A Cautionary Tale or ‘How Our Country was Saved’

Let me tell you the story of how we nearly lost our country.

It all began when we let the same people rule us for a full generation. People got used to them and voted for them – mostly because there was not a very good alternative.

What happened was that they got very lazy about governing.

Even though one of the advantages of being in power for a long time is that you can plan ahead, they did not look at the long-term good of the country. Instead, they planned the long-term good of themselves: they developed all the best strategies to stay in power. That is what occupied their time.

They could not imagine that anyone else could be elected – and even when the unthinkable happened and someone else was able to form a coalition, they knew all the political tricks to overturn them.

One of their tactics was to tell the public that the Arab members of this alternative coalition were a threat to the country. They knew it wasn’t true, but they knew that if they said it loudly enough, some swinging voters would believe it.

They were very good at politics.

They allowed their friends to take positions of authority or with status. Most of our country’s diplomats were allies of the government or former ministers and many did not have training in diplomacy. Making someone an ambassador was a good way of retiring someone from the government who was not serving the Prime Minister’s best interests. Our country’s status in the world kept declining and the only answer seemed to be to send the Prime Minister out to make a speech. He was very good at speeches – especially in English.

Still, the public did not notice that things were not right.

There were bigger things on our minds, like terrorist attacks and the threat of Iran.

The Prime Minister was charged with various offences, including receiving gifts that could be bribes, but he said the charges were baseless and many believed him. His supporters thought it was probably OK for him to take gifts; after all, he had been Prime Minister for so long that he probably deserved some extras for his efforts.

So, we continued to pay our taxes and to send our children to the army.

We failed to notice that an increasing percentage of our taxes went to support so-called “ultra Orthodox,” who didn’t contribute. After all, who takes that much notice of the fine-print of the budget? And anyway, much of the money being drained from the tax-payers was done so surreptitiously, funneled through what we thought were legitimate government departments.

And our economy seemed good. Of course, people worked extraordinarily long hours and prices were creeping up – but we managed and thought it was all normal.

The same was true for the army. (In case it is not clear, the same people who do not pay taxes also do not serve in the army. So, keeping an eye on the issue was not part of any coalition deal.)

Many of our children complained about the leadership. They said that the army did not follow its own rules. They said that there seemed to be confusion and contradiction. But we thought it was just teenagers speaking. When members of the public talked about tunnels and other threats, the majority trusted the army to protect us.

And the secret service? We knew it was the best in the world. They would not allow a threat to fester – we were completely confident.

The fact that there was no peace with our neighbours and that the Palestinians still had no independent state was explained alternately by the proposition that there were no partners for peace – everyone just wanted to eliminate us – or that it was just the leadership and you needed to work with the leadership.

The government had a practice of “divide and control”. They did not allow Hamas to rule in the West Bank; they did not give anyone other than Hamas a chance in Gaza. Millions of dollars were channeled to Hamas in Gaza. When the government was warned it was dangerous, they dismissed the claims, knowing that as long as Hamas ruled, their claim that there were not partners for peace could be sustained. It effectively dismissed the peace-movement as irrelevant or even dangerous.

After the alternative government was out-politicked by those used to being in power, there were elections – there were five in four years. The same men as in the past did their deals to form a coalition. What was different this time was that extremists who had, in the past, been considered unsuitable for government, were included. The lack of a trustworthy leadership among the Palestinians, the constant fear-mongering about Iran and the reality of terrorism had had its effect. Voters gave those who promised better security – and by that they were referring only to physical security against enemy attacks – a chance to make us safer. Their seats were necessary to form a stable coalition.

They were not necessarily clever at politics themselves but there were members of the governing party who wanted them there not just for the numbers, but to allow them – the members of the largest party – to proceed with their extreme agenda. You see, all along, this faction had been sitting in the government, pretending to be moderate and waiting for an opportunity to undermine the liberal democracy that gave them power in the first place.

And it all seemed so easy. Without the public noticing, the government surrounded itself with people who would not contradict them. They had the power to appoint a public service that supported their agenda. Only a few were left who would speak up, and they would soon see the wrath of the government when they did.

So, after these elections and the formation of this “pure right-wing” government, the extremists in the government party got to work. They hoped no-one would notice. Sadly for them, when they tried to undermine the legal system, part of the public woke up. Although it was not their habit to do so, the government took some notice of public opinion and slowed down the legislation. But they did not abandon it.

Meanwhile, the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War was approaching. Our government planned all sorts of victory celebrations to remind ourselves how clever and strong we were. It did not occur to them that our enemies, who had hoped that the 1973 war would reverse the victory of 1967, were also planning for the anniversary.

Demonstrations against the government in the streets grew. For a number of years, a small group had drawn attention to the legal charges against the Prime Minister, calling him “crime minister,” but once the threat to the legal system was exposed, they were joined by hundreds of thousands of new protesters. One of the threats of the protesters was to withdraw their national service – not to turn up for military reserve duty if democracy was not upheld.

We entered the High Holy Days divided between those who believed it was fine for the government to pass any laws they wanted and those who believed that rule of law (which requires a strong legal system) and maintenance of balance of powers was more important. You see, we didn’t have a constitution or a bicameral system or local representation – the courts were the only precaution against the government passing laws that contradicted our basic laws or civil rights.

That issue dominated the news, our attention and our energy but there were other, related issues to be tackled, the most important of which was to negotiate a peace-settlement with our Palestinian neighbours. If we ceased to be a democracy, there was little chance that we would pursue peace, so the peace-lobby was very active in the anti-judicial-“reform” movement.

On the Wednesday of Sukkot (Tabernacles) thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women, supported by diplomats, gathered for an uplifting peace rally. Women Wage Peace announced its program for the coming year. The following day, Praying Together in Jerusalem met and had an inspiring session.

Shabbat was October 7th. 1200 people were murdered by Hamas terrorists and 250 more were taken hostage into Gaza.

I don’t need to tell you how awful the war that followed was and that it went on for more than a year-and-a-half.

But we didn’t nearly lose our country because of the war. With all it failings, our army was far too strong for a terrorist organization from Gaza – even when joined by another based in Lebanon and rocket-firing fanatics from Yemen – to overcome us.

We nearly lost our country because while all this was going on, the government which had brought us to this point, did not resign and did not change its ways. While the segment of the population that serves in the army – even those who had threatened not to serve if we ceased being a democracy – fought valiantly, the government used the war as a cover to continue to undermine the economy and the very basis of democracy.

They fought their own war against the public on multiple fronts. Let me explain.

First, keeping the war going once it was obvious that there would be no further significant military gains can only be explained as a tactic for political ends. After weeks, it was clear that the army was not going to succeed in rescuing the hostages. Their actions only endangered them. After months, it was clear that Hamas was not going to be obliterated. If every building in Gaza were razed and every tunnel made useless, there would still be Hamas. It is an ideology that would take years to erase.

Not negotiating for the release of the hostages pacified the extremists who had always said we cannot negotiate with our enemies – begging the question with whom they do think they should negotiate. It kept them in the government (or brought them back when they temporarily left.) This had another positive effect from the government’s perspective: having the public distracted by the campaign to bring the hostages home allowed the government to pass many laws that in normal circumstances would have led to large demonstrations and maybe general strikes.

While nobody noticed, a government minister funneled money that should have gone to the Arab community to settlers and other Jewish causes. Laws were passed that protected settlers accused of violence. Protection for victims of domestic violence were cut. Taxes were added to donations from overseas, disproportionately affecting left-wing organisations.

It was all going well for them – and we were on the way to becoming a dictatorship. But they got too confident and Israelis are not suckers (“freiers”).

First, it was the economy. There was no hiding how bad things had become. They tried to shut down the public broadcaster. That raised concerns. They wanted to fire the last remaining public figures who would criticize them. They proceeded to change the legal system, beginning with politicizing the appointment of judges.

They kept 59 hostages in Gaza.

And they continued to send our children into Gaza to be killed in a war without any clear objectives.

I said I would tell you how we NEARLY lost our country. It was “nearly” because the public rose up. More and more people poured into the streets. The police, who had almost become a private army serving the Minister rather than serving the people, had a change of heart. They realized that these ordinary people were not a threat but a force for good and allowed them to protest. More and more women came to the fore and men and women listened to them. Those who had threatened not to serve in the reserves under a dictatorship felt that the time had arrived.

Gradually, we stopped fighting in Gaza because there was no-one left to fight.

The women who had led the resistance when it was a protest movement ran for the Knesset in the first elections held after the war. Once in power, they quickly called for negotiations for a permanent peace and after a thoughtful, open process made a peace-treaty with Palestinian women, who did not yet have authority but who went back to their public and led a revolution to institute democracy.

Like the treaties with Egypt and Jordan, breaches have been rare. There is still work to do. The Gazans who remember the war have not forgiven us for the destruction but with their revised education system, they are learning not to fear Jews or Israelis but to see them as neighbours.

This is how our country was saved.