Israel picks between 'secular democracy or theocracy' in election, chess master Garry Kasparov says

When Israelis head to vote on October 27, they won't just be picking the next government; they will be deciding whether Israel becomes "a secular Hebrew democracy, or a rigid, rabbinical theocracy," Garry Kasparov, a Russian chess grandmaster, political activist, and writer, wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times published on Thursday.

"Just as Abraham Lincoln observed that the government could not persist 'half slave and half free,' Israel cannot go on half theocratic and half secular," Kasparov, whose father was Jewish, argued.

"Americans resolved that contradiction over four years of brutal civil war. Israel’s election on Oct. 27 offers a bloodless way out of this morass," he wrote.

"Democracies are built on compromise," Kasparov said. "But sometimes a compromise can turn dangerous."

He explained that his upbringing in the Soviet Union shaped his perception of both the US and Israeli democracies. "I see this dynamic at play in two democracies with which I closely identify: the United States and Israel."

"As a young Soviet with a Jewish father, I grew up to become a staunch supporter of Israel, an outpost of liberalism surrounded by illiberal, Moscow-backed Arab states," Kasparov wrote.

"While I rejected the anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism of the Communist regime under which I was raised, I also sought a textured understanding of the United States and Israel."

"I learned early on that the United States had reached a breaking point just 84 years after independence. America’s founders included men who owned slaves and men who did not. They could not both midwife the union and challenge the 'peculiar institution.' This guaranteed the birth of the United States but cursed the young nation with an affliction that nearly caused a permanent rupture."

Kasparov believes that Israel is also facing this affliction and risk of permanent rupture. Rather than the divisive issue being slavery, the divisive issue that Kasparov says has placed Israel at this crossroad is the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft to the IDF. He clarified in the NYT that "There is, of course, no moral equivalence between the haredim, as the ultra-Orthodox are called in Israel, and slave owners."

He cites then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion's original agreement with the haredim as the thing that set in motion the aforementioned split. In 1948 Ben-Gurion approved a temporary agreement with haredi yeshiva students, granting 400 people an exemption from army service to study Torah. Today, upwards of 50,000 people evade IDF draft to study Torah.

"The pact haunted their descendants and today is sustained by a nationalist far right and an unscrupulous prime minister willing to bend the law to stay in power," Kasparov said.

"In Israel today, ultra-Orthodox political power is corroding the social compact that holds the country together."

"Israelis of Ben-Gurion’s generation may not have understood the kind of foundation they were laying," Kasparov argued. "They may have presumed they were simply handing out draft exemptions to a few hundred young men. Many of the American founders similarly expected slavery to peter out over time."

"Instead, slavery expanded significantly after 1776, just as religious influence in Israel exploded in the decades following 1948. The draft exemption became especially infuriating to secular Israeli Jews after Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza."

The haredi draft is not the only way Kasparov thinks that religious influence is corruptive to Israel. He argues that their power over Israeli law, from marriages, divorces, and funerals to transportation and public services on Shabbat, is "toxic" and unfair to the millions of Israelis who do not observe Shabbat.

"The ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset are so single-minded that it seems they will support anyone, no matter how clouded by accusations of misdeeds, who preserves their special privileges," Kasparov wrote in the NYT. "This is how the haredim have become indispensable accomplices and supporters to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition."

"Without the ultra-Orthodox, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not have backing for many of his authoritarian endeavors," he argued, and similarly, "Without Mr. Netanyahu, the ultra-Orthodox would lose their protected status."

Despite his comments that Israel is choosing between secular democracy or rigid theocracy, Kasparov added that he does not want religion and culture to be suppressed. "When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, Communist thugs enforced atheism and suppressed Jewish culture. This is not what I want for Israel."

"I simply believe in equality before the law and an Israel that embodies its founders’ aspirations of being a 'light unto the nations,' rather than an international pariah held back by far-right and religious special interests," Kasparov wrote.

"Israel’s election on Oct. 27 offers a bloodless way out of this morass."