[The mass protests have opened the possibility, however slight,
that Israelis will begin to demand fundamental changes we havent seen
since 1948. ]
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THE ISRAELI RIGHT’S ARROGANCE HAS MADE A NEW STRUGGLE POSSIBLE  
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Meron Rapoport
March 29, 2023
+972 Magazine
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_ The mass protests have opened the possibility, however slight, that
Israelis will begin to demand fundamental changes we haven't seen
since 1948. _

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a vote in Knesset,
Jerusalem, March 22, 2023, Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

 

One of the fascinating questions that future historians of Israel will
ask is what caused hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews
[[link removed]], the
majority of the Jewish middle class, to protest against the far-right
government’s judicial overhaul
[[link removed]]. What
made them feel like the legislation is not a set of “reforms,” as
Justice Minister Yariv Levin would have it, but rather a “coup”
that directly threatens their identity, freedom, and way of life
[[link removed]]? What caused
them to go out to the streets on a daily, even hourly, basis —
sometimes without more than a few minutes’ notice — to carry out
one of the most effective struggles in Israeli history?

The question is even more complex because it is almost impossible to
point to a single factor, party, or personality that is leading these
decentralized protests. And while there is no lack of funds behind
them — whether through crowdfunding or donations — it is not money
that has motivated hundreds of thousands to take to the streets so
spontaneously because they believe that they are doing the right
thing. 

Despite the lack of a clear guiding hand and the relatively diverse
background of the protesters (even among the middle and upper classes
there are many shades, including age, occupation, income, place of
residence, and ethnic origin), the sentiment has been nearly uniform:
this government wants to turn Israel into a full-blown dictatorship,
and we want democracy. The fact that such a consensus was formed among
such extensive sections of the Israeli public cannot be taken for
granted, despite how baffling it may appear to onlookers.

It is true that the measures promoted by Levin and Simcha Rothman
[[link removed]], the
latter of whom is working overtime to pass the judicial overhaul
legislation as head of the Knesset’s Constitution Committee, were
intended to give the government almost unbridled power, yet this is
not a sufficient explanation for what we have been seeing. This is
because the right has for years been building its case
[[link removed]] among
large swaths of the public against the Supreme Court and the Israel
judicial system writ large. Furthermore, not everyone understands the
real meaning of the different aspects of the reform, from the
“override clause” to the system of appointing judges. 

[Police fire a water cannon at protesters during a demonstration
against the Israeli government's judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv, March
27, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)]
[[link removed]]
Police fire a water cannon at protesters during a demonstration
against the Israeli government's judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv, March
27, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Police fire a water cannon at protesters during a demonstration
against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv, March
27, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

What built this consensus, then, was the government itself. Even
before Levin announced his reform, members of the coalition created an
atmosphere of a coup in the making. From threats to cancel Pride
parades
[[link removed]] to
imposing prison sentences on women who dress immodestly
[[link removed]] at
the Western Wall, to the dissolution
[[link removed]] of
the Public Broadcasting Corporation, to laws tailored to allow
specific coalition members to remain in office
[[link removed]] despite
past legal transgressions, the dozens of legal initiatives created a
sense of immediate threat and a state of emergency among large
sections of the secular-liberal public.

Meanwhile, the transfer of the Civil Administration
[[link removed]],
which governs the lives of millions of Palestinians in the occupied
West Bank, to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the police to
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir
[[link removed]] have
understandably raised concerns not only among Palestinians and the
Jewish radical left, but also among members of the security
establishment. Levin’s “reform,” and the brutality with which it
is being rammed through the Knesset, forms the edifice of the
government’s anti-democratic and anti-secular revolution.

You do not have to go back very far to understand the origins of the
right’s grievance-based revenge fantasies. The government is made up
of three central groups: those who oppose the rule of law for
personal-criminal reasons such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Aryeh Deri;
outright racists who want a second mass ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians such as Smotrich and Ben Gvir; and the Haredim who want
to maintain and expand their state-funded autonomy. There are many
differences between these groups, but what unites them is the
fundamental agreement not only over the essence of the State of
Israel, which is to grant special privileges to Jews, but that they
have the ultimate authority to determine who can and cannot be deemed
Jewish. Radical leftists in solidarity with Palestinians, defenders of
liberal values, feminists, those who don’t keep kosher, or LGBTQ
members are all seen as hindrances to the fullest realization Jewish
supremacy between the river and the sea.

This group approached the first elections of 2019 with full confidence
that they are the majority. Demographically, this sounds reasonable:
the Haredim, the national-religious, and _masorti_ Mizrahim should
have enough votes to secure 61 Knesset seats. But over the course of
four election campaigns, the right failed to achieve this majority,
while Palestinian citizens, a group that until then had been
politically marginalized, began forming alliances with center-left
Jewish parties, with the Islamic Ra’am party even joining the
“government of change.” Smotrich understood this danger in real
time. If the Arabs enter the political game as real contenders, as he
wrote in a Facebook post
[[link removed]] two
years ago, the right will forever remain a minority.

[Palestinian MKs Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh seen during a vote in the
Knesset, Jerusalem, February 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)]
[[link removed]]
Palestinian MKs Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh seen during a vote in the
Knesset, Jerusalem, February 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Palestinian MKs Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh seen during a vote in the
Knesset, Jerusalem, February 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

This is, essentially, what lies behind the current coalition’s
desire for revenge and behind Levin’s reform: an attempt to
guarantee that what happened in the last four election cycles, from
2019 to 2022, will not happen again, to guarantee right-wing rule, and
to enable the right to enact its agenda: starting with the
establishment of full apartheid
[[link removed]] in
the West Bank, then expelling Arab parties from the Knesset
[[link removed]] along
the way, and, finally, utterly crushing secular-liberal power in
Jewish Israeli society. All this would only be possible if the Supreme
Court is neutered. In other words, the right-wing coalition decided to
officially pit “Jewish” against “democratic,” with
“Jewish” coming out on top. If the state also happens to be
democratic, that’s fine — but certainly not necessary.  

This is what gave birth to the fear among many Jewish Israelis. This
is what gave birth to the slogan “democracy” and has caused it to
take center stage in the protests. The idea of “democracy” can be
quite fuzzy. In this case, the term expresses the view of those who
oppose the coup because it gives the “state” — that is, the
current coalition — too much power at the expense of Israel’s
reigning elites. 

This sentiment was and remains very strong in the demonstrations. The
resolve of both Chief Justice Esther Hayut and Attorney General Gali
Baharav-Miara to oppose the reforms is rooted in this sentiment, as is
the participation of the high-tech sector
[[link removed]] in the
protests and the warning by economic elites of how the coup will
shatter the Israeli economy. The protest by reservists
[[link removed]] is
obviously rooted in it as well. The spark that ignited the fierce and
spontaneous protest on Sunday night was Netanyahu’s firing of
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for his loyalty to the military elite
that totally opposes the reform, and who was accused of protecting
thousands — pilots and others — who said they “refuse to serve
under a dictatorship.”

But the protest has created its own dynamic. It grew and spread at a
speed that no one predicted, creating a sense of possibility for a
public that had felt politically irrelevant for years and a sense of
“internal exile,” as author David Grossman said in a speech at one
of the first demonstrations. Moreover, the protest served as a huge
lesson in active citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people. In
cafes and on the streets, people have begun to speak about “the
tyranny of the majority” and the rights of minorities.

The protests have also brought many to the conclusion that
Netanyahu’s corruption trial is not the only issue, but that the
right, which views equality as dangerous and subversive, must be
opposed. It is no coincidence that the most popular battle cry of the
demonstrators taking over Ayalon highway this week was: “Without
equality, we’ll block Ayalon! You’ve crossed the wrong
generation!”

This development has made clear that the protests have, for the past
few weeks, not just been about the judicial overhaul, which Netanyahu
“froze
[[link removed]]”
on Monday. Large segments of the protest movement are looking beyond
the overhaul. Many demonstrators are now demanding a constitution and
the passage of a Basic Law that would protect civil rights. This
vision is most cohesively presented in a constitutional proposal
published by President Isaac Herzog that includes a demand “to
enshrine in  ‘Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty’ the right of
equality, a prohibition on discrimination, and the freedoms of
expression, opinion, protest, and assembly,” a move Israel has never
been able to make because of its commitment to Jewish supremacy
[[link removed]] and
the fear felt by Haredim that equality would undermine their unique
status in Israeli political life. 

Shikma Bressler, one of the most prominent figures in the protest, has
expressed a similar vision of the protest and its potential. “There
is a democratic camp, which believes in freedom and civil rights and
supports equality,” she said in an interview
[[link removed]] with
Haaretz two weeks ago. “Facing it is the other camp, which advocates
a conception of its own absolute supremacy over others: that camp and
its adherents vs. all the rest. Jewish supremacy, if you will. That is
the division between the camps, and every other division is
nonsense.” That is, Bressler, who by her own description is not a
leftist, is framing “Jewish supremacy” — which until just
recently was only discussed by the radical left — as her enemy.

[Protest leader Shikma Bressler delivers a speech during a protest
against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv,
March 25, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)]
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Protest leader Shikma Bressler delivers a speech during a protest
against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, Tel Aviv,
March 25, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Protest leader Shikma Bressler delivers a speech during a protest
against the Israeli government’s planned judicial overhaul, Tel
Aviv, March 25, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Netanyahu, meanwhile, is trying to buy himself time, promising that
the coup is only “on hold” and will start up again after
Independence Day on April 25. The likelihood that the prime minister
can resume the coup is not very high, but it is clear that in the
first battle between the far-right government and civil protest, the
protest won an overwhelming victory. But the big question is what will
happen the moment right after victory is achieved and the judicial
coup finally crumbles. Or, perhaps more accurately, whether victory is
the mere elimination of Levin’s reform, or something far bigger. 

One possibility is that everything will return to where it began: the
pilots will go back to bombing Gaza, the economically privileged will
resume their positions in the neoliberal order, and the Supreme Court
will continue to fail to represent the entire population in Israel:
Palestinians, Mizrahim, Ethiopians, and more. 

But there is another possibility, perhaps a hope, that the hundreds of
thousands of people who poured into the streets have learned a new
language. Perhaps they are not prepared to return to the status quo of
Jan. 3, 2023, the day before Levin announced the reform. Over the
course of three months they have chanted “democracy or revolt,”
and it doesn’t seem like they are willing to stop simply because
Netanyahu is looking for more rabbits to pull out of his hat. They may
well join the project of creating a true “democracy,” becoming
actual agents of democratization. The demands for a constitution or
meaningful Basic Laws can be used as the basis for change. It is
difficult to see a leader from the center-left returning to power and
ignoring the demands for equality and civil rights in Herzog’s
proposal, among others. 

[Israeli protesters rally against the government's judicial overhaul
bills, Tel Aviv, March 18, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)]
[[link removed]]
Israeli protesters rally against the government's judicial overhaul
bills, Tel Aviv, March 18, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
Israeli protesters rally against the government’s judicial overhaul
bills, Tel Aviv, March 18, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

It must be said openly and honestly: this fight for “democracy”
hardly dealt with the occupation or the oppressive rule over
Palestinians. I say “hardly,” because anyone who participated in
the anti-occupation bloc in the Kaplan protests or elsewhere saw this
dynamic change over the weeks. When the demonstrations began, there
was hostility and even violence against those carrying Palestinian
flags. But the response from non-apartheid-focused demonstrators
became much more accepting, even sympathetic. The pogrom in Huwara
[[link removed]], and
Smotrich’s monstrous statements calling to wipe out the Palestinian
town [[link removed]], have
built a direct connection between West Bank settlers and those
responsible for the coup. Some reservists even presented Huwara as a
reason for their refusal
[[link removed]].
Turning refusal into a legitimate political tool may also mark a shift
in the struggle against the occupation. 

Anyone who tries to turn Israel “democratic” instead of
“Jewish,” anyone who tries to draft a constitution or enshrine
equality in the Basic Laws, will soon run into the massive elephant in
the room: the rights and privileges enjoyed only by Jews and the
regime of occupation and apartheid over Palestinians. We are still far
from actualizing full democracy. But these days, we should allow
ourselves a bit of optimism. The racist right, in its arrogance,
mobilized opposition forces that no one — even the center and left
— knew existed. The failure of the right has opened the possibility
that this opposition will demand a fundamental change, a change Israel
hasn’t seen since 1948.

_Meron Rapoport [[link removed]] is an
editor at Local Call._

_A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local
Call. Read it here
[[link removed]]._

_+972 Magazine is an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a
group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists. Founded in 2010, our
mission is to provide in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from
the ground in Israel-Palestine. The name of the site is derived from
the telephone country code that can be used to dial throughout
Israel-Palestine._

_Our core values are a commitment to equity, justice, and freedom of
information. We believe in accurate and fair journalism that
spotlights the people and communities working to oppose occupation and
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marginalized in mainstream narratives._

_+972 Magazine does not represent any outside organization, political
party, or agenda. We publish a wide variety of views on our site that
do not necessarily represent the opinions of the +972 editorial team._

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