Israel daily life has been sliding sharply to the right.
And today an index of women’s wellbeing ranks Israel well below Canada at 16th, well below the USA at 31st, well below the UAE at 20th, and even well below Saudi Arabia at 63rd.
Israel comes in at 84th for women’s peace and security.
CNN reported on it.
That is huge.
Because for decades, criticizing Israel in Western mainstream media was not a thing. You did not do it.
Nobody puts baby in a corner.
You tiptoed around it. You cleared your throat. You added twelve disclaimers. You apologized in advance. “I’m not antisemitic, but…”
So when CNN runs a straight faced piece saying Israel is sliding backward, this is not courage. This is not conscience. This is a warning light on the dashboard of empire.
What they are really saying is this: The current Netanyahu government has become a problem.
Not because it is cruel. Not because it is unjust. Those things were always manageable. It is a problem because it is noisy. It is sloppy. It is wrecking the illusion. It is breaking the machinery of quiet management.
Empire does not need virtue. Empire needs silence.
Empire needs things done smoothly, discreetly, with good manners and a low profile.
What it needs now is quiet change. Change the policy or change the guy. Either way, turn the volume down so business can go back to normal.
Resume business as usual.
Reduce scrutiny.
Reassert narrative control.
Preserve the existing order with minimal adjustment.
That is how hegemonic systems survive crises. They do not fix the problem. They lower the volume.
And notice how they do it. They talk about women’s rights. That is the safe door. That is the polite door. That is the liberal door. An index, a chart, a ranking. Numbers do the talking so nobody has to say the real words out loud. Occupation. Apartheid. Genocide. No no, we do not say those words yet.
We say women’s wellbeing. We say democratic backsliding. We say concern.
BTW, CNN does not mention the Gender Inequality Index, which paints a somewhat better picture for Israel, though still not great. Israel scores around 0.123, better than the USA at roughly 0.2, but not as well as the UAE at about 0.118 or Canada at roughly 0.080. Shhh.
Anyway. The danger is not backlash.
The danger is relief. The danger is that a quieter Israel under a different leader will be sold as progress.
Tone will be mistaken for justice. Optics will be mistaken for peace.
And everyone will be encouraged to relax, be reasonable, stop paying attention, go back to sleep.
But here is the problem for them. People have seen too much.
This is not abstract anymore. It has been filmed, streamed, archived, stitched together, and burned into memory. Once you see something clearly, forgetting is not natural. It has to be engineered.
That is where pressure lives.
Refuse closure. Refuse the idea that swapping the manager changes the system. Refuse the polite language that turns mass suffering into a technical problem. Keep your eyes open.
Keep saying the uncomfortable thing. Keep connecting the dots they would rather keep separate.
Because quiet is not peace.
And you going back to sleep is exactly what they are counting on.