From the West Bank to the Galilee, extremism is threatening Israel’s future

The room fell silent as my parents and grandparents absorbed the news that a Jewish assassin had murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Years later, working in Israel education with young adults, we explored the polarisation and violent rhetoric that preceded that darkest day: Rabin branded a traitor, pictured with a target over his face and denounced at demonstrations where a noose was displayed.

Thirty-one years later, Israelis are again living with rhetoric and imagery that should make us deeply afraid.

This week, a mural in Ashdod depicted filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, directors of NAZA, with crosshairs over their faces, horns and swastikas beside the word “traitors.” It followed Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s call to strip them of Israeli citizenship after their film about the war in Gaza won a prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Right-wing activists also demonstrated outside Szor’s family home, while personal information about the filmmakers and their relatives circulated online. Netanyahu now wants legislation allowing citizenship to be revoked from Israelis who, in his words, “defame” the IDF.

People can vehemently disagree with NAZA; the IDF disputes its allegations. But threatening filmmakers, targeting their families and making citizenship conditional on government-approved views is not democratic disagreement; it is an assault on the space that makes dissent possible.

Another incident this week should worry us just as much.

In Majd al-Krum, a Palestinian Arab town in the Galilee, settlers from the West Bank established an encampment on land within the municipality. Residents feared losing access to nearby olive groves, while police initially prevented residents and activists from reaching the site. The Jewish National Fund, which owns the land, subsequently ordered the outpost dismantled.

The significance extends beyond one encampment.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have long experienced extremist settlers establishing facts on the ground, encroaching on land and displacing communities. Now some of those tactics are appearing inside Israel, directed against Palestinian citizens.

This comes as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks of extending his settlement “revolution” from the West Bank into the Negev and Galilee and “Judaizing” those regions.

Rabin’s murder taught Israelis something that should never have needed relearning: words, images and political permission matter. When opponents become “traitors,” citizenship becomes something politicians threaten to remove, crosshairs appear over people’s faces and extremists impose themselves on the land of fellow citizens, democratic boundaries are dangerously eroded.

The upcoming Israeli general election matters enormously. But whatever its outcome, an election cannot by itself repair this damage.

If Israelis and Palestinians are to have a safer, democratic future, rebuilding democratic culture will take years. That is why the long-term work of civil society matters.

NIF partners Hechalutz and IDEA work with hundreds of educators, reaching tens of thousands of young people with citizenship education and programmes fostering democratic values and practices. I’lam nurtures Palestinian journalists; FakeReporter tackles organised disinformation and online incitement; and the Civil Society Protection Hub supports activists and organisations facing threats.

ACRI and IRAC defend rights through the courts. This year ACRI and partners secured the restoration of Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees, while IRAC successfully challenged a Gett service that enabled discrimination against Arab taxi drivers.

And Tzedek Centers and AJEEC-NISPED build local community power, support vulnerable residents and create relationships between Jewish and Palestinian citizens.

Beyond the immediate clarity or outcome of an election result this activity is slower and less visible: educating a teenager, training a journalist, insisting rights are upheld even for security prisoners, challenging discrimination, supporting a vulnerable neighbour or bringing different communities together.

Democracies are not sustained by elections alone. They depend upon citizens knowing their rights do not disappear because of who they are or what they believe. They survive because people are prepared to defend those rights for those with whom they profoundly disagree.

Thirty-one years after my family sat together in Stepney watching the terrible consequences of Israeli extremism, that lesson feels painfully urgent again.

Israel cannot afford to learn it twice.