While demokratiyah has been the motto of the demonstrators who have for the past months gathered daily in Israel’s public places, it is a very specific notion of democracy that they support, one which deviates from the more majoritarian understanding that animates the present government. Arguably that majoritarianism adheres more closely to the vision of David Ben-Gurion. Nir Kedar, in David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy, explores what exactly that vision was. Allan Arkush writes in his review:

If Ben-Gurion’s political theory had to be summed up in a single word, it would be one that is rather difficult to translate: mamlakhtiyut. Kedar, who wrote the book on the subject (in Hebrew), thinks that “civicism” is the best, if awkward, English equivalent. Derived from mamlakhah, the Hebrew word for “kingdom,” it connotes the vital importance of the state, but as Kedar makes clear, Ben-Gurion’s focus on the collective did not override his individualism. Mamlakhtiyut, he writes, “is a political concept that sees the state . . . first and foremost as a framework that places the individual front and center.”

The individual here means all individuals, who should have the freedom to chart their own way in life while participating equally in their own governance. These convictions underlie Ben-Gurion’s insistence on the subordination of the army to democratic government, his strict commitment to the rule of law and freedom of expression, and his depoliticization of the civil service. However, mamlakhtiyut meant more than the empowerment and equality of all citizens; it is also concerned with the way that they relate to each other. They needed to be imbued with “a true sense of belonging to a civil society built on mutual responsibility.”

Kedar shows how, in the spirit of mamlakhtiyut, Ben-Gurion tried to bind Jews of disparate religious orientations and ethnic origins together as Israelis. This entailed, among other things, “tolerance of the religious practices of the new immigrants” in the state’s early years and “support of religious education for children of immigrants who desired it.” Readers who know something of the actual treatment accorded to new immigrants for Arabic-speaking lands in the early 1950s may scoff at these assertions. But they would be mostly wrong to do so.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.