International thinktank seeks to address Israel’s ‘autocratic’ government

British-South African business leader and proud Zionist, Sir Mick Davis, said growing up in apartheid South Africa, he stayed silent in the face of what he knew was wrong. But, watching the Israeli government being what he described as “autocratic and reckless”, he believes he must stand up against it.

“Cynical and reckless leadership is distancing Israel from its liberal and consensual founding vision,” wrote Davis in a recent opinion piece. “It’s actively sowing division, undermining the unity and resilience of Israel and the Jewish people when it’s most needed. Israel is therefore imperilled not only from outside, but from within.”

Davis, Lifetime Achievement Award winner at the Jewish Achiever Awards in 2019, is spearheading a movement called The London Initiative (TLI) to bring liberal democracy back into mainstream Israeli and world Jewish politics. For this, he said, he had been dubbed crazy, demented, and a self-hating Jew. However, he maintains, “We are a majority not a minority who believe in responding to the existential crisis that Israel and the Jewish world is facing. We recognise that the real crisis for Israel and the Jews is from within.”

He and TLI co-founder Briton Mike Prashker aim to gather 360 powerful Jewish leaders from all walks of life in Israel and the Jewish world to work toward the necessary change. “We are creating a partnership with those who believe in the principles of liberal democracy, fairness across Israeli society, and a secure peace as the basis of Israel’s future security and resilience. Together, we want to find a way to drive that agenda effectively,” Davis said.

TLI initially held a successful 60-strong member thinktank in February 2024, and has since approached additional leaders to join its network’s second retreat in October this year, according to Davis. They plan to have further retreats in February and October from then on. Davis said that the idea of gathering 360 people was to have a significant number of influential people involved, but not so many that it would become unmanageable. Together, they hope to debate these issues and see how they can create the change they believe necessary within Israel and the Jewish world.

“The London Initiative is essential now because Israel is at an existential crossroads. We don’t need to debate the challenges Israel faces with its external enemies,” he said. “We have seen the threat from Iran and its acolytes in the most extreme form recently, but I believe the existential challenge is internal not external. We will successfully deal with Iran, but my biggest concern is the internal corrosion of the foundations of Israel as conceived in the Declaration of Independence.”

Davis, a committed Zionist and Israeli citizen, said it was because of his commitment to the Jewish state that he believed he must stand up against what the Israeli government is doing. “I don’t want to be a bystander again in a situation which is even more acute for me than living in South Africa. I want to act. I’m not a radical or controversialist. I just speak up for what I think is truth and what I think is right,” he said.

All too often, those of us who see problems in Israel don’t speak up, Davis said. “If you verbalise a dissenting view, many believe you are adding a language and a narrative to the enemy of the Jewish people and Israel, enabling them to attack us more effectively. This isn’t the case.

“Antisemites don’t need my language or narrative. They are going to hate us irrespective, and will do what they are going to do irrespective. We’re not enabling our enemies, nor giving them ammunition. Antisemites were always there, and they will be there no matter what we say or do.

“However, we want a resilient Israel that will grow and prosper, continuing to be the nation state of our people for the rest of time. In this, we all have a role to ensure that the country is underpinned by democratic foundations in which every citizen has equal rights and where we are at peace with our neighbours. We need a country where the basis is that everyone contributes and receives fairly. We shouldn’t be scared to vocalise it,” Davis said.

He said that he hoped TLI’s 360 would find ways to give voice to vital issues, sharing with others and leveraging off each other’s capacity and heft. An example he gave the SA Jewish Report was a letter they wrote to the Israeli government criticising the NGO Bill, which is before the Knesset. The bill attempts to strangle non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that the government doesn’t approve of by making it almost impossible to get international funding.

“Any money coming in from foreign governments would be taxed at 80% unless that NGO was exempt or was already receiving funding from the Israeli government,” he said. Davis said he believed the letter influenced the retarding of such legislation. He understands why the Israeli government doesn’t want NGOs it doesn’t agree with to survive, but Israel is a democracy and so the government can’t do that.

“Creating a non-democratic solution to a problem that’s inconvenient for the government undermines everything, and it’s the thin edge of the wedge,” he said.

Davis said he supported the Israel Defense Forces targeting Hamas and Hezbollah and trying to destroy their leadership. He also supports Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear might. “But we mustn’t think we can ever get rid of extremists unless we deal with the environment that gives oxygen for extremism to flourish. If we don’t have a strategy for the day after, that has a clear picture of an appropriate alternative dispensation to Hamas in Gaza, you cannot address the problem of extremism and the threat Israelis will continue to face. We should be thinking of a political dispensation that has a technocratic type of leadership and which is associated with the rebuilding of Gaza.

“Hamas and its military capability today has been destroyed,” Davis said, “and I’m struggling to see what a full-scale war of aerial bombardment, of flattening whatever houses and buildings are left in Gaza does to reduce Hamas’s military capability beyond what it has already been reduced to now. Juxtapose that to the devastation it’s causing the people of Gaza. That’s a very serious issue, and it doesn’t negate our right to defend ourselves or the legitimacy of our defence. Nor does it negate the horrific things that took place on 7 October 2023 and the promise of Hamas to do more.”

He said it was “totally unacceptable” for Israel to use food and aid to fight the war even if Hamas was stealing the food and reselling it. “There are people out there who are really struggling and really need help, and we shouldn’t be seen to be impeding that in any way,” he said.

“There’s a difficult road from where we are today to where we should be,” he said. “One thing I’m convinced of is that managing the conflict in the way we have done for the past few years has not worked, and we need to get involved in finding the right way forward.”

He admitted that he didn’t have the answers, but believed what was needed was “courageous leadership in Israel and from among the Palestinians to find the way forward”. He spoke about having to take small steps forward, rather than shrugging shoulders and ignoring the problems, hoping they would go away.

In the past, there was a belief in the myth that Israel could find ways to manage conflict, Davis said, however, “7 October blew that out the water, showing that conflict cannot be managed, it has to be resolved”.

Davis reached out to South African Jews to help.

“South African Jews should speak up strongly in defence of the legitimacy of the state of Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people. It has legal and historical legitimacy,” he said.

“South African Jews should also hold the Israeli government to account for undermining the democratic mandate of Israel; for not addressing the divisions within Israeli society; for not promoting greater fairness; and for being tardy in seeking solutions to provide a secure peace with all our neighbours.

“Finally, they should robustly criticise the government of South Africa for its inconsistent and illogical approach to the complexity of Israel, the Palestinians, and the Middle East. Also, for its selection of Israel as the only country that it holds to account. South African Jews should call it out on that every single day,” Davis said.