Destroying the democracy to save the nation?

What drew me to this Economist story was the fears expressed within by those Israelis who believe Israel is losing its democracy in its increasingly lethal efforts to retain its national identity.

The key bit:

“For two generations we’ve denied the people across the green line their democratic rights,” says Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, an academic lawyer and vice-president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank.  “That must impact on our society’s democratic ethos.  Those who are ashamed find rationalizations:  ‘We have no choice,’ they say.  Or they cite ‘security considerations’ or explain the ‘uniqueness’ of our conflict with the Arabs.  But many others are not even ashamed . . . ”

For Professor Kremnitzer, there is a danger not just that the Arab minority in Israel proper may be delegitimized but that the same fate could await critics of the government’s policy and especially of the Jewish settlements in the occupied areas.

He links this “ugly trend” to what he calls “a McCarthyite campaign against civil society”.

My dominant impression?  In a word, unsustainable.