My message to Benjamin Netanyahu: stop your coup or we’ll stop the country (The Guardian)

Yuval Noah Harari · 7 Mar 2023

Yuval Noah Harari did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Netanyahu's 2023 judicial overhaul was not a reform but an anti-democratic coup

Their wordsDon’t let anybody fool you: what this government is carrying out is not a judicial reform, it is an anti-democratic coup. This is exactly what a coup looks like.
Our reading
The oldest trick of would-be dictators is to use the law to gain power and then use power to distort the law

Their wordsHistory is full of dictatorships established by people who first came to power through legal means. It’s the oldest trick in the book: first you use the law to gain power, then you use your power to distort the law.
Our reading
The last and most important line of defence of every democracy is its citizens, not opinion polls

Their wordsBut polls don’t stop dictatorships. History teaches us that the last and most important line of defence in every democracy is you, the citizens.
Our reading
Democracy is a deal: when a government breaks it by attacking citizens' basic liberties, citizens are entitled to resist

Their wordsDemocracy is a deal, according to which citizens must respect the government’s decisions, on the condition that the government respects the basic liberties of the citizens. When one side breaks the deal, the other side doesn’t have to go on fulfilling its part. When a government tries to establish a dictatorship, citizens are allowed to resist.

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