Israelis surprised me

After understanding their highly passive and much too tolerant sentiments towards the occupation, I’ll admit, I thought that all empathy and caring were lost from their hearts. Maybe that’s true for the most part, but after weeks of tens of thousands taking to the streets with their quirky and sarcastic signs that they’re holding up, I developed some positive feelings towards Israelis, even though most of the time I do still wonder how can they be so ignorant and clueless.

Maybe I’m childish, maybe I do only think in black and white, right or wrong. However, I cannot truthfully say that Israelis don’t care deeply about anything. 

Because they do indeed, and by now we’ve all learned that lesson. They are absolutely capable of protesting things they don’t agree with. Yes, maybe there are things I think we should all protest, as I mentioned above, but unfortunately, I have learned recently that there is no such thing as collective morals. 

There isn’t anything one considers wrong that everyone else around them considers wrong as well. There may be small, closed communities that have accepted a shared list of morals by which they all behave, but there isn’t anything that everyone in the world can agree on. 

But now, 130,000 people came together to object to something they all agree on. I guarantee you, those people protesting weren’t all leftists. Some were centrists and right-wingers. They probably don’t agree on most policy issues, but on one thing they do; there’s an old guy, living in the prime minister’s office, who has stayed well past his bedtime. Jailtime, if you will. There were probably people protesting that think he’s done good things for the country as well, and at the same time, on the same square, chanting the same slogans there were people who think that he’s the devil, a fascist dictator who belongs to prison. 

Finally, The People found something to share, an opinion they don’t have to be afraid to convey. As I learned in civics class, the topic of a constitution was a troubling one after the establishment of the state. Lawmakers couldn’t agree on what to include and exclude. So after they’ve put it on hold so many times, they decided to work their way to a constitution, one Basic Law after another. After they agreed to one resolution, they moved on to the next law. 

Knesset representatives worked hard to build consensus, which is what the ones they are representing have to do too. 

Agree. And then argue. And then agree, and argue and argue, and then, in the end, we’ll have a stable basis to lay the grounds of a country on. 

The Israeli people went out to the streets and yelled. Marched and screamed. They demonstrated their ideas, ideals, and ideology. They surprised me, and many others. They still have momentum. We still have momentum. So we cannot stop now. Bibi is not prepared for nationwide resistance, so let’s not give him time to prepare. The time to strike is now.