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For Congos political opposition, the timing of Etienne Tshisekedis death couldnt be worse.

The vast Central African country is finely poised between progress and chaos. After the failure of President Joseph Kabilas government to organize elections scheduled for late 2016, an opposition coalition managed to hammer out a transition dealagreed in principle on New Years Evethat would see a national vote held before the end of 2017.

But with the death of Tshisekedia towering former prime minister who has tormented the past three regimes in Congothat schedule may now be a pipedream.

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The opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS)which Tshisekedi founded in 1982announced Wednesday that its leader, who was 84 years old, had died in Brussels, where he had traveled for medical treatment. No cause of death was given in the statement published by UDPS spokesman Augustin Kabuya.

His death comes at a time of great uncertainty in Congo. People held mass protests in late 2016 as it became clear that promised elections would not happen; Congos election commission stated in October that the earliest a vote could be held would be in April 2018. Opposition activists accused Kabila, 45, of adopting a strategy of glissementFrench for slippagei.e. perpetually delaying elections while he prepared a bid to amend the constitution so that he could run for a third term. (Kabilas camp have denied this allegation.)

Supporters of veteran Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) stand outside his residence as they mourn his death in the Limete Municipality of Congo's capital Kinshasa, February 2. Tshisekedi's death leaves the country's political opposition leaderless and could endanger elections due in 2017. Robert Carrubba/Reuters

Around 50 people were killed in a protest in the capital Kinshasa in September 2016, as anti-government protesters clashed with security forces. The U.N. envoy to Congo sounded a warning that the country was at extreme risk of descending into large-scale violence, perhaps even civil war. The New Years Eve deal mandated that Kabila could not change the constitution and that a transitional government, with an opposition prime minister, be formed. Tshisekedi was selected by both sides as the man responsible for overseeing the implementation of the deal.

We need to go back to the negotiation table, Kabilas chief diplomat, Barnabe Kikaya bin Karubi, tells Newsweek. The December 31 agreement identified Etienne Tshisekedi, because of his political weight, as the only opposition leader who will be able to lead the follow-up committee during the pre-electoral period. Its him and nobody else.

Kikaya says that it will be up to the opposition to put forward a new candidate to oversee the deals implementation, who will then have to be approved by Kabila. I dont know how long that process will takeThe longer we delay that process, thats how the elections themselves will be pushed back, he says.

Born in 1932 in what is now Kananga, in central Congo, Tshisekedi studied law under Belgian colonial rule and entered politics shortly after the countrys independence in 1960. He held various ministerial positions in Mobutu Sese Sekos government, though his relationship with the authoritarian leader was marked by significant distrust.

Tshisekedi established the UDPSthe first opposition party in Congoin an affront to Mobutus system of one-party rule. His steadfastness in challenging Mobutuwho took on such titles as Father of the Nation and Messiahwas one of the first examples of democracy in Congo. Tshisekedi taught the whole nation that Mobutu was a dictator, a human being, that he could be opposed and he had to be opposed, says Kikaya, who reveals he supported the UDPS at the start of his political career.

In the early 1990s, when Mobutu came under international pressure to relinquish his one-party rule, Tshisekedi served on three occasions as prime minister, but never for more than a matter of months. After Mobutu was overthrown by the current presidents father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, in 1997, Tshisekedis name was added to a list of 250 people who would not be allowed to run for the presidency.

Tshisekedi boycotted the 2006 elections at which the younger Kabilaalready in power since the assassination of his father in 2001was victorious. At the next vote in 2011, Tshisekedi was beaten by Kabila in a controversial poll but maintained that the majority of voters had backed him; the UDPS website still describes Tshisekedi as the president elect of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the elections of November 2011.

The UDPS leader returned to Congo in July 2016 following a two-year absence in Belgium for medical treatment. His return was greeted by hundreds of thousands of supporters, who lined the streets of Kinshasa and hailed his return as a sign of hope against Kabila.

Tshisekedis popularity is unmatched among politicians in Congo and will make taking on Kabilas government much more difficult, says Freddy Matungulu, leader of the opposition Congo na Biso party and a member of the main opposition Rassemblement coalition, of which UDPS is a part.

With him out of the picture, the oppositions capacity to mobilize the streets is dramatically reduced, says Matungulu, who says that his father-in-law was a partner of Tshisekedis in setting up the UDPS.

Felix Tshisekedi (C) in the UDPS headquarters after a press briefing, one day after his father died, on February 2, in Limete, Kinshasa, Congo. The UDPS proposed Felix Tshisekedi as prime minister in a transitional government in Congo, but his popularity is nothing like that of his late father. JUNIOR KANNAH/AFP/Getty

Perhaps the only other opposition politician who could rival Tshisekedis status is Moise Katumbi. The former governor of the mineral-rich Katanga province and owner of Congos most successful football club, Katumbi declared himself a presidential candidate in 2016 but fled the country after a Congolese court issued fraud charges against him, which he has described as completely fabricated.

A poll by the respected Congo Research Group in October 2016 found that 33 percent of respondents said they would vote for Katumbi if a poll was held before the end of 2016, ahead of Tshisekedi on 18 percent and Kabila on 7.8 percent. But according to Phil Clark, an expert on Congo at SOAS University of London, Katumbis popularity with the people does not translate to the political class. Katumbi is the most obvious unity figure to potentially replace Tshisekedi, but hes also compromised in some key aspects. One source of compromise is that hes quite popular with the electorate but less popular with other opposition leaders and parties, says Clark.

Within the UDPS, Tshisekedis son, Felix Tshisekedi, has risen to prominence. The Rassemblement coalition put Felix Tshisekedi forward as their suggestion for prime minister in the transitional government in January, but his ascent within the UDPS has sparked allegations of nepotism. Felix doesnt have half of the charisma or popularity of his father. Even within the party, its not clear that hes very well supported, says Clark.

Regardless of who steps forward to replace him, Tshisekedis death has left a gaping hole in Congolese politics and society. Hundreds of mourners gathered for an impromptu vigil outside his house Thursday. Kikaya says that even President Kabila is sad for the family and has ordered a state funeral to be held for his late rival.

We all see him as the father of the democracy movement in the country, says Freddy Matungulu, the opposition politician. He was the cement in the talks [with the government], so its going to be extremely difficult to replace [him].

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Death of Congo's 'Father of Democracy' Leaves Dangerous Vacuum - Newsweek

As Trump unleashes his id on the American people, Evan McMullin seeks to encourage civic engagement; point out the early signs of authoritarianism; and demonstrate that it is still O.K. to criticize our leaders.CreditILLUSTRATION BY BEN KIRCHNER; SOURCE PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK BOWMER / AP

Last year, on December 4th, the screenwriter Brian Koppelman posed a question to Evan McMullin, who, a month before, had received roughly half of one per cent of the vote in the Presidential race. Koppelman, who built up a large social-media following with daily Six-Second Screenwriting Lessons, describes himself as a liberal Democrat. What can the average American do, right now, in a real way, to resist the authoritarian moves that are about to commence? he asked McMullin on Twitter. McMullin spent most of his career in the C.I.A., followed by stints at Goldman Sachs and on Capitol Hill; when he announced his independent bid for the Presidency, last August, few people knew who he was. He responded to Koppelman with a list of ten tips, which included, Read and learn the Declaration of Independence, support journalists, artists, academics, clergy and others who speak truth, and never lose hope. Each item was retweeted thousands of times. The next day, a writer for Slate declared that McMullin had done more than almost any Democratic figure to organize opposition to Donald Trumps kleptocratic and Constitution-hostile tendencies.

After the election, as the vast majority of Republican lawmakers either celebrated Donald Trumps victory or kept quiet, many people who voted for Hillary Clinton felt a deep desire to forge anti-Trump ties across the traditional political divide. A handful of Never Trump conservative commentators continued to express concerns about the President-elect, but many of those writers had low standing with Democrats, given what theyd advocated in the past. McMullin seemed to offer himself as a bipartisan symbol of oppositionand he was saying all the right things. Trump has empowered the white nationalist movement in America, he tweeted. Mike Pence is his enabler in chief. And on Thanksgiving, Feeling grateful for artists and a free press this year. On December 6th, the actor and activist George Takei tweeted to his two million followers, We need strong voices from all political persuasions to help curb the excesses and dangers of Trump. Evan McMullin is one such voice.

McMullins critique of Trump began quietly, when he was serving as the chief policy director for the House Republican Conference, in 2015. Trump announced his candidacy that June, and right away, McMullin saw in Trump telltale signs of authoritarianism, he said. Attacks on the press. Probably even before that, attacks on Hispanics and African-Americans. Those two things really concerned me. He began writing posts against Trump on Facebook. He anonymously designed anti-Trump images, and paid to promote them on Facebook, targeting states where primaries were taking place. After Trump won the nomination, McMullin tried to persuade a congressman he knew to enter the race as an independent. (The Washington Post reported that it was Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois; McMullin declined to confirm that.) The congressman asked him if hed run himself, and pointed him to Better for America, a nonprofit organization that was trying to get an independent conservative on the ballot. McMullin spoke with the groups founder, Joel Searby, then consulted friends and family, as well as people he knew in the media. He prayed. At what he believes was the last possible momentthe deadlines for getting on state ballots had already begun to passhe quit his job, got on a train to New York, and announced that he was running for President of the United States.

The bid was so quixotic that a handful of observers, some suspicious of McMullins C.I.A. background, wondered if someone was pulling the strings. Who put him up? Sean Hannity asked on his radio show in late October. The Bush people? The Romney people? At the time Hannity was asking these questions, the polls had tightened in Utah, where McMullin, whos Mormon, had based his campaign, with an eye on the one, exceedingly unlikely path he had to the White House: If the race were close, and he prevailed in a single state, he might prevent Trump and Hillary Clinton from attaining an Electoral College majority. In that case, the House of Representatives would decide the next President, and, who knows, maybe they would settle on him.

He didnt finish higher than third in any state. But by then Trump had publicly complained about that guy in Utah, and when Trump went on his victory tour, in December, he blasted McMuffin repeatedly, boosting McMullins stature. For those who arent conspiracy-minded, this is the more plausible doubt to harbor about McMullin: that taking a stand was also a way of kickstarting his career. Frankly, I think thats a good question, he said, when I asked whether he was opportunistic. And it goes back to my belief that influential institutions should have constant scrutiny. Well, so should people who seek to lead us. McMullin tends to talk this way, with an almost unrelenting high-mindedness. He explained that the attention is simply a necessary vehicle for the work hes trying to do: to encourage civic engagement; point out the early signs of authoritarianism; and demonstrate, by example, that it is still O.K. to vociferously criticize, and even to mock, our leaders. Right now my platform is Twitter, McMullin told me at one point, with a small chuckle. (Thats going to change, he added.) I had asked about the pushback he got there after posting an anti-abortion message; he noted the difficulty of addressing, in a hundred and forty characters, more complicated kinds of policy, the sort that require compromise and extended discussion. Still, the medium is handy for proclaiming the grand principles of American democracy.

Last week, McMullin and his running mate from the campaign, Mindy Finn, launched Stand Up Republic, a 501(c)4 nonprofit. When we met, it was still in the planning stages. The goal, he said, would be to engage people in defense of democracy and our Constitution, which means engaging with Congress and their leaders to advance things or to stop things, or whatever. He said that they also want to promote truth and some democratic principles and you know, respect for the Constitution. I mean, broadly, I would think of it as digital media plus movement. Movement plus media. This week, they asked their followers to urge Congress to fight the executive order on immigration, which, McMullin said, is a Muslim ban.

When McMullin becomes more specific about policy, he sometimes loses people. That anti-abortion post, for instanceand a more recent one congratulating Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuchseemed to cost him a few followers on the left. He lost some fans on the right, meanwhile, when he praised Sally Yates for defying Trumps immigration order. So far, though, Stand Up Republic reflects his continued effort to somehow find common ground. As part of the launch, the group released two videos, one of which, a black-and-white ad that questions Trumps ties to Russia, first ran in New York and D.C.during Morning Joe, which Trump watches. The other video, which is running online, features a clip from John F. Kennedys 1961 Inaugural Address, in which he speaks of the survival and the success of liberty, and then a longer clip from a speech Ronald Reagan gave that same year, in which Reagan says that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. As we listen to this studiously bipartisan pairing, the camera cuts between a diverse group of Americans, seemingly scattered across the country. They look thoughtful, optimistic. The video ends with the simple words: Join Us.

McMullin hasnt gotten used to being recognized, though it has begun to happen more often. In the Agency we called ourselves gray men because were neither white nor black, we justwe blend, McMullin told me when we met for breakfast at a former bank lobby turned bakery in Manhattan. He wore jeans and a navy-blue sweater over an Oxford blue button-down, and drank sparkling water. He told me that he had experienced growing pains in becoming a public figure, but that he didnt want to go into too many details, because theyre just too personal. When I asked him, after wed been talking for a couple of hours, what he did for fun, he paused. Youre looking for color, like what do I like to do? He looked up and off to the side. Really, the biggest thing that I like to do is just spend time with friends and family, he said.

If McMullins lack of color was a handicap on the campaign trailWhen he talks about his personal story at rallies, it sounds mostly like a man quickly reciting his rsum, a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune wrote in late Octoberit seems, in the early days of the Trump Administration, to be part of his appeal. As the President unleashes his id on the American people, McMullin is a kind of civic superego, a Constitution-minded Jiminy Cricket. Listening to him speak about responsibility and fundamental principles, it was not hard to conjure his years as a Boy Scout and, later, a Mormon missionary. I thought I also detected a trace of that Mormon upbringing, which I share, in his sense of vocation, of being called to things. McMullin grew up in a working-class family in Auburn, Washington, the oldest of four siblings. His father worked for Boeing and then a power company, while his mother sold bulk goods out of their garage. (She now oversees economic development efforts in Everett.) When McMullin was in third grade, she took him to Washington, D.C. We visited the monuments and the museums and that sort of thing, and it really made an impression on me, he said. And I sort of had this feeling, even as a third grader, which is bizarre, that something in my future was there for me, you know?

One night when McMullin was in junior high, his father rented the political thriller Three Days of the Condor, from 1975, which stars Robert Redford as a C.I.A. analyst and Faye Dunaway as the beautiful woman pulled into his effort to thwart a complicated plot hatched by rogue operatives. After watching the film, McMullin decided to read every book he could find about the C.I.A. After his sophomore year in high school, he called 411 and asked for Langley, Virginia. Once McMullin figured out that, as far as 411 is concerned, the C.I.A. is in McLean, he called again, and an operator connected him. Is this the C.I.A.? he recalls asking. Who are you calling for, sir? a mans voice replied. McMullin repeated, Is this the C.I.A.? The man said, Sir, who are you calling for? I thought, Oh, my goodness, this is the C.I.A., McMullin told me. He eventually reached someone in the agencys recruitment center. He told her he was studying martial arts, and asked if that would help. She told him to call back when he was older.

He called back two weeks later. This time he got a man who gave him his direct contact information, and the two stayed in touch for years (McMullin says that he never learned the mans real name.) McMullin served a two-year Mormon mission in Brazil, then went to Brigham Young University, in Utah, where he minored in Middle Eastern studies. He wrote a couple of papers about counterterrorism, and he had this sense that terrorism was going to be a big issue for the country, going forward, he said. Meanwhile, he was accepted into a C.I.A. program for college students; every other semester, he worked at Langley. I had to pinch myself. It was amazing what they allowed me to do and the kind of access they gave me. I mean, I was reading intercepts of all kinds of crazy things happening around the world.

During McMullins Presidential campaign, a volunteer made him a poster that he put up in his Salt Lake City headquarters, which read 007 for President. But McMullin does not generally describe his past career as glamorous. What got him excited watching Three Days of the Condor was seeing people committed to serving their country. The Redford character in that movie isnt James Bond; hes a low-level analyst who just happens to get caught up in something much bigger than himself. McMullin was at Langley on September 11, 2001. I asked what he was doing that morning. It wasnt anything flashy or C.I.A.-ish, he said. It was justcandidly, I was doing an Excel class.

Eventually, McMullin, who had studied Arabic for a year after college and then worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in Jordan, served undercover in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Its not like I was going up to the local terror leader and saying, Hey, Id like to join your terror cell, he said. It doesnt work that way. Instead, youre the spymaster, right? Youre recruiting and managing and directing a network of penetrations of terrorist groups and foreign governments, and youre managing those people.

In 2009, McMullin went to business school at Whartonbecause one of my biggest professional deficiencies is that I had not acquired many analytical skills, he explained. Later, while working at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco, he volunteered for the Romney-Ryan Presidential campaign. Like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, McMullin thinks that the federal government is too large; if he were President, he would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, he said. He personally believes in traditional marriage, as he puts it, but he doesnt think the government should make that decision for people. His parents divorced about a decade ago, and his mother, whom he called one of the most amazing people I know on earth for a variety of reasons, is now married to a woman. Her partner, Michelle, is the kindest person youll ever meet, he said. When I asked if their relationship had informed his position on the issue, he said it hadnt. I know there are a lot of politicians whoyou know, they were opposed to gay marriage and then they find out their sons gay and so then all of a sudden theyre changing their views. He paused. You know what, Im not going to delegitimize or disrespect that. But I do think that there should be some principled view.

When I met McMullin, it was a few days before the Womens March, and an anti-abortion group had just been added and then removed from its list of partners. I was just so disappointed by that because to me that says, O.K., whoever made that decision does not understand the threat, he said. Really, theyre objecting to him on policy grounds. The priority, he believes, is to oppose Trumps authoritarianism, and to unite with others in doing so. He still marched, though. The defense of an entire gender is really critical, you know? he said, when I called him up the following weekend. He didnt love some of the crude stuff he saw, but the overriding message against misogyny he found powerful and important. A week later, he attended the March for Life. Sometimes the messaging is a little bit hyperbolic, he told me over the phone. But if youre going to wait around for a march or a protest in which youre going to agree with every single message thats on display, youre never going to participate. You just never will.

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Evan McMullin Is Trying to Save Democracy - The New Yorker

Acting attorney general Sally Yates was fired, and Steve Bannon seems to be pulling the strings. Whither democracy?

Photo illustration by Slate. Images by Pete Marovich/Getty Images and Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images

When faced with a choice between a candidate with no vision and a candidate with a nasty vision, many voters will embrace the nasty vision. Even in times of peace and prosperity, perfectly decent human beings are willing to vote for candidates promising extraordinarily cruel policies. When a candidate who promises to inflict extraordinary cruelty on the despised and the abject wins high office, he will (surprise, surprise) use his new-won powers to inflict cruelty on the abject and the despised.

Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard University and a fellow in the political reform program at New America, isthe author ofStranger in My Own Country.

The last 12 months hold out many lessons such as these. But in the last days, Ive been thinking of another, more abstract takeaway. Before the election, most people I knew were saying that a Trump presidency would be extremely dangerousbut that this wasnt something to worry about since he could never get elected. After the election, a lot of those same people started to say that Trump was a nasty manbut that this wasnt something to worry about because our institutions would stop him before he could possibly do lasting damage.

What explains their change of heart? A rather trivial, but very dangerous, failing: the deep desire to believe that the world we live inwhich for most of us has been mostly decent for most of our livescould not possibly turn quite so dark quite so quickly.

And yet, it is increasingly difficult to shake the feeling that we are now descending into darkness. In less than two weeks, Trump has delivered one of the most divisive inaugurals in the history of the country and spread blatant lies from the Oval Office. He has ordered the construction of a border wall and threatened Mexico with punitive tariffs. He has barred permanent residents from entering the country and banned refugees.

I could go on. But any attempt at comprehensiveness would be tedious as well as futile: There is simply too much chaos and mean-spiritedness. The party in power, meanwhile, seems determined to stand idly by. So far, Republicans in Congress have proved shockingly willing to rubber-stamp Trumps policies and Cabinet picks. His more extreme actions have led to cautious grumbling. But when the time to vote on his agenda came, moderate Republicans have once again lacked the courage of their convictions.

So we seemingly have every reason to despairand yet I have actually found myself to be quite hopeful over the last days. The Womens March turned into the biggest political rally in U.S. history, and the executive order on immigration inspired spontaneous protests at airports all over this great nation. Courts stayed large parts of the executive order on immigration andthough their current numbers limit their ability to hamstring Trumps agendaDemocrats are putting up a dogged fight in Congress. Several high-ranking officials have publicly defied or criticized orders they found unconscionable and hundreds of bureaucrats are secretly leaking their broken hearts out.

Since Trump got elected, one of my great fears has been that most American citizens might cling to a false sense of security, brought on by decades of prosperity and stability, while the president slowly and surely subverts our democracy. But between Trumps spectacular assault on democratic norms and the furious response it has already unleashed, I no longer worry about a quiet death. The American republic wont go down without putting up a hell of a fight.

But will itwill wewin? There is no easy answer because there is no clear precedent. Countries that have as deep-rooted a democratic history or as active a civil society as the United States simply havent been in such dangerous territory before. As Francis Fukuyama explains:

Because our current predicament is unprecedented, the most eminent political scientists at work today strongly disagree on what comes next. Is Daron Acemoglu right to worry that the institutions of modern democracy were never designed to withstand a strongman like Donald Trumpand are now headed toward pliancy? Or is Fukuyama right to respond that the Constitution sets up so many robust veto points that many institutional checks on power will continue to operate in a Trump presidency?

Nobody can say for sure. But what has become clear over the last weeks is that the natural experiment both Acemoglu and Fukuyama invoke is more extreme than we might have suspected a few short weeks ago. The authoritarian tendencies of Trumps presidency are even more blatant than most pessimists had warned. But the opposition has also proven more powerful and determined than many optimists had dared to hope. While I remain unsure about the ultimate outcome, I am increasingly convinced thatto misquote Steve Bannona major war is brewing between the administration and the institutions it would undermine.

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Our government is being taken from us before our very eyes by a slow coup. More...

It is still too early to tell the genre of the head-spinning movie in which we have been cast as bit players. It certainly isnt the farce some originally mistook it for. But do we find ourselves in a live-action thriller or a horror movie? And are we hurtling towards a heroic finish or a gory demise? I dont know. But after the past days, Im more confident than ever that unprecedented turmoil awaits us along the wayand that is why Ive been both deeply scared and increasingly energized.

I believe that the worst politics can inflict tends to weigh more heavily than the best it can achieve. For anybody who understands what it means when political tensions destroy the lives of ordinary people, turmoil is not something to be welcomed. But when the alternative is a certain descent into the abyss of authoritarian darkness, it may be the best we can hope for.

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Americans Are Putting Up a Good Fight Against Trump's Assaultsfor Now - Slate Magazine

Forbes

The U.S. Must Help Transform China Into A Democracy - Forbes Forbes China's militarism and territorial expansion threaten neighboring U.S. allies. This is consistent with a historical tendency in China to expand. For long-term ... and more »

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The U.S. Must Help Transform China Into A Democracy - Forbes - Forbes

The Economist last week released its annual global democracy index. Not surprisingly, Israel scored high.

The highbrow magazine ranked Israel very high for pluralism and political culture. It ranked Israel a bit lower for civil liberties mainly because of the Chief Rabbinates ultra-rigid control over Jewish marriage, divorce and conversion.

Indeed, Israel is more globalized, open and democratic than at any time in the states history. Over the past decade, Israels democracy scores have risen from 7.28 to 7.85 on a scale of 1 to 10, according to the Economist.

For comparison purposes, note that Belgium this year rated a score of 7.77, France 7.92, the US 7.98, Britain 8.36, and Canada 9.15. Greece was downgraded to the status of a flawed democracy at 7.23. Turkey is no longer rated a democracy, but a hybrid regime.

And yet, there is a steady drumbeat of warning about dangers to Israeli democracy being propagated these days.

You read it on the front pages of the left-leaning Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz newspapers. You get it from progressive academics in Israeli political science and sociology departments, and you are confronted with it by politicians seeking to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The discourse goes like this: Israeli democracy is under attack by dark forces of ultra-nationalism, racism, fascism and religious radicalism. An ugly wave of hatred is washing across Israel, with fundamentalists leading a surging tide of extremism.

The purported evidence for this is kids who gathered this week to prevent Amona from being destroyed, and hooligans who threatened army leaders and judges after Sgt. Elor Azarias January 4 manslaughter conviction.

Adding to the list of alleged dangers to democracy is a series of nationalist legislative initiatives in the Knesset.

These range from cultural and educational issues (such as spending more shekels on arts communities in the periphery, high school curriculum changes in civics and Jewish-Zionist heritage studies, and keeping the Breaking the Silence organization out of the school system); to constitutional matters (the nation-state bill, and reform of the judicial appointments process); to political initiatives (crackdown on illegal Beduin and Arab building, tougher prosecution of terrorist family members); and so on.

But none of the above actually proves the charges of fascism or undermining of Israeli democracy. Not at all.

The noisy demonstrations and bullying of a few hundred radicals prove nothing, except that there fringe elements in our society that need to be kept in check on the extreme Left and Right. This holds equally true for radicals who threaten to upend Israel on behalf of the terrorist-abetting Arab MK Basel Ghattas, and for those who threaten military judges on behalf of the terrorist-slaying soldier Elor Azaria.

All zealots must be marginalized.

(But note: The right-wingers in Amona dont come close to falling into this category. They were mainly passive protesters, expressing outrage at flawed policy in legitimate fashion.)

IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT how we approach the public policy debate.

It is wrong to portray Israeli society as bisected by two enemy narratives: that of a moral, liberal, democratic, universalist Israeli Left, versus an immoral, illiberal, isolationist, nationalist Israeli Right. This is a false dichotomy, and its an untrue picture of Israeli society.

Like Britain, France, Germany and the US these days, there is a real and worthy debate in Israel over important public policy matters, and there is a continuum of respectable views that defy simplistic categorization as democratic or anti-democratic.

Its important to acknowledge this, and to abjure accusations that every controversial policy innovation is motivated by hatred, moral insensitivity or authoritarianism.

Taking up one side of the debate, I will argue that neither hawkish Israeli foreign policies, nor conservative Israeli socioeconomic and cultural policies, automatically make this country less free, enlightened, noble, creative or exciting.

Lets say, for example, that the NGO funding transparency is passed by the Knesset, or that the judicial appointments process is altered to deny Supreme Court judges a veto over selection of their successors.

Is that the end of democratic Israel? Of course not!

Lets say that the Knesset breaks up the Labor Partys kibbutz-controlled food cartels, or that it passes a law mandating compensation for absentee Palestinian landlords for land on which Israelis have been living for 40 years (instead of expelling such Israelis from their homes).

Is that the end of democratic Israel? Of course not!

When the High Court of Justice ruled in favor of Netanyahu government policies on natural gas exploitation and on deportation of illegal African migrant workers (while circumscribing some aspects of the attendant legislation) policies that were strenuously opposed by the Left was that the end of Israeli democracy?

Or lets imagine that Elor Azaria receives a light sentence for his manslaughter conviction. Would that be fascist and undemocratic?

My point is that opposition to public policy should be debated on its merits without semi-automatic screeching about intolerance, repression, dictatorship, thought police and the crushing of democratic norms.

Over the top attacks make the political opposition sound just as crude and intolerant as the caricature of the government they are communicating.

Of course, no one should pooh-pooh civic challenges that do stand before Israeli society. The Israel Democracy Institutes 2016 Democracy Index found a significant drop in public trust of state institutions and politicians, and an increasing willingness to marginalize minorities, such as Israeli Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and settlers.

But we must beware a doomsday discourse about depredations in Israels democratic moorings. Israel is far more hale and hearty than some of its detractors would have you believe.

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Know comment: Israeli democracy is not at risk - Jerusalem Post Israel News