On Wednesday night, I went out to participate in a public protest against the Israeli government’s continue pursuit of judicial reforms that - in my opinion - will erase the country’s already fragile balance of powers.
I have been attending on and off for several weeks and was able to find the time Wednesday between my many personal and professional commitments.
The demonstration was held in a familiar location for those who have participated in past evening protests: between the Balfour Street where the prime minister’s official residence is located and Beit HaNasi, the president’s residence. It is a residential neighborhood, with several narrow streets that connect the two compounds. As in past demonstrations, there was a police presence.
Wednesday’s protest felt different. There had been protests around the country that day, as well as reports that law enforcement used stun grenades and water cannons on the crowds. Compared to previous evening demonstrations, there were fewer families and more young, single people. This may be anecdotal, but I felt that more of the participants weren’t from Jerusalem. More of the streets had been cordoned off to foot traffic, and there was a greater sense of confusion about the accepted route for protestors.
The first hour was a familiar format. Several speeches by notable figures, followed by a steady march from Balfour Street to Beit HaNasi. Upon the president’s residence, the crowd stopped, sang and demonstrated against the government’s policies, and then started to return back to Balfour Street.
When the crowds began to turn back, they discovered the the street they used had been blocked off by police and border guard. Protestors gathered in front of the makeshift barricade, continuing to chant slogans but also trying to communicate with law enforcement why the route was now closed.
It didn’t take long for things to escalate. Several protestors tried to push through or hop over the barricade. At first the police didn’t know what to do. Several dozen protestors started moving beyond the barricade back towards Balfour Street. But then the police responded, corralling those who broke through and reinforcing the barricade. There were violent scuffles. Nothing like what happened in Tel Aviv earlier that day, but as an observer it was clear that a minority in both camps - the protestors and the police - wanted to assert their dominance over the other. Fortunately the situation deescalated and the protest eventually died down.
I wanted to share this experience with you because so much of the information we consume nowadays is being filtered by the algorithms on our devices. And as Israel descends deeper into this period of instability, where every other day delivers a new, dizzying series of headlines, it is more important than ever to differentiate between what is known and what is speculative.
Just read this paragraph in Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz’s weekly column:
There are the weekly protests (and sometimes more) that are bringing hundreds of thousands of Israelis out to the streets screaming against what they perceive as the end of democracy; there are the images from the Knesset of MKs jumping on tables and being pulled by ushers out of committee rooms; there are the terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of 14 Israelis in just one month; the settler pogrom in Huwara; the weakening of the shekel; the hike in the interest rate; the tech executives who are pulling money out of Israel, and more.
A few organized thoughts of my own.
This is a constitutional crisis. It started in 2018 and has persisted over the course of multiple elections. It is about Netanyahu’s legitimacy as prime minister, but it also about the fragmentation and polarization of Israeli politics, the deterioration of common norms, and distrust in public institutions and elected officials.
I have no pity for Netanyahu. Like Ehud Olmert, he could have stepped down from politics a very wealthy man and fought his legal battles outside of the political arena. His decision to remain in politics reflects both a hubris that only he can lead the country as well as a paranoia that without expanded executive powers he won’t be able to beat the legal system. In the process he has alienated the moderates in his social and political circle and emboldened the radicals in Israeli society and politics.
But I also worry that the opposition’s greatest strength is only in opposing Netanyahu’s policies and lacks the capacity to create an alternative vision for how the country should be governed or to build bridges across the aisle in order to reimagine a post-Netanyahu political coalition. This was part of Naftali Bennett’s struggle - he was able to bring just enough parliamentarians around the table to block Netanyahu, but failed to maintain enough cohesion to govern.
If nations are socially-constructed communities, then a constitution represents those fundamental principles and values that determine that entity’s character and ensure its continuity. The idea of judicial reform isn’t such a terrible thing - Israel’s political system is in dire need of reform in many areas - but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the balance of powers or national unity. The government’s furious push towards reform threatens both, deepening the existing divisions within Israeli society, making compromise less feasible, and damaging public trust. So regardless of whether the government passes these reforms or not, a Rubicon in Israeli politics is being crossed and it may require a generation’s worth of effort to address the fundamental issues that this crisis has exposed.
Perspective matters. I was speaking to a friend this week about my experience at the protests. They were as frustrated as I was with the government’s decisions, but haven’t attended any of the demonstrations. I knew the reason why but they decided to explain anyway: “Where were all of these protestors when the government passed the Nation-State Law (in 2018)? Where were they when the government decided that Jews were more equal than non-Jews?” I don’t think this is a minority opinion. Depending on one’s perspective, Israel’s democratic principles were compromised at different points. There is a reason why Arab-Israelis/Palestinian citizens of Israel and Arab parties have not participated in the protests.
Appreciating their historical narrative, their current grievances, and their hopes for a better tomorrow complicates the path forward - but it is also key to building that common tomorrow.
In a democracy, everyone’s voice should matter.
I’ve committed myself to choosing only three pieces. I encourage you to read them, and more, to educate yourself on what has been taking place in Israel.
Ruth Margalit’s profile, “Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of Chaos” in The New Yorker.
Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany have been co-authoring a number of insightful pieces on the constitutional crisis for Lawfare Blog. You can read all of their pieces here or check out their most recent publication, “The Current State of Play in Israel’s Constitutional Showdown.”
Ksenia Svetlova, “The Leaderless Protest Movement in Israel,” in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.
I hope you find this edition’s content engaging. Please feel free share this newsletter with others.
-Gabi