As of now, the greatest beneficiary of the truly impressive images from the demonstrations of recent weeks has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has benefited twice over. First, it’s doubtful there can be more effective, more decisive propaganda than the protests – large, conducted with great freedom in the city centers – to underscore the liberal image Netanyahu has worked hard to create since the election. “Just look at the protests,” he can say.
Second, the pictures of the protestors help him to consolidate his base further, to mark who is in and who is out, to heighten the sense of persecution and injustice felt by many and, above all, the feeling of those who do not identify with the protestors – or, alternatively, have more complex opinions about what is happening – that he is the only option.
These two gains of Netanyahu are directly related to the nature of the protest at present: the unwillingness to genuinely challenge the old order in Israel; the unwillingness to ask big, existential questions about this place, about the order that organizes it, about the centers of power that use the Israeli yearning for democracy to preserve and even to deepen their power.
As long as the protest continues to follow exactly the script dictated for it in advance, echoing the same familiar messages over and over, repeatedly inviting the same speakers who will say in different words the things they said at countless protests in the past; as long as it does not truly dare to look reality in the eye, to recognize the great, necessary winds of change of this time, the changing existence and the deep emotional needs – it will remain closed within itself, exemplifying what Amos Kenan once said about Israeli society, that above all it “loves to love itself.”
It is impossible to fight for democracy today without asking how we can realize this great value at a time when almost all the ways through which we realize our values are fundamentally changing, in every area. How do we revivify the democratic idea and our trust in it? Anyone who thinks that they, their children or their grandchildren understand in the same way concepts such as popular rule, equality, sovereignty, elections and even law, does not understand the time in which we live.
As long as the protest mainly cries out the old order’s loss of power, as long as it refuses to address the failures of the past, to engage in a meaningful, public soul-searching into how we got to where we are today (including the actions of many of those who are now crying out); as long as it does not truly make room for other voices and for the deep crisis of confidence in the institutions of the state; as long as it is concerned mainly with self-glorification and glorification of the past, it is more similar to the historical protests of the Church or the aristocracy and therefore serves the regime most of all.
This protest has immense potential. But it must understand what it really is, what is the big story it is telling. If the protest dares to touch on the true pains of Israelis, if it will be a protest of growth and not of stagnation, if it will be radical in the literal sense of a genuine confrontation with the roots, if the participants and their leaders will be willing to pay a real price, in their power and status and their concrete and symbolic wealth, if it will dare to take a meaningful spiritual stance toward reality – only then will it definitely be capable of breaking categories and divisions and ages and sweep after it greater and more diverse support.
If this happens, the protest will also become a real threat and countervailing force to the government and its plans. As Theodor Herzl told the First Zionist Congress: “The people can be saved only by their own accord. If the people do not have the strength to redeem themselves, there will be no salvation. That is the whole Torah of salvation and protest on one leg.
Only the Israeli People Can Save Themselves
As of now, the greatest beneficiary of the truly impressive images from the demonstrations of recent weeks has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has benefited twice over. First, it’s doubtful there can be more effective, more decisive propaganda than the protests – large, conducted with great freedom in the city centers – to underscore the liberal image Netanyahu has worked hard to create since the election. “Just look at the protests,” he can say.
Second, the pictures of the protestors help him to consolidate his base further, to mark who is in and who is out, to heighten the sense of persecution and injustice felt by many and, above all, the feeling of those who do not identify with the protestors – or, alternatively, have more complex opinions about what is happening – that he is the only option.
These two gains of Netanyahu are directly related to the nature of the protest at present: the unwillingness to genuinely challenge........
© Haaretz
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