Deeply divided Israel limping toward its 75th birthday

Orit Pinhasov strongly opposes the Israeli government's proposed judicial overhaul, but you won't find her anywhere near the mass protests against the plan. She says her marriage depends on it.

Pinhasov's husband sits on the opposite side of Israel's political divide, and joining the protests will only deepen what she says already are palpable tensions in her household.

“I don't go to the demonstrations not because I don't believe in them,” she said. “I don't go in order to protect my home. I feel like I'm fighting for my home.”

As Israel turns 75 on Wednesday, it has much to celebrate. But instead of feting its accomplishments as a regional military and economic powerhouse, the nation that arose on the ashes of the Holocaust faces perhaps its gravest existential threat yet — not from foreign enemies but from divisions within.

For over three months, tens of thousands of people have rallied in the streets against what they see as an assault by an ultranationalist, religious government threatening a national identity rooted in liberal traditions.

Fighter pilots have threatened to stop reporting for duty. The nation's leaders have openly warned of civil war, and families of fallen soldiers have called on politicians to stay away from the ceremonies. Many Israelis wonder if the deep split can ever heal.

Miri Regev, the government minister in charge of the main celebration on Tuesday night, has threatened to throw out anyone who disrupts it. The event takes place at a plaza next to Israel's national cemetery in Jerusalem, where the country abruptly shifts from solemn Memorial Day observances for fallen soldiers to the joy of Independence Day, complete with a symbolic torch-lighting ceremony, military marches and musical and dance performances.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid is boycotting the ceremony. “You have torn Israeli society apart, and no phony fireworks performance can cover that up,” he said.

The rift is so wide that Israel's longest-running and perhaps most pressing problem — its openended military rule over the Palestinians — barely gets mentioned despite a recent surge in violence. Even before the protests erupted, public discourse was mostly limited to the military's dealing with the conflict, rather than the future of the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, which Palestinians seek for their state.