Leadership Quote by Silvan Shalom

The line lands like a door slamming: a blunt reminder that the rules of liberal governance don’t automatically apply in a region stereotyped as governed by force, patronage, and permanent emergency. Coming from Silvan Shalom, an Israeli politician speaking from inside a state that markets itself as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” it’s an intentionally jarring reversal. He weaponizes the very comparison Israel often benefits from, then uses it to justify a suspension of democratic expectations - whether about coalition horse-trading, security policy, or the rough-and-tumble of parliamentary compromise.

The intent is practical and political: to manage an audience’s disappointment or outrage by invoking geography as destiny. “It’s not a democracy here” isn’t just descriptive; it’s prophylactic. It asks listeners to lower the bar, to accept opacity, hardline decisions, or majoritarian muscle as the price of survival. The subtext is that rights and deliberation are luxuries, while the Middle East is a category synonymous with threat. That rhetorical move launders specific choices through a generalized atmosphere: not “we chose X,” but “the neighborhood leaves no alternative.”

It also carries a quiet insult to the democratic ideal itself. If democracy is contingent on location, it becomes branding rather than a discipline. The phrase trades in a familiar regional caricature, and that’s why it works: it compresses a complex set of fears and assumptions into a single shrugging verdict - one that can end debate by reframing criticism as naive, foreign, or dangerously detached from “reality.”