August 20, 2011
By Adam Keller
Someone in the wild Sinai Peninsula took a decision and sent a big, well equipped squad to infiltrate across the border into the Israeli Negev, attack buses and cars and engage in running battles with soldiers and shoot and kill and kill indiscriminately.
And presto, in one minute the agenda changed and the public mood changed into a state of emergency and war at the gate and in all communications media there was no more talk of social protests, nothing but terrorism and army and security issues.
(ED: Warning, the following paragraph, depicting Netanyahu’s situation might bring about an urge to either laugh in diabolical glee or to sarcastically commiserate with the swine.)
It had been a difficult month for Prime Minister Netanyahu ~ truly, a very hard month. A Prime Minister under siege, caught in a bind. Tent encampments and more tent encampments sprouting up all over the country, demonstrations and protests and more demonstrations. The demands for affordable housing and for Social Justice and for a Welfare State occupy the center stage, and the Free Market economics which Netanyahu had worked so hard to foster since he was Finance Minister are suddenly cast into doubt.
What did he not try? He used sticks and he used carrots, he tried to entice the protesters with committees and benefits and rabbits drawn from the hat and he tried to castigate them as Leftists and pampered sushi-eaters, and they went on to protest and demonstrate and extend ever further the tent encampments and get their rallies to the peak of three hundred thousand in Tel Aviv. Just yesterday morning, the protesters arrived at the home of Eyal Gabbai, Nethanyahu's Chef de Bureau, and he spoke forthrightly and made it clear to them that the Free Market system will not change, and there will be no taxation on the rich and there will be no Welfare State in Israel. And these cheeky youths did not accept these clear clarifications from their government, and just announced that they will increase ever more their protests and demonstrations.
How, how to change the focus and move the public agenda in a different direction? Perhaps finally September will come and the Palestinians will go to the UN and demand to have their state and thus help to distract public opinion in Israel?
But the big show at the UN is only due on September 20, how to get through another month until then? Besides, would even that change the tendency of public opinion? What if the Palestinians hold mass demonstrations in late September, without any violence, and demand to have some Social Justice, to be free in their country and no longer live under occupation ~ would this be enough to change the agenda? It might even get a bit of sympathy among Israelis.
But not all is lost, and relief for the harassed Netanyahu came from the usual quarter, out of the deserts of Sinai came the dramatic initiative to change the Israeli public agenda.
And it so happened that Israel's fine security services had long since prepared a plan to liquidate Gazan leaders which just needed to be put into operation, and now put into operation it was forthwith, and all at once Israel's Air Force took off for Rafah and made the hit, an instant and huge success, and immediately afterwards could the Prime Minister make a full-blooded patriotic Address to the Nation people over all channels and offer congratulations to the brave soldiers and the valiant pilots and the diligent security operatives and deliver a stern warning to the Palestinians and offer condolences to the bereaved and wish the injured a speedy recovery and how great it felt at last to make a long speech without a single word about social problems, just like in the good old days.
And of course, as soon as Gaza was hit, Israelis all over the South knew that the time has come to seek shelter and expect the worst, and indeed the Qassam and Grad rockets were not slow in coming, naturally prompting the Air Force to counter-attack on more Gaza targets and bring on more missiles on Israel the escalation is mutually escalating - and who would now dare demand a cut the in the defense budget in order to promote social causes?
But what the social protest activists do now in their tent encampments? Would they quietly yield to the changed agenda and meekly disappear from the scene? If that's what Netanyahu is counting on, he should think again.
I would like to give the floor to Social Protest activists, with a selection of messages posted in the past twenty-four hours on the Official Housing Protest Facebook Page.
Voices from the grassroots field, a dialogue between Israeli activists. It is an interesting read if only to see how these folks consider the situation of Israel, sort of like a fly-on-the-wall situation.
Yigal Cohen: We will not let terrorism beat us!
Ittai Hertzberg: I just read this piece of news: Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara calls upon demonstrators to dismantle their tents and call off their protest, in solidarity with the wounded in the attack, as "it's time to be united in the struggle against terrorism".
Ayoub Kara, don't you have another appointment scheduled with neo-Nazis in Austria?
Arnon Shaked: How sad, Bibi and his government got a terrorist attack just in the nick of time. There is only needed a small military operation to make him happy. That's what they think about human life, it's like a game to them.
Yossi Levy: This protest cannot stop, this protest will not stop. We must continue to protest, we must continue to protest. This protest will not stop! [Modeled on a well-known Israeli song].
Friends, do not have to bow down low, we can prove that we can go on. Express our respect for the victims, with quiet rallies, go on going out to protest. Let the wounded heal and recover and rise up from their beds as patients in a better health system! Let the soldiers on discharge find a better higher education system. And a better Israel for all citizens. Continue! Continue!
Tamar Aviyah: We undertake to continue the protest even if military action starts. Protests throughout the country.
Avi Hevroni: Finally, we will have to learn to go on demonstrating even after such events. There is no choice. It cannot be stopped. This may sound insensitive but it's not. There is no other way you can keep this issue alive in a country where there is no certainty of tranquility and security.
Avishai E. Edenburg: Now is perhaps the most crucial moment for this movement. We all had this cynical thought that we would fold everything down and go home like good children, when security issues come to the fore. No. We will not fold down, not until our needs are seriously addressed.
Shlomo Ohana: Friends, let's have a moment of silence for the Housing Protest. It was nice while it lasted, but now it's over.
Bikosh Bik: Well, Shlomo, speak for yourself. If you feel OK with the situation as it is, good for you... But you can't decide for others what is good for them and what they will do or not do.
Eshkar Eldan Cohen: Continue the protest, full steam ahead! What happened today is a tragedy for the families of those killed and wounded. But it also a tragedy when men and women die from illness because of difficulty in purchasing drugs, or when people's health is damaged because they could not buy proper food, and when disabled people lack what they urgently need, and when people are discharged from hospital prematurely due to shortage of beds in rehabilitation, and when children go to school when their parents could not afford to buy textbooks, when people die because there were no beds free in Intensive Care – all these are tragedies. The military and government failure in their role to defend the border leads to tragedy. Also their failure to take care of daily needs. So the protest must go on, for those who manage to survive and want to go on living.
Meir Ben-Or: Mr. Prime Minister: After the attack in the south, probably you will probably send out call-up orders also to the leftists who live in tents and eat sushi, just as you will send them the rightists and the settlers. You will send us into action in Gaza which would probably be followed by overall war, and who knows where it would end. I just ask you, Mr. Netanyahu, for one small favor. Just remember us who will go away to fight for you and for Sarah and for all your distinguished colleagues, and to eat dust (instead of sushi). Of course, if we do not come back from this war, then all bets are off and you are exempt from all obligations...
Ashkar Alden Cohen: Do not go to this delirious war. You do not have to!
Neora Barak: Do not stop the protest in any situation. We are not indifferent. We are consistent and determined, we have patience and we will see who blinks! Human pain and identification with the families of the victims does not mean giving up the momentum already created. We must not create a dangerous precedent of stopping the demand for social justice. Like it did not contradict the demand for release of Gilead Shalit. Suddenly the government sent a negotiator to Egypt to get him. That was only because the protests put some pepper up their ass. We should not give up, there is a silent majority looking up with hope at this protest. Do not forget this!
Elad Shechter: The government wants protest forgotten. They asked the Jerusalem encampment to cancel the demonstrations (which shows how much the government thinks only of its own interests). So it is important to manifest our presence and show that with all the sorrow and the pain, citizens are struggling also to live in a better country!
Not only does the protest not divide the people ~ it unites them for the first time in decades. The tents strengthen us against enemies from outside as well as inside. There is no contradiction between defending the country and improving it: before '48 we were able to struggle to formulate an ideology and therefore there is no reason we can't do it today. This is our War of Independence.
If the protest organizers cancel the scheduled actions, we would go on without them!
Sivan Wolchinsky: That's right! In Kiryat Shmona there will be a march ending with a rally. Certainly one thing does not come at the expense of the other. You have to remember that in the aftermath of such terrorist attacks the state often defaults on its responsibility to provide aid to the wounded, to give them benefits for disability (physical and mental...). Social Security payments could be very hard for them to get, for no justified reason! This is the real test ~ now more than ever, get to the streets!
Charles Arthur James: I would like to propose a "middle of the road" solution. Both mourning and a protest. On Saturday night we will not hold mass demonstrations. Events will take place in tents, circles of study, lighting candles in memory of those killed and writing letters of support to the wounded, holding hands and creating a human chain along Rothschild Boulevard, and more activities like this. In this we will show that we are united in pain, but do not let terrorism destroy our struggle for a better quality of life here.
Eyal Ap: The occupation and the settlements are part of what creates such situations, in which we cannot just go on with "a normal protest" that does not touch upon the conflict. That's why we must demand an end to conflict, demand true security which only peace can give.
Bikosh Bik: Eyal, this is not necessarily .. It is also possible to adopt a protest policy that says that the social and economic situation is no less important than the security situation ... without going into the unresolved debate about the conflict.
Matan Bar: We all feel pain and grieving over the deaths of innocents. Our outcry will be the continuation of the protest, despite all. For us, for the dead, and for the mourners. Another "Cast Lead" operation in Gaza? Again an enshrining of the khaki uniforms? Talking of security and silencing the voices on education, equality, welfare? We grieve for and honor the victims, but we also continue the protest whose hope they also shared. Will not cooperate with the war drive of Bibi ~ Barak ~ Lieberman! We will not run again to kill and die in Gaza under the outworn banner of 'state security'. We will walk in silence at the rally Saturday night, we will remember the dead, and will continue to press our demands upon the ministers and the prime minister!
The protest organizers announce:
We march in silence ~ the pain of all, the protest of all
On Saturday, August 20 at 9:00 pm, we all march together with the entire Israeli people, from Habima Square to the Charles Clore Garden. It would be a peaceful march with torches and candles, designed to remind the Prime Minister that even in these difficult times, he is still responsible for welfare and health just as he is responsible for security. When the march gets to its destination in the Charles Clore Garden on the Tel Aviv coast, we will all sit on the grass in wide circles or intimate discussion, talk, discuss, argue and sing ~ everything quietly, in silent respect for and solidarity with the victims of the criminal terrorist attacks.
This is the pain of all; this is the protest of all of us.
Quietly, but firmly. Because the people which demonstrates is the same people which is hit by the fire of our enemies. And their determined demand for a deep change in the order of economic priorities and for comprehensive social justice does not at all come at the expense of fighting terrorism - on the contrary. A people whose members are responsible for each other, struggle together for the future and strength of the State of Israel, are a strong people who can stand up to all their enemies.
Together with in the circles, honoring us with their presence will be the best of Israel's artists, their voice devoid of the help of microphones, their guitars not connected to any amplifier. They will sing with us in pain and hope, for all of us have no other country ~ except the State of Israel.
Millie Duluoz: There is no such thing as a silent protest.
Ori Milstein: That's exactly what they want. Be quiet. We're good kids. God forbid that we should demand defense budget cuts. A silent protest is an oxymoron. Like was said here before, there is no need to apologize, no need to reduce our force. I'm personally going to cry out when I get there. Otherwise it will simply be surrender, a nail in the protest's coffin. If they manage to silence us now, what would happen if riots break out in September?
Hila V Goldstein: Dear firebrands! People were killed today. In the South there is a kind of war. A silent protest is the best now.
Bar Hefetz: It should not be silent and not be in Tel Aviv, it's time to express social solidarity, go the Gaza border communities and cry out that we're not afraid, not afraid of Hamas, and also not afraid of this evil government which is just trying to scare us and silence us. No, don't be silent!
David Bochris: We undertake to continue the protest even if military operations begin. Protest all over the country!
Ido Daniel: TV stopped talking about the incident and broadcast a miserable program on cooking..... And the football games have a moment of silence and the players put on a black band to honor the dead, and then go on playing... Power is in the continuity, must show that we are continuing!
Gil Orlev: I understand all who are angry that it is to be a silent rally (why quiet? One terrorist attack. Life goes on, including all the junk programs on TV). I want to say on record that I much more sympathize with you than with the other side to the debate. Yet we must not ignore all the people who feel uncomfortable with a shouting rally when such things happen. Do not argue with feelings. There are situations where it is impossible to please everybody. I think the organizers deserve credit for trying to think of everybody and find a creative solution. There is room for two voices. We have a silent auction, demanding peace and social justice.
Einat Doz'ovni: I have the experience of a quiet walk with only 200 people, which had a mesmerizing intensity. There is no need to shout in order to be heard.
Star Rajuan: I live in Gan Yavne, I was woken up twice this night by the sound of sirens. I try to keep optimistic also under air raid alarms, I hope you do too. We will continue to cry out ~ loudly or silently, each in their own way. To demand both justice and peace.
Peace will mean that fewer people would be killed. And justice will mean that fewer people will die because they do not have money for medications, treatments or food.
* Adam Keller is an Israeli peace activist who was among the founders of Gush Shalom, of which he is a spokesperson.
