Whenever one seeks to take anti-government protesters seriously, to listen to their plight and their messages, one soon realizes they don't really believe their own gripes.
If you listen carefully to what is being said between the lines, you soon realize that the economic situation, any perceived threat to democracy, the coronavirus crisis – none of these really interests these protesters.
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These undercurrents run deeper than the pandemic and this unrest started long ago, when Benjamin Netanyahu came to power more than a decade ago. The voices of despair, distress, hatred, incitement – even the budding violence – they have been here all along for the last decade. Only the title under which they were expressed has changed.
This week, the protesters simply lost it. Lashing out al everything and everyone they saw as "pro-government" – and not one word about the fact that several of those present at last Saturday's demonstration in Tel Aviv, where turnout reportedly exceeded 10,000 people – have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Health Ministry said this week that this could potentially result in hundreds of new COVID-19 patients, but we won't know exactly how many for a few weeks.
Past waves of protests, even the most emotional and radical ones – like the ones in the early 1980s, against the First Lebanon War – did not go as far as the demonstrations we saw this week.
The fact that dozens of protesters resorted to violence and even tried to breach the fences outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, clashing with the police in the process, should alarm everyone.
Just like with the social justice protests in 2011, and with other demonstrations against the government in recent years, the real cause has clearly been usurped by violent, anarchistic, elements.
Wanted: Leadership
The main problem with the crisis management of the second coronavirus outbreak gripping Israel is that there is none.
If during the first outbreak, when Netanyahu headed the caretaker government, things were clearly under control, the second outbreak – for which an emergency corona government is in place – has shown us things are very much out of control.
What we have now is not a government that is grabbing the crisis by its horns, rather a group of politicians locking horns on everything and waging political battles at the public's expense.
This week, Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz were at it again, with the former accusing the latter of impeding the government's work and leading to the point of having no choice but to impose a nationwide lockdown.
Netanyahu is right. Gantz refuses to heed the recommendation of the Health Ministry and the National Security Council and tighten restrictions on certain industries while infection rates spike.
The problem is, it's hard to believe that Netanyahu cares only about the public's health.
At the heart of the conflict between Netanyahu and Gantz lies murky politics and a profound power struggle over who is will head crisis management efforts.
Gantz, much like his predecessor at the Defense Ministry, insists his office should lead the charge against the pandemic, but Netanyahu will not relinquish the reins. He believes that the prime minister should be in charge of this crisis and not a minister – regardless of his seniority.
Netanyahu doesn't believe Gantz's demand to be in charge is free of ulterior motive, nor does he believe the defense minister – a political novice – would be able to handle a crisis of this magnitude.
This, of course, makes one wonder how a man who supposedly cannot be trusted to handle a national crisis has gotten Netanyahu to agree to a premiership rotation and will be tasked with that – and much more – in 18 months time.
Meanwhile, it seems that over the past week, Netanyahu has gone from being the one warning of elections to the one wary of them.
It seems there is not one political battle he waged this week that he won: from the plan to extend sovereignty to Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley that has all but been shelved, through the failed bill to review judges' potential conflict of interests, and to the attempt to shutter of swimming pools and gyms, which flopped.
Netanyahu, it seems, is not being hammered only by the opposition or Blue and White, but from his own partners in the right-wing bloc.
The prime minister was nearly unable to roll out the next phase of his economic bailout over the objections of longtime ally Shas leader Arhey Deri, and Likud ministers Yuval Steinitz and Ophir Akunis who bickered publicly about how best to vanquish the virus.
The two disagree about the need to impose another nationwide lockdown. Steinitz believes a short-term lockdown is a must if Israel is to stem the spread of COVID-19, while Akunis argued that a lockdown would paralyze the economy. Akunis and Netanyahu eventually clashed on the issue during a Likud faction meeting.
Neither Netanyahu nor Gantz are currently interested in the election, but every day that passes without passing a state budget makes that a viable possibility. Given that the clock is ticking on the 100 days a new government has to pass a budget, Netanyahu is now considering seeking the Knesset's approval to push the vote on the budget until late October, after the High Holidays.
In other words, Netanyahu insists on a one-year budget that will only be valid for two months, while Blue and White demand a two-year budget, as originally agreed upon in the coalition talks.
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If a one-year budget would be best to battle the coronavirus pandemic, then insisting on it would make sense, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Many believe that Netanyahu's position is politically motivated – he is seeking a convenient exit point from the rotation agreement. If he continues to dig in his heels, he will find that it is increasingly difficult to blame this position on the Finance Ministry.
