Exercise in democracy

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On a recent trip to Germany, our peace was disturbed by half a dozen people – mostly white European – banging pots and yelling (in German): “Free Palestine!” In the picturesque town square, people continued to munch on spaghetti and bratwurst, waiting for the noise to end and the street performers to begin singing off-key, old REM songs.

Later that same week, in a different town, an AfD, far right-wing protest trickled down the street, German flags replacing the Palestinian ones. The hijabed ladies in the entrances to the shops ignored them and went on comparing purchases, holding onto the hands of young children.

Both are easy to dismiss – students, an immigrant or two, and older die-hard communists taking up a left-wing cause they barely understand. Underpaid citizens of the former East Germany who’ve been told immigrants are taking their jobs. They are background noise, easy to ignore. “We are not AfD,” says a resident of the second town.

And yet, when the German chancellor begins to hint about recognizing a Palestinian state or giving Israel a slap on the wrist for its excessive use of force in Gaza, it does so with the understanding that both the simplistic slogans on the left and the racist chants on the right represent a larger bloc of voters who want Germany to step back both from blindly supporting Israel and from taking in more non-European refugees.

Here in Israel, protestors are staging a nation-wide strike, blocking main roads and demonstrating on every corner and public square for an end to the war and the release of all hostages. It is clear to the people that the two – a negotiated ceasefire and a hostage-prisoner exchange – must go together. We know the cries of hundreds of thousands are more than loud enough to reach the ears of our government. But they have willfully stuffed their ears with cotton, shuttered their eyes with blue-and-white blinders. We manage to exercise our right to protest, but not our right to be heard.

The difference between Germany and Israel, I fear, is one of democracy. Our government coalition is held together with rubber bands and bits of string; it teeters but never falls. (One day Ben Gvir is in, the next day he’s out. Sa’ar is back in the Likud and the ultraorthodox parties are out, but won’t topple the government.) Despite the shifting shape, their hold on the Knesset is strong enough that they can act as a dictatorship. They wave aside new revelations of corruption, focus on fighting and eviscerating the justice system, firing those who do not fall into line.

We manage to exercise our right to protest, but not our right to be heard

And like dictators who believe in their personal absolute power, or who have burned every one of their bridges, harbors and airports, our leaders are lost in some sort of magical thinking: With an army that has been cut to ribbons, soldiers enraged over deals to let the ultraorthodox get a free pass from the draft, we can now occupy Gaza city. With a population that is traumatized from inhuman amounts of bloodshed and destruction, from hunger and being turned into refugees in their own country, we will now create a new “humanitarian” zone (where we will magically prevent Hamas operatives from entering) and expect them to trust our military. And we’ll do it all without actually agreeing to any sort of real government (or “solution,” how I hate that word) for Gaza. We’ll get them all to agree to uproot their lives and take up new refugee status in Indonesia and Africa. Oh, and if anyone dares suggest, even in jest, we are the ones who might uproot ourselves, instead; we’ll react with the utmost outrage.

Oh yes, and we’ll free hostages without ever agreeing to even talk about ending the war (unless, of course, we can blame Hamas for failed negotiations).

I fear we can no longer pretend we live in a democratic state when over half the country stands up and protests the current state of affairs, when polls show that three quarters support a hostage deal that returns all the hostages – and there is no response on the part of the government. It is telling that the families of hostages have stopped begging to meet with Bibi and other coalition members, and have turned, instead, to America to save their loved ones.

For the time being, the cabinet has no need for mass arrests of those who openly oppose them. Willfully ignoring the will of the majority is working just fine. They’ll top up security for the prime minister, state all the investigations against him and those nearest him are witch hunts and lie to our faces. No worries!

In the meantime, ads on tv invite us to join a new national guard. We should be asking ourselves why we need a new armed force when we have well-armed police, border guards and an army. We should be asking ourselves why the major general appointed by this right-wing government coalition has been disagreeing with their “plan” from day two, but will carry out the occupation of Gaza city when ordered to do so.

In nearly two years of war, we have not freed all the hostages, nor have we eradicated Hamas. In two years of protesting, demonstrating, tying yellow ribbons on every tree and car mirror, we have not managed to budge our government from their apparently single-minded course to keep the war rolling along at all costs, including the lives of hostages and soldiers, as well as innocent Gazans.

Our leaders are behaving undemocratically, but it is not too late to save our democracy. To do that, of course, we must start by refusing to agree to this new offensive on Gaza City and the fascist idea that we can simply clear out the entire population of Gaza. We must move the needle from “Together we’ll win,” to “Together we’ll end the war.” Let’s face it, we cannot “win” until the war is done.