to recall the famous adage of one of America’s bastions of democracy, Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”