WhatsappThe demonstration yesterday (Monday), as well as the demonstrations before it, was not about legal reform. The shameful conduct of Yesh Atid Parliamentary members in the Constitution Committee, climbing on tables and lying on the floor, is also not about reform. “Of course not”, they will say – ‘we are protesting the damage to democracy, about Israel’s transformation into a dictatorship, about the future of our children’. These are undoubtedly lofty and worthy goals, and there is no doubt that the anxiety gripping the minds and demonstrators is real. Only there is no connection between those claims and the protest itself, as evidenced by the statements of the leaders of the protest and its spokesmen.
When you listen to the words of the protestors, it seems that you have to be really gullible to believe that the protest is against legal reform. Whoever believes this, surely belongs to those who believed that the demonstrations in front of Balfour were against corruption and not against the right. After all, if it wasn’t for Levin’s judicial reform, they would have taken to the streets for the change of policy vis-à-vis the US regarding the Iranian nuclear issue. If not for this judicial reform, they would be protesting against the change in the distribution of budgets in culture, or the money that would be given to an ultra-Orthodox or national religious association. Any change that the current government would have tried to promote, inevitably, would have resulted in demonstrations of this kind and the jumping of Knesset member Yorai Lahav over a table in the Knesset committee meeting room, for the cameras.
The protestors are really begging us to understand that it’s not them – it’s us. If only the right had not won the elections after the “Oasis” they had at the time of the Bennet-Lapid government, everything would have been good. And it is clear: a Prime Minister (Bennett) with six mandates is very democratic, and another Prime Minister (Lapid) signing an agreement with a hostile country like Lebanon without submitting it to the Knesset for approval, as required according to the law, is an exemplary model of democracy. If only the right would not have elected Netanyahu again, after the left thought he had finished his job – then everything would be good after all. But the Israeli population voted for Netanyahu and the right wing, and so we turned seemingly in the blink of an eye from the Garden of Eden into “Gilead” – the imaginary city from the series “The Handmaid’s Tale”, where women function as sex slaves. Who among us did not become a slave just because the right came to power?
What else has happened since the right has returned to govern? The productive forces in Israel have all migrated to the left. Yair Lapid repeatedly stated last night, as he has done in recent weeks, that “we are not here just to pay taxes and send our children to the army”; Ram Ben Barak, a member of Lapid’s party, also repeated a similar statement, and the journalist Attila Shumpelvi wrote to Manny Esseig: “If all the Esseigs of the country fall, not a leaf will move. We will not notice. Without the democratic camp – there is no Israel.” Also, the economic reporter Liat Ron hinted in the broadcast that the protesters are a productive force that holds the country together. The implication of all this is that only they, the left, are the productive force in the country – and without them, there is no state.
This is a ridiculous claim that has no basis in reality. After all, where does the money come from for the budget pensions of those who went up to Mount Herzl this week? And where does the money come from for the judges’ pensions? A right-wing farmer who exports his goods to Europe, or businessmen – code name Rami Levy – are they, not producers who sustain the economy of the state?
Their protests are impressive, but still not representative, and not enough to make a difference. If elections would be held tomorrow, the right would probably still win, give or take two mandates here or there. Nor has there yet been a recognized public figure who says: ‘I support the government, Netanyahu, but not the reform.’ It does not exist. And trying to market the protest as if it represents the whole Israeli public just doesn’t work.
The claim that the concern is really for Israeli democracy is also not convincing. On the contrary: the conduct in recent times has included impressive tantrums that cast doubt on the claim that it is “for the sake of the state”, from Shlomi Shaban’s appearance with a coffin, through calls not to enlist, to leave the country, to withdraw investments and to postpone President Herzog’s speech. All these indicate that if the opportunity would be given – those who hold the tantrum will throw the baby, that is, the country, out with the bathwater.
