Israel is frequently described as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” yet when evaluated through the lens of democratic theory, this claim is quite absurd. Israel should not and have never been considered a democracy, not primarily because of its ongoing genocide in Gaza, as the International Association of Genocide Scholars concluded, or for the personality of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, it’s because Israel systematically violates a core democratic principle, which is that democracy is rule by the people as a whole, not merely by a privileged subset. When combined with long-term occupation and institutional practices that resemble what Ozan Varol calls “stealth authoritarianism,” Israel looks more like a democracy falling apart than anything else.

A central insight from Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die is that democracy is more than the presence of elections. Democracies need strong institutions, real political competition, and citizenship for everyone. Countries can keep holding elections while destroying democracy from the inside, especially when elected leaders use legal tricks to hold onto power or keep certain groups out.

Israel undeniably holds competitive elections among its citizens. However, Levitsky and Ziblatt warn that this is insufficient if large groups living under a state’s authority lack political rights. As we can see in Israel, democratic breakdown is silently pursued with legal, incremental practices that maintain a democratic façade while undermining the mass majority of citizens. Governments use seemingly legal and democratic tools (ie. courts, legislation, emergency powers) to weaken accountability while preserving legitimacy. Varol stresses that these practices are particularly dangerous because they are difficult to distinguish from normal governance. Recent Israeli political developments fit this pattern. In fact, prior to the October 2023 Gaza Genocide, the Netanyahu government proposed sweeping judicial reforms that would have weakened judicial review and increased executive control over the courts. Like Varol predicted, these reforms were presented as democratic because they would empower elected officials over “unelected judges,” but in reality they would reduce checks and balances. Similar strategies have been used in countries like Hungary and Turkey, both of which experienced democratic backsliding while maintaining elections.

Levitsky and Ziblatt identify attacks on judicial independence as a classic warning sign of democratic erosion. Even when such efforts fail or are delayed, as in Israel following mass protests, their persistence signals a governing coalition willing to stretch democratic institutions to protect its political power.

The most fundamental challenge to Israel’s democratic status, however, lies beyond institutional reform debates. Democracy is not measured by the rights of a regime’s favored population but by the rights of all people living under its control. Israel exercises absolute authority (and constantly pushes for more control) over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Yet these individuals lack citizenship, voting rights, and meaningful political representation in the state that governs key aspects of their lives. Approximately 5.5 million people live under Israeli control without the political rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens.

Democracy requires inclusive participation and a system in which one population votes while another is permanently excluded, despite being governed by the same state, resembles what political scientists describe as ethnic or exclusionary democracy, not liberal democracy. International bodies have increasingly recognized this discrepancy. The International Court of Justice has described Israel’s regime in the occupied territories as one of systemic discrimination. A state cannot sensibly claim democratic legitimacy while ruling indefinitely over a disenfranchised population.

Some argue that replacing Netanyahu or halting the Gaza Genocide could restore Israel’s democratic credentials. However, this undermines the structural issue at the core. Levitsky and Ziblatt emphasize that democratic survival depends not only on leaders, but on the ‘rules of the game’. As long as Israel maintains permanent control over territories whose inhabitants lack political rights, elections among Israeli citizens alone cannot confer democratic legitimacy.This explains why organizations such as Freedom House and V-Dem have downgraded Israel’s democratic status in recent years. These declines are not merely responses to individual policies, but reflections of deeper structural exclusion.

Israel’s democratic claims rest on an increasingly narrow foundation. Elections persist, but inclusiveness does not. Institutions exist, but are at risk of executive takeover. Most importantly, millions of people governed by Israel remain permanently excluded from political participation whilst living in different laws than the rest. The millions of Palestinians living in the occupied territories live in a completely different world than that of their Israeli counterparts, political power being the least of their worries. Whether through checkpoints, or absolute control over Palestinians’ travel and day to day lives, Israel represents a state of apartheid exponentially more than that of a state of democracy.

Levitsky and Ziblatt remind us that democracy erodes not only through dramatic escalations, but through normalized exceptions. After nearly six decades, Israel’s occupation can no longer be treated as temporary or external to democratic evaluation. Democracy cannot coexist indefinitely with systematic exclusion. Until Israel either ends its control over disenfranchised populations or grants them their full political rights, it cannot meaningfully be considered a democracy.