This Independence Day I’m not going to fly the flag. I’m not going to gush over Israel as a modern-day miracle. Despite my deep attachment to Israel and its people, if Israel had a flag that looked different upside down, I would wave it upside-down as a sign of distress.
I grew up in an intensely Zionist home in Los Angeles. We celebrated Israel’s Independence Day walking 18 kilometers each year, raising money for the state. I spent every summer at a Zionist summer camp and spent my college years counter-demonstrating against students who called into question Israel’s right to exist. When I immigrated to Israel in 1992, I took pride in every visitor I could bring, every bit of taxes I paid in support of the country. I studied, served in the army and the reserves, married, and had children (two of whom served in combat units). I reveled in Israel’s achievements. I was a proud Israeli abroad.
But that pride has been battered, if not broken, and waving the flag this week would signal the denial of the unacceptable crimes perpetrated by our citizens.
Each day in the West Bank, our citizens – Israeli citizens – set out from their unauthorized hilltop trailers to attack men, women, and children whose land they covet and whose presence they reject. They are, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu, a “handful of kids… about 70 children from broken homes.” Yet, they have been burning cars, assaulting residents and activists, destroying olive trees, and stealing sheep with impunity. That “handful of kids” somehow continues to escape justice, even when clearly documented, while police and soldiers stand by.
This occurs because the violence is not an aberration; it persists due to state tolerance. The articles linked above end the same way: No arrests are made.
Israel’s security services should have made those arrests. Some of the world’s most capable security services fail to act against “70 children from broken homes” who terrorize their Palestinian neighbors. Sustained and highly visible violence should not be able to evade enforcement, but it somehow does. It’s not incompetence; it is selective non-enforcement (or worse).
It is not coincidental that several of the country’s main security services (army, police, Mossad, and Shin Bet) are now headed by Netanyahu-appointees widely criticized for prioritizing political loyalty over professional independence.
As such, the Netanyahu government has secured political discipline across the security services. With the Shin Bet and Mossad appointments, the pattern is clear: leaders brought in from outside, with limited intelligence experience and close political alignment. The Shin Bet’s David Zini, has already, in his first year on the job, provided Netanyahu with a letter allowing him to be excused from attending his corruption trial – a letter that the previous head would not provide. On the Israeli violence directed towards Palestinians in the West Bank, Zini reportedly changed the Shin Bet official reference to their acts not as “terrorism” but as “friction.”
The security services, of course, are beholden to the government. The problem of politicizing professional roles is systemic, not only in the security services but across the civil service: political appointments and pressure on professional civil servants, often smeared as “deep state”, are a hallmark of this government’s illiberal agenda.
Despite massive public opposition and nearly three years of war, the government continues to aggressively pursue divisive policies, while attempting to circumvent Netanyahu’s corruption trials. It continues to incite against large segments of the population (those protesting corruption and defending democratic norms), labeling them “traitors.” Government ministers incite against judges, legal advisors, former army officers, and media personalities, and coddle violent activists who harass individuals with the goal of silencing them (often the same actors working to protect Palestinians from settler violence). These actions tear apart Israeli society, fuel anti-Israel sentiment globally, and deepen our isolation.
To wave the flag this Independence Day would be to ignore the country’s slide into a militant and increasingly illiberal and rogue state.
What I describe here is an assault on a set of values shared by Israelis and Jews worldwide. There is a path to preserving Israel as a democratic, Jewish state. It requires the political support to install a government committed to equality, the rule of law, and the pursuit of peace and coexistence. One that respects professional civil servants, seeks diplomatic solutions, and protects the independence of media, judiciary, and universities. These are Zionist and universal principles that transcend the right-left divide.
Celebration is not a default on Independence Day; it is earned. When the “handful of kids” terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank are arrested and jailed, and government ministers cease to enable them, I will again be able to wave the flag. When Israel returns to its commitments to democracy, equality, and law, it will once again be a country worth celebrating.
Daniel Orenstein is a professor in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research interests include human-nature interactions, transformative change for socio-ecological sustainability, and environmental policy. His general interests are much broader.