Police State or Anarchy? Pre-Election Holiday Events and Confrontational Default
Not yet 10:00 a.m. Radio interviewers interrupt their interviewee. The kind of interruption that triggers “terrorist attack” in your mind before hearing the breaking news.
Fly Dubai. Communication terminated. The pilot pressed a trouble button. The hijack trouble button. Details trickled into media reports throughout the day. A would-be crash over the Tel Aviv Azrieli towers. A brave pilot, a child alerting her mother, a few brave Israeli passengers respond, pilots on board.
The co-pilot terrorist, Omani passport, not allowed entry to Israel. Israeli security forces – clueless?
Miracles happen.
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A documentary tracked activists from January 2023 who led the protest movement against the government’s proposed judicial reform. Screenings cancelled throughout Israel. Cinematheques. The Weizmann Institute. My immediate reaction: institutions receiving government funding. Police state?
Full disclosure: ultimately, shown on Israeli television at 11:00 p.m. Concerns not allayed.
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Haaretz story and an op-ed in the UK Jewish News. Young British Jew from Golders Green, London. Yeshiva education. Spends time in Israel. Joins leftist religious activists. Applies his Jewish values to participating in West Bank protective presence, protecting Palestinians from Jewish settler attacks. A young American Jewish woman engaged in similar activity. Both received approval for aliyah applications based on the Law of Return. Until approvals were revoked. Looks as if objections to government policy override the Law of Return. Police state?
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Police officers directing pedestrian traffic. Politely. Rivers of Israelis flow from the Jerusalem municipality light rail station to Jaffa Gate, entering the gate during Hol Hamoed Sukkot.
Stark absence of baigele vendor carts – outside the gate, inside the gate. Carts with elongated, sesame-sprinkled, Arab bagels sold with a spoonful of zaatar wrapped in newspaper to spread over the bread as you pull it apart. Missing.
Is there an explanation other than assuming vendors are deterred knowing there are enough evil, extremist, right-wing religious Jews who would spit on the baigele, or topple the carts?
Horrified that the thought even crosses my mind. But why wouldn’t it? Stories related later that day support the thought.
We headed for our three-hour shift volunteering for a Jewish-founded hotline in the Armenian Quarter. The hotline submits its documentation to the police, showing Jews spitting at the church in desecration, harassing clergy and residents.
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Earlier that day, we joined demonstrators outside the Supreme Court before a hearing determining if Arab parties would be denied participation in the upcoming elections. To sustain a liberal democracy, Arab parties must be included.
The hearing addressed rights of certain individuals to run, too. One of them, former MK Sami Abu-Shehadeh, can attribute much of the controversy to a statement he published on October 8 referring to October 7 as an historic event. Israelis widely interpret that as Hamas support. Suffice it to say the court suggested he withdraw his candidacy, preempting a dangerous precedential ruling. Abu-Shehadeh complied.
A young Likud candidate approached us, microphone on her finger, camera behind her, refusing to comprehend how we fail to see the threat Abu-Shehadeh poses. She posted reels with us, but editing undermined our argument, focused on the broader issue.
When Minister of Finance Smotrich calls for Israel to do to the West Bank what it did to Gaza, and the Prime Minister not so much as reprimands him, there’s no justification for objecting to Abu-Shehadeh’s freedom of expression.
When the government enabled normalization of politicians with Kahanist ideologies, once denied political representation, it placed a cornerstone for a police state – or anarchy.
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Jewish religious extremists planned to celebrate the end of Sukkot, Simhat Torah, dancing with Torah scrolls at the Nova site. Their expression of ultimate victory. Same holiday three years ago. October 7.
Following Haim’s unfiltered reaction when first hearing this, news broadcasts reported objectors saying the same: “Dancing at the Nova site? Like going to dance at Auschwitz.”
Adamant objections came from victims’ families and others. The Jewish National Fund ruled holiday celebrations would not take place at this site operating under its auspices. But that did not prevent the celebration. Anarchy?
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In the morning, Haim reads a headline with new revelations about the Fly Dubai flight. Despite myself, confrontational default kicks in. He can’t finish a sentence without me asking how we can know what is true and what is not I want to hear what he is telling me. It probably doesn’t sound that way. But I can’t let go of incessant skepticism about sources and verity in every crevice of our sociopolitical arena.
If elections save us from a police state, the challenge will be to avoid anarchy.
- Harriet Gimpel – October 3, 2026
