What to Watch in the Knesset—January 31, 2025

The New Israel Fund tracks legislation and political campaigns in and around the Knesset that have the potential to change the way Israeli democracy functions. We provide regular updates throughout this Knesset session. This document is produced by NIF Senior Director of Media & Policy, Elisheva Goldberg. 

We organize anti-democratic legislation in five categories: (1) election manipulation laws (2) laws that try to engineer a government-friendly press (3) laws that discriminate and collectively punish Israel’s Arab minority (4) laws that attempt to alter the balance of power between Israel’s branches of government and (5) laws that enable government corruption.

I. FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS

There is no definition of democracy that does not include free and fair elections in which every citizen is allowed to run for office and vote. NIF has made defending this most basic right one of three flagship issues that it is fighting for during this Winter Session of the Knesset. We are fighting day and night to prevent the following bill from passing.

II. FREE PRESS

There is a well-crafted masterplan by Netanyahu and his government to undermine press freedom and discredit independent media. It is a plan taken straight out of the playbooks of Vladimir Putin, Reccep Erdoğan, and Viktor Orbán. Part of the strategy behind these bills is that they need not even pass; the harm they cause as trial balloons can suffice. The chilling effect, in the form of difficult-to-quantify self-censorship, already hovers in the atmosphere among members of the Israeli media.

III. DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ARAB CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS OF ISRAEL

The first section below is laws that have passed; the second section is bills that have not yet passed.

The Knesset recently approved four laws that are aimed at exacting a higher price from Arab citizens or residents of Israel who are allegedly peripherally or relationally connected to “acts of terror”. Together, these laws and bills signal a dangerous escalation towards the demonization, silencing, and even removal of undesirable Arab citizens and residents of Israel.

The Knesset is currently considering a number of expansions of its anti-terrorism laws. The threat of terror and terrorists works to the advantage of this government. By easily labelling Arab citizens of Israel as terrorists, or even by merely threatening them with the label, Arab opposition to the government’s actual policies—in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Israel proper, can be easily—and “legally”—silenced.

IV. JUDICIAL OVERHAUL 2.0

V. CORRUPTION-ENABLING LEGISLATION AND DECISIONS