Israel on the Cusp: Democracy in Peril or an Opportunity for Regime Change?

Political scientists distinguish between governments and regimes. A government is comprised of incumbents holding positions of authority specified within an institutionalized “regime,” that is, a legal order. Within a well-institutionalized regime, politics consists of legal struggles over what governments and government officials do. But when the issues in contention pertain to what governments are authorized to do, and not about what they should do, competitors may no longer feel bound to follow the rules. Such struggles can threaten the integrity of the regime. This article suggests that the prolonged, if temporarily sidelined, crisis over the overhaul of the Israeli judiciary should be understood less as a threat to democracy than as both a challenge to the Israeli regime’s remaining liberal features and as an early skirmish in what will be a long political war over whether and how to emancipate millions of noncitizen Palestinian Arabs living in effectively annexed territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]