15. The Future of Israeli Democracy with Knesset Member Tamar Zandberg

This episode is a recording of an event which took place in Sydney on Tuesday 26 November 2019.

A former academic, Zandberg was a leader of 2011’s social justice protests in Israel and a member of Tel Aviv’s city council before entering the Knesset for the Meretz party in 2013. She was the party’s leader from 2018-19, including the April 2019 election. She was reelected in September’s election on the Democratic Union ticket.

This event took place at an unprecedented time in Israeli political history with two elections occurring back-to-back in 2019, one in April and another in September.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had already been indicted for corruption and bribery and both he and opposition leader Benny Gantz had failed to form a coalition, and it looked inevitable that a third election was on its way.

Tamar provided an insider’s perspective to one of the most turbulent years in Israeli history, as well as offered her analysis on some of the most pressing issues facing Israelis, including the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories, issues of religion and state and how to create a joint Jewish-Arab coalition for democracy.

She’s joined in this conversation by journalist Debbie Whitmont.