Is the US going to stand by while Israel becomes an autocracy? | Jan-Werner Mueller

There is shockingly little debate about the assaults on democracy happening in Israel right now

Israeli democracy is under unprecedented attack from within. Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government is following the playbook written by authoritarians in Hungary, Poland and other self-declared beacons of illiberalism": subordinate the judiciary and other independent bodies like public broadcasting to government control, all in the name of the people".

In the US, there is shockingly little debate about this brazen assault on what the US political class unfailingly celebrates as the only democracy in the Middle East". It is particularly disappointing that Democrats seem to be holding back. They have every reason - moral and political - to oppose Netanyahu's autocracy-in-the-making. If recent history holds any lessons, they might want to go as far as making aid to Israel conditional on the preservation of proper checks and balances in the country.

Jan-Werner Muller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist