In a recent article in The New York Times, the columnist Thomas Friedman promotes a plan to save Israel as a Jewish democracy: “Only Saudi Arabia and Israeli Arabs Can Save Israel as a Jewish Democracy.” His point is that only the Israeli Arabs (Palestinians in Israel) and the Saudis can pressure the Israelis into making the concessions needed to arrive at a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I have to question whether Friedman has any idea what the global situation looks like when it comes to democracy.

Since 2006, the influential British news and business magazine The Economist, has published a comprehensive annual Democracy Index, which analyzes in detail the democratic processes that operate in nearly 170 countries around the world. The Index is based on 60 numeric scores and rankings grouped in five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Countries are categorized as one of four regime types; full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.

For 2021, only 21 countries (including the Nordic countries, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), are listed as full democracies (down from 23 in 2020). Fifty-three are flawed democracies, 34 are hybrid regimes, and 59 are authoritative regimes. The US, labeled a flawed democracy (along with countries such as France, Italy, and Portugal), is ranked 26 while Israel, a flawed democracy as well, is ranked 23, just barely missing the numerical value needed to be ranked as a full democracy.

Of the 20 countries in North Africa and the Middle East, Israel’s 2021 score and ranking is far above that of any other country in this region. Tunisia, ranked 54 in 2020, has been downgraded from a flawed democracy to the hybrid category and is ranked 75. The rest are either hybrid regimes, or, even more likely, authoritarian ones. Turkey, also described as a hybrid regime, ranked 103.

Since its inception in 2006, the Index treats the Palestinian Territories as a separate state. The Jewish settlers in the West Bank vote in Israeli elections and there are no Jews in Gaza. Elections in Gaza and the West Bank have been few and far between in any case and the 2021 Index places “Palestine” in the authoritarian category, ranked 109.

The political scientist Shlomo Avineri argues that the resilience of the democratic tradition in modern-day Israel stems from centuries of communal self-governance experienced by Jews in the Diaspora. He writes that as a result of the lack of statehood and sovereignty, the Jewish communities were ruled by their own members: “The Jews entered the modern world with a tradition of representation and electoral processes.”

The first Democracy Index in 2006 listed Israel as a flawed democracy with a ranking of 47, while the US was listed as a full democracy and ranked 17. During the intervening years, the ranking for the US has gone down, but the ranking for Israel has improved considerably, in spite of periodic wars and existential threats from one or another of its neighbors. It seems to me that Friedman’s worries are misplaced; he should be worrying about the democratic future of his own country.

I’ll make one more point: If the Israeli government was suicidal enough to adopt a policy of unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank in the interest of preserving a Jewish and democratic Israel, does Friedman believe that the resulting Palestinian state would be any more democratic than Gaza under Hamas? Or, does he only worry about the democratic health of Israel?

Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Waterloo

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