Take these two unconnected events, and then connect the dots to understand something about Israel:
Event number one – Six members of the Council for Higher Education resigned on Sunday morning. The resigned members of the council argue in their public letter of resignation that “the steps and measures that have been taken harm the essence of the Council’s work, its independence and the spirit of its actions.” The story behind the story is quite complicated and not exactly clear. Minister of Education Naftali Bennett recently dismissed the council’s deputy head. He then appointed a less known university professor for the position, a move that sparked outrage.
Event number two – an Israeli film maker, Udi Aloni, won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival and celebrated this prize by blasting Israel’s “fascist” government. Aloni, needless to say, had no trouble asking for financial assistance from this government to make his film. And this prompted Culture Minister Miri Regev’s response – she said Aloni’s statements were “proof that artists who subvert the state, defame it and hurt its legitimacy should not be funded by the tax payer. A sane country should not assist slanderers and denouncers who malign it, immediately after drinking from its coffers.”
Two events – and no connection between them, except that both of them are small pieces of one puzzle. The current Israeli coalition – a coherent right-religious coalition of like minded parties – is not much different from previous governments when it deals with issues of foreign relations and security. Its main impact is not, as outsiders tend to think, or fear, on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Its main impact is on Israel’s domestic balance of power. The current coalition is battling a wide front against the “old” elites and is trying to plant beachheads in areas never before concurred by Israel’s right.
As you’d expect, there are are least two ways to tell the story of these moves by the coalition.
One narrative is the narrative of the coalition. In that narrative, what happens today is a long overdue process of the right completing its rightful privilege of taking over Israel’s establishment. The right-wing became the dominant Israeli political force in the late 1970’s. Since then, it has been in power – alone or in unity governments – for almost forty years, but its mission of taking over was never accomplished, as some regions of the Israeli arena proved resistant to its rule: the universities, the cultural establishment, the media, the legal system.
What the fourth Netanyahu government is doing now is merely clarifying to these resistant establishments that there is a new sheriff in town. In fact, the sheriff arrived long ago, but now he is finally announcing his arival. For example: a notice to film makers such as Aloni that Israel will no longer fund artistic work of people whose way of acknowledging the support they get from the state is to denigrate it in foreign capitals.
One counter-narrative is that of the opposition. In that narrative, what the fourth Netanyahu government is doing is quite simple: it is destroying the few safe havens of sanity and excellence that were left in an Israel that is fast becoming, well, is “fascist” too strong a word?
The people opposing the moves of ministers such as Bennett (Education), Regev (Culture), and Shaked (Justice) argue that these ministers act like bullies, that they do not respect democratic values, that they do not understand the long-term damage that their actions will cause. They were shocked when the Education Ministry decided to reject a book by an Israeli novelist because of its theme that includes interfaith relations, they were outraged when Miri Regev was appointed Culture Minister, and then over almost her every move as a minister. They are now battling a decision to change the rules governing the “basket of culture” that Israeli schools can choose from for their students.
It is not easy to separate substance from propaganda in this debate over Israel’s education and culture. Filmmaker Aloni rightly claims that as an artist it is not his job to play nice and be a PR person for an Israeli government that he clearly opposes. Bennett reasonably suspects that the professors resigning from the Council have political tendencies not exactly in line with the current government.
Are these professors brave champions of Israel’s higher education who are fighting a necessary battle against a minister that aims to destroy it (or is just not intelligent enough to understand what he is doing) – or maybe these people are merely political hacks who would not accept decisions made by a minister whose political views they disrespect and whose legitimacy they do not accept?
There is no clear-cut answer to this question.
That is, because yes, this government does aim to advance a process of changing the guards in some of Israel’s elite establishments. Not to destroy the institutions – but indeed to destroy the remaining impenetrable citadels of leftist elites (true or imaginary) that still operate with a measure of disregard for Israel’s democratic choices.
That is, because yes, the people opposing every move by Bennett and Regev probably believe that their motivations are pure, but are, in fact, guilty of politicizing their battles. Many of the actions taken by the Education Ministry headed by Bennett would have easily passed, unopposed, had the minister been someone else. Many of the reforms advanced by the government do not deserve the hysterical response with which they are received.
The bottom line: these types of battles are not going to end anytime soon. The more reforms and actions the government initiates – reforms that concern establishments whose current leadership comes from quarters unfavorable to the current ruling coalition – the more battles we are going to have.
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