It is politicians who either disgrace or elevate their country

For days, we have been living with images of the blood flowing in Palestine and Israel.

The slaughter of innocent people and civilians is unacceptable in any way. In fact, unless there is a purpose of necessary defense, if aggressive goals are being served, the death of soldiers is also unacceptable.

These events in Gaza did not reach this point in a single day; behind them lies decades of accumulation and the impact of populist decisions made by bad politicians.

It is not us, but the Israeli thinker and writer Yuval Noah Harari, who says how mistaken the politicians governing Israel are on this matter.

After the recent events began, Harari wrote an article for the American newspaper The Washington Post, in which he openly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has governed Israel for 14 years, and wrote exactly the following:

"The reason for the failure of Israel's defense against Hamas is populism. For many years, Israel has been governed by a populist autocrat, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a public relations genius but an incompetent prime minister. Netanyahu has repeatedly prioritized his personal interests over national interests and built his career on dividing and polarizing the nation. He made appointments based on loyalty rather than merit. When he failed, he never took responsibility; he took credit for every success and felt no need to tell the truth. The last coalition he formed was by far the worst. This alliance, composed of far-right figures, focused not on the country, but on obtaining unlimited power for themselves. They spread ugly conspiracy theories about state institutions that opposed their actions and labeled officials serving the country as 'deep state' traitors."

Yes, Harari, a world-renowned academic and historian who is an Israeli citizen himself, describes the political situation in his country this way and blames his own prime minister. In other words, what is happening today is the result of the decisions made by such politicians.

What great luck that Israel has not yet reached the anti-democratic regime in Netanyahu's mind; if it had, they would have already arrested Harari.

In fact, Netanyahu's distancing of Israel from democracy was a matter of time; he struggled quite a bit to make a legal change that would prevent the judiciary from overseeing him, but he had to take a step back when the public rose up. Netanyahu, who is also accused of corruption, wanted to escape judicial oversight to save himself and stifle democracy.

In the 21st century, there is a very fundamental truth that we must be aware of, having learned from thousands of years of history:

Countries can only be as good as the quality of their leaders. That is to say, it is politicians who either elevate a country or disgrace it. And if a politician is a populist, putting their own future ahead of the country's interests and making decisions accordingly, unfortunately, countries regress. And world history is written by leaders.

It was a few bad politicians who dragged the Ottomans into World War I and brought a 600-year-old empire to its end, and it was Mustafa Kemal and a few soldiers-turned-politicians around him who founded the Republic of Turkey from such a situation and laid the foundations for it to reach its 100th year; they destroyed the bad and built the good.

There are many examples of this: Hitler left no stone unturned in Germany, and Mussolini destroyed Italy.

At the top of the list of leaders who put their countries on the right track is Atatürk; yes, there are successful examples in the world, and whoever you ask, they cannot show a better example.                        

Let us return to what historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote; at the end of his article, he says:

"The way populism is eroding the Israeli state should serve as a warning to other democracies in the world."

In short, populism should not be given credit; populism provides a future for those who practice it, but it destroys democracy and gets countries into trouble.

We hope the Israeli people have understood this by now.