The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) is an independent, nonpartisan, center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy.
Israel’s COVID and Netanyahu Fatigue
As COVID-19 infections creep up again in Israel, the increasingly hapless government decreed that a night-time curfew would be imposed for three weeks. It was set to begin on Wednesday, just in time to put a damper on Chanukah celebrations.
Much head-scratching ensued. Exactly when the curfew would take effect each day remained fuzzy, with reports stating it was to start sometime between 6 and 10 pm. Both possibilities seemed a touch draconian in a democracy during peacetime, though 6 pm verges on downright nutty.
And then, there’s the “why” of it all. The utility of such a measure being at all effective in slowing the rate of COVID contagion was rejected totally by the Ministry of Health, as well as influential physicians and public health policy experts. In what has become a sorry routine, the government changed course, stating that curfews would now be targeted to areas with exceptionally high coronavirus infection rates.