A farce! Our Prime minister Netanyahu called it. Unfortunately, he was not talking about the scandalous behavior of his government, and his cronies outside of it, in the devastating mishandling of the Corona crisis. Netanyahu was talking about the only thing that is bothering and driving him crazy at the moment, the uprising of the population resulting in many weeks now of weekly demonstrations outside his residence in Balfour Street in Jerusalem.
Because Netanyahu doesn’t care about the uncontrolled spread of the Corona virus in Israel, with the daily number of newly diagnosed infections topping 8,000 with a more than 12% positive rate. Netanyahu doesn’t care about the collapsing economy, with close to a million unemployed and small (and large) business going bankrupt.
Netanyahu cares about one thing only: Netanyahu. The fact that an ever increasing number of people is sick of him and just wants him to go, does not make an impression on him and the demonstrations and the demonstrators have been labelled about everything imaginable, from “Leftists” and “Anarchists”, to “Corona super spreaders” and “Killers of the people”. Netanyahu wants it stopped and he will do anything to make that happen. After many legal (and probably also illegal) means did not yield the desired result, mainly because the Israeli legal system is still holding its ground, Netanyahu is holding on to the last straw, the Corona virus.
While it has been ridiculous and some will say criminally negligent that the management of the Corona crisis is in the hands of (mostly) incompetent politicians instead of the medical and economic experts that should be handling and controlling this crisis, the events leading up to the current lockdown have reached a level of absurdity that nobody would have believed possible.
While the current situation does warrant a serious evaluation of the actions that need to be taken, and a lockdown may be the painful measure that is needed, the discussion in the “Corona Cabinet” did not include the status of hospitals, or the number of patients on Intensive Care Units. There were only two issues under discussion (if you may call the sometimes raucous exchanges a discussion): Prayers in Synagogues and Demonstrations.
With Yom Kippur coming up, it is obvious that the religious sector (and also the many secular Israelis that go to synagogue on Yom Kippur) were concerned as to what will happen when many worshippers will crowd often small synagogues and will not be able to maintain the distance limitations of 2 meters. The religious parties were very clear and threatened to quit the government and cause it to fall, if synagogues are closed. In the end, the other coalition partners relented and some form of compromise was reached that will allow praying in synagogues on Yom Kippur and I guess everybody will pray a special prayer begging for protection against the virus. Not medical, epidemiological arguments were used to reach this compromise and it is in fact in blatant contradiction to the rules regarding congregation of people in groups indoors. But “we are all Jews” I guess, no?
The issue of demonstrations became a much harder nut to crack for the government, mostly because Netanyahu, and the instructions he had given his cronies, did not leave room for compromise, not even one that would in fact violate the rules that are already in place, as was the solution for the synagogues that this government came up with. Netanyahu would not settle for anything less than a complete cessation of the demonstrations, and he used every means to put an end to the only expression of democracy that is still left in this country. Both inside the corona cabinet as well as in the Knesset, the wildest things were thrown about by the likes of Miki Zohar (a loudmouth without much content) but the restrictions on demonstrations did not pass, and only legislation would be able to do so. And when this also failed, the health minister Edelstein (who is a shame on Israeli democracy and who should have been spit out long ago) attempted to pass the restrictions as part of the National Emergency Legislation, which would give the government the power to decide. This however, was too much for most coalition members and the idea was dropped.
But this political haggling is still not over with and Edelstein is expected to continue, after the Yom Kippur Fast, to try and get what his master wants, but one thing is already clear: Israel politics has become almost fully subservient to the almost maniacal demands of one man and the system is close to collapse.
Our only hope left is that the people, in the end, and if possible, a little before the end, will come to their senses. The many weeks of demonstrations have shaken up Netanyahu and more and more people are becoming convinced that fundamental changes are necessary to save this country from itself.
From the activity on social media, the demonstrations will not stop, not if they will be allowed and not if they will be forbidden. It is the clearest sign to give to Netanyahu that his time is up. On Saturday evening, tens of thousands of people were in Jerusalem, and many, many more were on the road, in long noisy strings of cars that arrived in Jerusalem from all over the country while also a significant number of them went to disturb Netanyahu’s peace at his residence in Caesarea.
In the end Netanyahu will realize that he is no longer wanted. Because, he will never admit it, but the demonstrators are by now not just “Leftists” and “Anarchists”. They are you and me.
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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