Affective Propaganda and Liberal Legalism in Israel

This article offers initial reflections on Israel’s democratic crisis and the modes of survival of the liberal rule of law. It examines the unprecedented protests against the regime overhaul attempted by Netanyahu’s government over the nine months preceding October 7, 2023. Over forty weeks of protest, mediated mass persuasion was mobilised in the protest to reclaim, reframe, and forge a popular commitment to liberal legalism against the populist attack.
Focusing on the role of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in the protest as a case study, the analysis shows how it became a sacralized liberal-democratic icon. Through ritualised practices of signing, carrying, displaying, and mediating the Declaration across digital and physical spaces, protest propaganda generated a juris-affective hold that reshaped popular legal consciousness. This affective infrastructure formed the broader normative environment in which the Supreme Court’s January 2024 decision striking down a constitutional amendment must be understood.
Affective propaganda, however normatively uneasy, temporarily injected liberal legalism with value and enabled the defence of the rule of law. Engaging Robert Cover’s Nomos and Narrative and theories of mediatisation, the article suggests in conclusion that distinctions between reason and affect, materiality and imagination, and law and media are untenable in contemporary mediatised societies.