POD for a non-Democratic Israel?

can any one think of a POD for Israel's government getting over thrown by the military or an anti-democracy political party taking (and holding) power?
 
Would Soviet-backed Communism count? Apparently there's plenty of opportunities for that in the early days of the state.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
Maybe a stronger Kahanist movement leads to a theocratic fascist state. Relations with the US are strained when they begin encouraging American Jews to make ailiyah and attempt to draft non-Israeli Jews into the IDF through an international mandate.
 
if you just let it continue the road its on now, it'll be increasingly authoritarian towards certain members of its population, although likely it'll retain the appearances of a liberal democracy in the sense of continuing to hold elections, etc etc.

if you're looking for an explicit military dictatorship with some general in charge then that's something that probably requires an earlier POD. maybe a POD in american politics that gets rid of the USA's unconditional support of israel, makes israeli leaders (even more) defensive and paranoid, then they overreact to something, maybe the first intifada rolls around and after one or two massacres of palestinians the military takes over and imposes some sort of 'order'.

of course, such a state wouldn't really be viable without the constant support of western powers, and since the POD suggested is the absence of that support, I doubt such a situation would continue long before undergoing something along the lines of south africa.
 
Didn't they start out with alot of heavy communist influence?

There was a strong labor tendency in Israel, no doubt inspired by European immigrant Jews, but Communism itself was weak, as shown by Maki in the early years of Israel. Zionism was a stronger influence and able to subvert those labor tendencies. Any attempts at authoritarianism would have to work in conjunction with Zionism itself.
 
of course, such a state wouldn't really be viable without the constant support of western powers, and since the POD suggested is the absence of that support, I doubt such a situation would continue long before undergoing something along the lines of south africa.

This really is an important point to consider when looking at alt-Israeli TLs. Israel itself would essentially collapse without the constant support of Western powers, especially the United States, in terms of material aid, 'gifts' of high-tech weaponry, loans, military training, the umbrella of American military assistance if it came down to it, and perhaps most importantly the US's veto in the UN Security Council against practically every resolution or international mandate that would seek to criticize of mandate the Israeli state.

If you have a POD that transforms Israel into a 'non-Democratic' state a logical assumption would be that a significant portion of this OTL aid wouldn't exist ITTL. This isn't to say that the US hasn't supported non-democratic regimes before, but not to the same extent that she has the Israelis OTL, so any change in Israel itself will change the American-Israeli relationship. Considering that ITTL an Israeli version of the Mahlabatini Declaration and accompanying reforms would be more than likely, eventually leading to a democratic Israel, ultimately mooting the point of the POD.
 
A less successful Yom Kippur war? The Arabs could be making huge gains on Israeli soil, and some military officers could overthrow Golda Meir (who was unpopular for her handling of the war OTL). Plausible?
The Israeli military have historically been strongly Mapai/Labor. I find it highly unlikely they'd coup the leader of the party closest to them, let alone set up a military junta in the country. If a religious theocratic party came to power, I could see the IDF overthrowing them though.
 
Any nation which disenfranchises a large chunk of its population and slowly eats away at what they have left cannot be called democratic.
 
A less successful Yom Kippur war? The Arabs could be making huge gains on Israeli soil, and some military officers could overthrow Golda Meir (who was unpopular for her handling of the war OTL). Plausible?

Eh, to the point of costing Golda Meir her office? Easy, she dropped the ball hugely on Yom Kippur and avoided it by basically threatening to glass everyone who was attacking. Destroying an established Israeli democracy, not so easy.

An early Israel being recruited as a Soviet client state is an interesting idea but I find it difficult to believe that America which has a lot of Jews itself and played a huge role in Israel's creation is going to take this sitting down. It's not an issue of does the US get involved it's almost certainly an issue of when. Best case scenario the US kicks the communists out and helps establish a successful democracy in Israel, the system in Israel today is far more reminiscent of the American one and Mideast affairs are defined largely by a less strategic US relationship with Israel (it's going to be weaker and if it's a former communist state it likely will resent the imposition of an American-backed regime), which could open up Arab states that were entirely hostile to the US because of their ties to Israel OTL. Maybe the US actually continues its relationship with Ba'athist Iraq beyond the '63 and '68 coups.
 
Eh, to the point of costing Golda Meir her office? Easy, she dropped the ball hugely on Yom Kippur and avoided it by basically threatening to glass everyone who was attacking. Destroying an established Israeli democracy, not so easy.

An early Israel being recruited as a Soviet client state is an interesting idea but I find it difficult to believe that America which has a lot of Jews itself and played a huge role in Israel's creation is going to take this sitting down. It's not an issue of does the US get involved it's almost certainly an issue of when. Best case scenario the US kicks the communists out and helps establish a successful democracy in Israel, the system in Israel today is far more reminiscent of the American one and Mideast affairs are defined largely by a less strategic US relationship with Israel (it's going to be weaker and if it's a former communist state it likely will resent the imposition of an American-backed regime), which could open up Arab states that were entirely hostile to the US because of their ties to Israel OTL. Maybe the US actually continues its relationship with Ba'athist Iraq beyond the '63 and '68 coups.
Hardly. It was the rest of the cabinet that dropped the ball over Yom Kippur. The defense ministry convinced Meier not to call up reserves going into the holiday, and to forgo any plans of a pre-emptive attack.

Meier may have been the one at top, but listening to one's ministers is hardly a fault in government, even if it can lead to mistakes.
 
I'm gonna restate my position that a good POD for this is a change in america first, with knock-on effects in israel. I don't think that there's much short of actively and explicitly declaring itself a fascist bizarro-nazi successor state that israel could do to lose US support. so the change has to come in american politics.

either a more isolationist american foreign policy post 1948, or one that for some reason is actively supportive of the arab countries. a world of laughter, a world of tears has this, but in that TL israel becomes more left-leaning as a result, which personally I don't see as likely. it certainly didn't happen to OTL south africa when the rest of the world began deserting it.

anyway, point is, maybe the speculation should be around what changes in the US could lead to a policy like that?
 
I'm gonna restate my position that a good POD for this is a change in america first, with knock-on effects in israel. I don't think that there's much short of actively and explicitly declaring itself a fascist bizarro-nazi successor state that israel could do to lose US support. so the change has to come in american politics.

either a more isolationist american foreign policy post 1948, or one that for some reason is actively supportive of the arab countries. a world of laughter, a world of tears has this, but in that TL israel becomes more left-leaning as a result, which personally I don't see as likely. it certainly didn't happen to OTL south africa when the rest of the world began deserting it.

anyway, point is, maybe the speculation should be around what changes in the US could lead to a policy like that?

Well by the time South Africa was becoming internationally isolated the Cold War was dialing down and South Africa found it was no longer going to get US support in its affairs like it had been before.

World of Laughter, World of Tears was more an issue of Disney's anti-semitism completely alienating Israel from the USA, at which point their leadership became increasingly unpopular and (unstated but implied) the Soviet Union probably started pushing the "haven of Jewry" angle that eventually resulted in a communist Israel with the USA leaning towards Nasser in Egypt.
 
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