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Zulat Year in Review Defending Democracy in 2025

>> Read all messages from Zehava Galon

On the eve of the new year, I’d like to share with you what we Zulat Institute has done in 2025 and the challenges we faced.

In a new report we recently published, “My Country Has Changed Her Face: Israel’s Regime Becomes Competitive Authoritarian״ we warned that since the establishment of Israel’s 37th government, Israel is no longer a “flawed democracy.” The regime has shifted to a competitive authoritarian model where democratic institutions still formally operate, but political competition is unfair and systematically exploited by the ruling parties to entrench their control.

The government has been pushing forward the regime overhaul with full force. However, in the parliamentary arena and in the public, media, and civil spheres, we have waged a rear-guard battle that has succeeded in halting, delaying, and sometimes preventing at least some of the government’s initiatives. Zulat’s CEO, Einat Ovadia, together with our outstanding professional team, wrote and published legal analysis and policy papers; exposed failures and misconduct through Freedom of Information requests; appeared in dozens of Knesset committee hearings; and petitioned the High Court of Justice against initiatives aimed at undermining the Supreme Court, suppressing protest and legitimizing police violence.

We published a report on the plan to stangle the free media, “Is Hungary Already Here? Destruction of the Free Press in Israel from a Comparative Perspective״ which demonstrates how such policies were carried out by Viktor Orbán. Together with 86 former Members of Knesset, we led a petition to the High Court demanding the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre and the grave failures surrounding it. The Court has already ruled that the appropriate framework for such an investigation is indeed a state commission of inquiry, and we led the parliamentary opposition to the government’s attempt to construct a whitewashing committee instead.

In anticipation of the upcoming elections, we formed a professional task force to confront attempts to manipulate the electoral process—through the exclusion of Arab citizens from political participation, changes to election rules, and the misuse of executive power to gain an unfair advantage over political rivals.

The coming year 2026 will be a decisive one for democracy in Israel. The coming elections will determine whether Israel continues down the path of democratic disintegration or begins the complex process of recovery and reconstruction. We will determinably act to protect and strengthen democratic infrastructures and to defend human rights in Israel. We know the challenges are numerous and difficult, but the Zulat Institute will walk all the way—to this struggle end in success.

Join us. Support Zulat with a recurring monthly donation, and together this road will be shorter and easier.

Wishing you a happy new year,

Sincerely,
Zehava Galon
President, Zulat Institute

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.