Candidates always say it, but this time it’s true. When Israel goes to the polls on 27 October, it really will be the most important election in the country’s history – and not just for Israelis. I saw that for myself this last week, in a visit that served as a sharp reminder of both what is at stake – and the role of those watching from afar.
More than one voter I spoke to voiced the fear that, if the coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu is returned to power next month, 27 October will not merely be Israel’s most important election: it will be its last. They were not referring to the absence of democracy in the occupied territory of the West Bank – which we’ll come to – but rather to Israel’s internationally recognised, pre-1967 borders: what you might call Israel-proper. There, the last four years have seen a sustained assault on the machinery of liberal democracy by the most rightwing government since Israel’s establishment in 1948 – a committed, focused attempt to remove the checks and restraints on its own power, installing instead a kind of elective dictatorship.
