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The phrase — “When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent. When the cannons are silent, the muses are heard” — is attributed to a Soviet Culture Ministry official and was immortalized by Truman Capote in his non-fiction book, “The Muses Are Heard,” in which he laments the fact that governments cannot be criticized during wartime.
Ironically, it is during times of crisis and conflict that the voice of the opposition is needed, more than at any other time, to scrutinize government activities relating to the most acute issues of national interest, including those of life and death, and possibly the very survival of the country. The pressing need is for an opposition voice that is both constructively critical and responsible. Over the past two years, the Israeli opposition has been composed of a number of parties who have not covered themselves in glory, neither before the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas nor after.
There are elements within the opposition — including its head, Yair Lapid from the Yesh Atid party, and one or two from what remains of the Israeli Labor Party, such as Naama Lazimi and Gilad Kariv — who did set an example for others on how to function as a proactive opposition. They did so, first by strongly contesting the government’s assault on the nation’s democratic system and then by making it clear, until the intervention by incoming US President Donald Trump, that the government was leading the country into a never-ending war in Gaza, whether for ideological reasons or other purposes, in order to remain in power and, in the case of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to derail his corruption trial.
An opposition has the “cumbersome” dual task of overseeing the policies and behavior of a government while establishing itself as a credible alternative. For too long the opposition in the Knesset, much as elsewhere in Israeli society, allowed the prime minister to completely control the national agenda and how it was conducted. It fell into the right-wing, populist demagoguery trap, which is even more venomous during times of war, thereby enabling the government to accuse it of lack of patriotism, naivety, being pro-Palestinian, ready to risk the security of the country for their lofty “peacenik” ideals, and serving foreign interests. Pushed into a defensive stance in such circumstances, an opposition therefore feels the need to react to such smears instead of going on the attack.
Members of the current right-wing coalition government in Israel operate on the premise that if one repeats a lie often enough, the people will end up believing it. They have used this strategy effectively against the opposition, not well enough to completely silence it but sufficiently well to cow it into self-censorship to the point that it has become less critical and effective than it should be in such crucial times.
In the nine months before the war began, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis regularly took to the streets in protest against the judicial coup being carried out by the government through legislation designed to damage democratic pillars and weaken the judiciary, one might have expected the opposition in the Knesset, in all its shades, to be at the forefront of the demonstrations, standing alongside civil society organizations to lead them and shield them as police violence against protesters became more prevalent.

It is during times of crisis that the voice of the opposition is needed, more than at any other time.

Yossi Mekelberg

A handful of opposition members did this but most expressed support from a safe distance; failing to back, for example, widespread strikes organized by unions, or announcing they would no longer volunteer to serve in the military, something they were under no legal obligation to do anyway.
Israelis such as these declared that they were not prepared to serve a government that was leading the country toward authoritarianism. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, those who were military volunteers rushed to serve, despite having been labeled traitors by many of their fellow Israelis, including some members of the Cabinet.
Meanwhile, the decision by certain prominent figures within the opposition, first and foremost former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, to rush into accepting a government role probably saved Netanyahu’s premiership and his government from collapse. No doubt part of their motivation for doing so stemmed from a genuine desire to serve their country in one of its darkest moments, and to mitigate the influence of far-right figures within the government, including those who suggested the entire population of Gaza was responsible for the events of Oct, 7, and who wanted to reoccupy Gaza and build settlements there.
However, there was also an aspect to their decision that is persistent in Israeli politics, which fails to grasp the crucial role of the opposition in preventing irresponsible acts by the government: Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot could have remained outside the administration and shared their vast experience when requested, while at the same time remaining free to forcefully highlight the lack of strategy, let alone morality, evident in the manner in which authorities were conducting the war in Gaza.
Another case in point that illustrates an opposition afraid of its own shadow came when most of its members, with the exception of those who represent Palestinian citizens of Israel, abstained from a vote on provocative legislation brought to the Knesset by the governing coalition: a bill to indefinitely preclude the establishment of a Palestinian state, despite its backers’ previous support for a two-state solution.
The abstention was an act of irresponsible political cowardice, in its tacit support for the sabotage of any future peace agreement with the Palestinians. This was precisely the type of situation in which a responsible opposition that wishes to fashion itself as a genuine alternative, both in substance and style, should have taken a brave stand and voted against such a bill.
To make matters worse, Gideon Sa’ar, leader of a small opposition faction within the Knesset whose long-running toxic feud with the Netanyahus is well documented, could not resist a recent offer from the Israeli prime minister to join the government as its new foreign minister, something that might enable him to crawl his way back into the Likud party with the faint hope of one day replacing Netanyahu; such cynicism, mixed with delusion, from someone who once declared he would never serve in a Netanyahu government.
That the government has let down the country and its people hardly needs further elaboration. But the inability of opposition members — whether those already in the Knesset or emergent figures yet to be elected — to oppose the actions of the administration is as powerful a testimony to their own failings as it is to Netanyahu’s manipulative survival instincts.
Common wisdom has it that elections are won from the center ground. But there are times at which the electorate should be presented with a clear, distinctive and courageous alternative choice, and Israel is desperately in need of such an opposition to restore trust and hope in the people. However, such a muscular opposition has yet to emerge.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg