Don’t be fooled, we’re losing the war for Israeli democracy

Last night, those who cherish Israel’s democracy celebrated what seemed like a victory: Yitzhak Amit was finally elected as President of the Supreme Court, following months of obstruction by Justice Minister Yariv Levin. The court’s intervention broke the deadlock, forcing a vote Levin had refused to hold for over a year.

Yet, as we celebrated this symbolic win, a sobering reality must be confronted. By refusing to recognize Amit’s presidency, Levin made it clear that this battle is not about individual rulings or appointments; it is about dismantling the judiciary’s legitimacy entirely. And as such, we are losing the war for Israeli democracy because we are fighting a different battle from the one Levin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are waging.

Their goal is not simply to weaken the Supreme Court. And Levin’s rejection of Amit is neither impulsive nor desperate. His tactics are devastatingly deliberate and methodical. They are part of a calculated strategy to erode public trust in the judiciary, laying the groundwork for the government to reject its authority outright.

The refusal to hold a vote on Amit’s candidacy forced the Supreme Court into a position where it had no choice but to act. When it did, Levin seized the opportunity to denounce the court as an undemocratic cabal meddling in governmental affairs. This same strategy was evident in the Reasonableness Clause debacle, where Levin and Netanyahu pushed through legislation that severely curtailed judicial oversight, knowing the court would be forced to rule against it. When it did, they used the ruling to stoke further distrust in the judiciary, portraying it as an overreaching body prioritizing its own authority over the people’s will.

Levin and Netanyahu’s legislative efforts are therefore, patently, not the endgame. They are, in fact, simply a smoke screen. The ultimate goal is to render the judiciary so discredited, distrusted and delegitimized that its authority can be rejected outright. Once enough of the public sees the court as illegitimate, dismantling it will not require force. It will simply seem inevitable. By creating a narrative where the judiciary is seen as an obstacle to governance, they are paving the way for its eventual collapse.

The playbook is chillingly familiar.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán framed the judiciary as a barrier to democracy to justify dismantling its independence. He lowered the retirement age for judges, forcing out independent jurists, and replaced them with loyalists. He established a Constitutional Court that was closely aligned with his party and centralized judicial appointments under political control. Framed as democratic reforms, this systematic dismantling of judicial independence allowed Orbán to consolidate power and silence discord.

In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used similar rhetoric to centralize power and crush dissent. Following the 2016 coup attempt, Erdoğan staged mass purges of judges and expanded executive control over judicial appointments. The courts became tools of the regime, used to suppress political opposition under the guise of protecting democracy and combating enemies of the state.

In their seminal work How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt emphasize that democratic backsliding often begins with the erosion of institutional trust, particularly in the judiciary. They highlight how proto-authoritarian leaders exploit divisions and use populist rhetoric to frame independent institutions as enemies of the people. This erosion of judicial legitimacy is what, in both Hungary and Turkey, created the conditions for authoritarian consolidation.

Alarmingly, Israel is on a disturbingly similar trajectory.

While defenders of Israeli democracy fight valiantly, they risk unintentionally aiding Levin and Netanyahu’s broader strategy. Isolated victories, like Amit’s appointment, are weaponized to reinforce narratives of judicial overreach. Each court intervention, regardless of merit, is recast as evidence of an elitist institution defying the public will. While we focus on winning individual battles, they are winning the war for public perception.

Levin’s rejection of Amit must therefore be understood for what it is: a deliberate step in a broader strategy to dismantle the judiciary’s credibility. The government’s legislative maneuvers are merely a prelude to the real danger: the complete delegitimization and eventual destruction of the judiciary. If we fail to act decisively now, the consequences will be irreversible.

Israeli democracy, the very soul of our nation, is under severe threat. Its defenders must wake up to the scale and scope of the danger. If we continue to fight isolated skirmishes while ignoring the larger strategy, we will wake up one day to find it has been dismantled, piece by piece, while we were too distracted to stop it.