Israelis’ defiance of Netanyahu holds a lesson for anyone who cares about democracy | Jonathan Freedland

Mass protests by ordinary people against the man who was Trumpian before Trump are part of a worldwide struggle

Beware the strongman leader who fears jail. Donald Trump is running for president in part because he sees a return to the White House as a literal get-out-of-jail-free card: reinstalled in the Oval Office, he would be able to pardon himself for the mounting pile of serious federal crimes for which he is indicted. His legal strategy is his political strategy.

But the exemplar of the phenomenon is the man who was Trumpian before Trump: the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. It is Netanyahu - and the war he is currently waging against his own country - whom all those who care about the wider future of democracy should be watching. For Israel has become the test case in the global fight against ultranationalist populism.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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