Your justification is fully compatible with the observed phenomenon as described. The comment didn’t criticize Israel, although the possible criticism so obviou

Your justification is fully compatible with the observed phenomenon as described. The comment didn’t criticize Israel, although the possible criticism so obviously follows from the description that your mind added it all by itself. That, in a way, is also quite telling. I’m not sure if the definition of democracy is flexible enough to include non-democracies as long as they bring a note to class giving a good reason. If Israel’s situation does really require essentially doing away with democratic norms, it’s somewhat delusional to still afford it that label, as a sort of temporarily-but-forever-slightly-embarrassed-democracy that protects its citizens’ rights as long as it’s convenient to do so. But I doubt that state is actually necessary. There has just been too much Austrian-style corruption in the last decade not to suspect some of that to be also in play here. Let’s wait and see how many politicians of the opposition were targeted in these programs. Because that would be the immediate end to any claims of justification. Edit: and just to be sure: nobody doubts that Israel is far better than the usual comparisons, i. e. its neighbors and China. It’s just because Israel is considered to be among “the good ones” that it gets criticized more readily. Both because the distance b/w expectations and reality is larger than elsewhere, and because criticism among peers is usually more effective than it is among strangers.