Israel has always been a country of debates. People speak loudly, they contest, they argue, they demonstrate. Political confrontation is almost a part of national culture, so it’s not disagreement that should worry. A democracy in which everyone thinks the same thing would be a very strange democracy. The problem lies elsewhere. What seems to be gradually deteriorating in Israel is not the ability to speak, but the ability to listen. Everyone speaks, but more and more often to their own camp. The right speaks to the right. The left speaks to the left. The religious speak to the religious, the laity to the laity. Television channels, social media, and sometimes even politicians seem to operate in parallel universes. The debate still exists. But it increasingly looks like a juxtaposition of monologues. This is probably where the real democratic problem begins.

We no longer try to convince

In a traditional democratic debate, there are three categories: those who think like you, those who think against you, and those whom you can still convince. Yet this third category seems to be gradually disappearing. Political discourse is no longer necessarily built to persuade those who hesitate; it serves first and foremost to mobilize those who are already convinced. A moderate sentence risks disappointing his camp. A violent sentence, on the other hand, can be immediately picked up on social networks, applauded by its supporters and commented on for several hours on television sets. Politics then changes its function: it is no longer so much a question of building a majority around an idea as of maintaining the permanent mobilization of one’s own camp. And this shift is not just on one side of the political spectrum;........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)