The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled

Candid, forthright, and often courageous, this book cuts through decades of bromides, wishful thinking, and unconstructive ambiguity to assess the long and painful struggle to establish democracy in Israel. Scheindlin, a political consultant and polling expert, was an astute guide to the upheavals occasioned by the Israeli government’s proposed judicial reforms in the spring of 2023. In this book, she begins the story of Israeli democracy in the early years of Zionism. She provides a brisk, fresh history, avoiding many of the now hackneyed assessments of the myriad virtues and vices of Israel’s leaders, instead crafting a lucid assessment of the conflicting ideological and political commitments that have weakened democracy in Israel—not least, the decades-long failure to acknowledge, much less resolve, the question of Israel’s relationship with the land and people of historic Palestine. The book concludes before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, which paused but did not end the debate about democracy in Israel. It is an enormously valuable resource for understanding the Israeli reactions to the attack, as well as the challenges the country will still face when the guns fall silent.