Israel’s democratic backsliding follows an international pattern - opinion

On January 28, the First Liberal Congress opened in Tel Aviv. Organized by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel at the Tel Aviv Expo, the conference focused on the future of Israeli democracy and the long-discussed possibility of a democratic constitution. Its timing could not be more urgent.

Across these cases, a familiar and troubling playbook emerges: delegitimizing independent institutions, weakening judicial oversight, deploying populist rhetoric, spreading disinformation, polarizing society, and redefining democracy as a majoritarian system, just little more than electoral victory. Elected leaders hollow out democracy from within while insisting they alone represent “the people.” Democratic gatekeepers – the judiciary, the civil service, regulators, and the media – are systematically targeted and weakened.

In Israel, legal advisers, civil servants, regulators, NGOs, civil societies, and watchdogs have been cast as members of a hostile “deep state.” Trump popularized this same divisive language in the United States, portraying intelligence agencies, the Justice Department, and the civil service as conspiratorial enemies. Bolsonaro similarly attacked Brazil’s electoral authorities, public health institutions, and civil society. Orbán and Kaczyński went further, stripping bureaucracies of independence through loyalist appointments and institutional redesign.

In the United States, Trump relentlessly attacked judges as partisan adversaries and reshaped the federal judiciary, culminating in a Supreme Court that rolled back long-standing rights. In Brazil, the Congress under Bolsonaro passed dozens of constitutional amendments. In Hungary, Orbán packed the Constitutional Court, lowered judges’ retirement ages, and subordinated judicial councils. In Poland, Kaczyński undermined judicial independence through disciplinary chambers and politicized appointments.

In all these cases, courts were portrayed as elitist, unelected obstacles to the popular will. Judicial independence was reframed not as a democratic safeguard but as an affront to democracy itself. Democracy, however, is not mere majority rule; it is majority rule constrained by the protection of minority rights. A dictatorship of the majority is no less dangerous and harmful than a dictatorship of the minority.

The media has been another central battleground. Across Israel, the United States, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland, leaders systematically sought to delegitimize critical journalism by branding mainstream media as biased, elitist, or hostile to “democracy and the people.”

Netanyahu’s repeated attacks on the “leftist media,” Trump’s invocation of “fake news” and the “enemy of the people,” Bolsonaro’s vilification of major Brazilian outlets, Orbán’s denunciation of “liberal” and “foreign-influenced” media, and PiS’s claims of post-communist bias all served to erode public trust in independent reporting. Each leader cultivated “friendly” media ecosystems and loudspeakers while marginalizing or intimidating critical outlets.

Rhetorical attacks were often accompanied by structural interventions. Orbán and Kaczyński moved furthest, transforming public broadcasters into government mouthpieces and using regulatory and financial pressure to discipline private outlets. Trump and Bolsonaro relied more heavily on intimidation, selective access, and direct communication via social media to bypass journalistic scrutiny.

Polarization, meanwhile, became a governing strategy. Backsliding regimes thrive on division. When politics is reframed as a zero-sum identity war, institutional destruction can be justified as necessary self-defense.

There is also a shared obsession with personal survival and impunity. Trump’s attacks on the justice system intensified as investigations closed in. Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul coincides with his ongoing corruption trials. In Hungary and Poland, legal reforms conveniently insulated ruling elites from accountability.

In Brazil, Bolsonaro failed to undermine his country’s institutional resilience. On September 11, 2025, Bolsonaro was convicted by a Supreme Court panel on charges that he oversaw a coup plot to remain in office following his failed re-election bid in 2022. Democratic backsliding, more often than not, is driven less by ideology than by self-preservation.

Speaking at the Liberal Congress, former Supreme Court chief justice Aharon Barak observed that institutions do not collapse overnight. They erode incrementally: law by law, appointment by appointment, norm by norm. Democracies die through legislation, through rhetoric, and through the gradual normalization of rule-breaking by those in power.

Israel is in a comparatively more precarious position. It differs from the United States, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland in one crucial respect: it lacks a formal constitution. Where other democracies rely on entrenched constitutional texts, Israel depends on Basic Laws, judicial interpretation, and democratic norms. Weakening the judiciary in such a system is not recalibration; it is structural disarmament. Without robust courts, few barriers remain between a parliamentary majority and unchecked power.

This is why Israel’s protest movement and events such as the Liberal Congress matter. As in the resistance to Trump’s election denial, the mass demonstrations in Poland, the strong opposition to Orbán, and Brazil’s defense of its electoral institutions after January 8, 2023, Israeli protests reflect a broader democratic reflex: societies pushing back when leaders cross redlines.

Israel now stands at a crossroads once faced by the United States, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland. There is reason for cautious optimism: Brazil and Poland have demonstrated that democratic recovery is possible. Their return to institutional restraint, pluralism, and the rule of law offers hope not only for their citizens, but for all societies confronting democratic erosion. The lesson is clear: democracies can survive – but only if citizens, institutions, and leaders are willing to defend them before it is too late.