In contemporary public debate, there is a simplification that is as widespread as it is dangerous: the idea that a country is democratic simply because it organises free elections.

It is a reassuring narrative, easily communicated and perfect for geopolitical propaganda, but profoundly insufficient.
Reducing democracy to the electoral act means emptying it of its historical and philosophical meaning, turning it into a mere procedure and forgetting that democracy, in its highest form, is first and foremost a system of limits to power.

Elections are certainly a necessary condition of democracy, but not sufficient.
Even authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes can organise popular consultations, obtain consensus and claim legitimacy from the ballot box.

The decisive question, then, is not only “who votes?”, but above all “what happens after the vote?”. Are there real countervailing powers? Is the judiciary independent? Can the press freely criticise the government? Are minorities protected? Is international law respected? Or is the will of the majority turned into a kind of absolute investiture, capable of justifying any political, military or moral choice?

It is precisely here that the fundamental distinction between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy emerges.

The political scientist Yascha Mounk, in his book People vs Democracy (2018), describes with great lucidity the crisis of contemporary democracies and the gradual rise of political systems that preserve the electoral ritual but slowly empty the liberal principles that historically accompany constitutional democracy.
Mounk speaks of ‘illiberal democracy’ and warns of an increasingly evident phenomenon: the transformation of popular sovereignty into majority rule.

Liberal democracy does not only stem from the idea that the people choose the rulers. It also stems from the conviction that power must be limited.
This is why modern Western democracies have been founded on a delicate balance between the will of the people, separation of powers, protection of individual rights, protection of minorities and respect for constitutions.
When this balance is broken, elections risk becoming merely a mechanism for legitimising power.

It is what Mounk calls, with an extremely effective expression, ‘electoral dictatorship’: the people vote, but whoever wins interprets the consensus as a total, almost plebiscitary delegation.
The majority thus ceases to be an instrument of democracy and becomes a political fetish. In the name of the people, civil liberties are restricted, independent judiciaries are attacked, the press is intimidated, opposition is delegitimised and any criticism is reduced to national treason.

This is not an abstract theory. Illiberal democracies already exist and are growing.

Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has probably been the most emblematic case in Europe: a system that maintains regular elections but which, over the years, has progressively eroded the pluralism of information, reduced the spaces of independence of the judiciary and enormously concentrated power around the executive.
Orbán himself has openly claimed the model of ‘illiberal democracy’, arguing that liberalism is incompatible with national sovereignty.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey also retains a formally competitive electoral system, but appears marked by repression of dissent, imprisonment of journalists, restrictions on academic freedom and increasing personalisation of power.
Narendra Modi’s India itself is today observed with growing concern by many international observers: a huge country that is electorally democratic, but traversed by a religious and majority nationalism that threatens to crush pluralism and the rights of minorities.

To this list one could also add, albeit in a different and less accomplished form, the phenomenon of Trumpism in the United States.
To speak of the United States as an illiberal democracy would probably be excessive, because American institutions continue to maintain strong constitutional antibodies and a robust system of checks and balances. However, Trumpism has shown the extent to which even the oldest Western democracy can be shot through with deeply illiberal impulses.

The constant attack on the independent press defined as ‘fake news media’ and ‘enemy of the people’, the pre-emptive delegitimisation of the election results, the personalistic cult of the leader assimilated to the divine, the radicalisation of identity, the systematic use of political lies as a tool for emotional mobilisation, and above all the assault on Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 represent signals that cannot be underestimated.

Trumpism has shown how even in an established democracy a plebiscitary conception of consensus can emerge, in which whoever wins believes that he directly embodies the ‘true people’ against institutions, oppositions, judiciary and guarantee bodies.

This is exactly the ground on which illiberal democracy grows: not necessarily by abolishing the vote, but by progressively emptying the liberal culture that makes voting compatible with the rule of law.

These examples show an uncomfortable but essential truth: one can vote freely without really living in a liberal democracy.

Then there is another deeply toxic narrative that has grown stronger in Western public discourse in recent years: the idea that a democracy automatically enjoys a kind of permanent moral immunity.
As if the fact of electing a government through free elections produces a licence for unlimited legitimacy, valid not only within the country but also internationally.

But does being a democracy entitle one to do anything?

Does it authorise the invasion of neighbouring territories? To systematically violate international law? To kidnap foreign nationals in international waters? To carry out disproportionate reactions in the name of national security? To consider oneself untouchable simply because one belongs to the ‘democratic camp’?

The answer should be obvious: no.

A democracy does not cease to be judged morally and politically. On the contrary, precisely because it claims to be based on law, it should be subjected to even higher standards.

History, moreover, clearly shows that even democratic states can commit atrocities, violate human rights or develop aggressive forms of nationalism. Electoral consensus does not sterilise arbitrariness and does not automatically turn every governmental decision into a just choice.

The case of Israel today represents one of the most dramatic and controversial nodes in this reflection.

Israel remains formally a democracy: it votes, it changes governments, it has a competitive parliamentary system and a pluralistic society in many respects.
But this fact cannot become an absolute moral shield behind which to hide every political or military choice.

In recent years, especially under the governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the weight of the extreme nationalist and messianic right has grown enormously. Figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir represent a disturbing radicalisation of Israeli political life.

Ben-Gvir is not a fringe or folkloric figure, but one of the most powerful men in government. His extremist, supremacist and openly provocative positions would be considered incompatible with democratic culture in most of Western Europe.
Yet today they participate in the leadership of the Israeli state and profoundly influence its policies.

The treatment meted out to the Freedom Flotilla activists – detained, exhibited and humiliated like prisoners inside a sort of ‘human tuna trap’ – showed the world images and language incompatible with any not only genuinely liberal, but even vaguely liberal idea of democracy.

Even more disturbing were Ben-Gvir’s words and attitudes, steeped in contempt and symbolic brutality.
When power stops seeing human beings and starts seeing targets, when suffering is turned into political spectacle and force becomes arrogant ostentation, we enter a dark area of politics that European history knows very well.

Of course, extreme historical comparisons require caution and precision. But history serves precisely to recognise the signs before it is too late. It serves as a reminder that barbarism never arises suddenly: it grows little by little, through the normalisation of dehumanisation, identity hatred and the belief that one is morally superior and therefore entitled to anything.

And it is perhaps here that the decisive point emerges: true democracy does not consist simply in counting votes.
It consists in limiting power, even when that power enjoys the consent of the majority.
A genuine liberal democracy accepts pluralism, tolerates dissent, recognises the dignity of minorities and accepts that even national security has impassable ethical and legal limits.

When, on the other hand, popular consensus is turned into absolute justification, the risk is that of the degeneration of democracy into a form of electoral authoritarianism.
And this is probably the great political and moral challenge of our time: to remember that democracy is not only the right of the majority to win, but above all the duty of power to remain human.

In the case of Israel, the forthcoming elections will be a real test of the antibodies of Israeli liberal democracy: will they sweep away the monstrosities to which the Netanyahu government has accustomed us all too much, certifying the return within the perimeter of ‘western’ principles and values and international law – as the polls would suggest – or will they decree the triumph of the extremist and plebiscitary drift in the Jewish state, condemning it to inevitable international isolation?