If we're being honest for a minute, none of us – Left or Right, Bnei Brak or Tel Aviv, settler or kibbutznik, young or old – should be surprised. There may have been a few minutes of shock, a period of "how did this happen to us again" and "what has become of us" but deep down inside we should admit we saw it coming – the political violence.
It's been around for a while, ugly and menacing. With a canister of lighter fluid in one hand and a match ready in the other, between the demonstrations, the shouts in the squares, the interviews and borderline comments on social media. And we must stop it before it burns everything around us.
In fact, the burning has begun, in allegedly small and isolated events, which during the surreal sequence of events that throws Israel into a whirlpool of elections and pandemic only get temporary attention, until the next spectacle.
Once it's a comic who is beaten, once a woman who wears a headscarf spat on by youngsters, and other times it's pepper spray on demonstrators, some of them kids, whose only crime was to think differently. Fights and physical blows have also happened, journalists have been attacked, or others who have been rescued by police are no longer a rarity. They are all signs on a road leading to a great catastrophe, the repercussions and damages of which are hard to evaluate or define.
The stage might be ready and the gun in the current act of our lives is already loaded ahead of the horrible act that will follow the shot, but there's one way to try and stop it. A strong response, ostracization from the camp and being put on trial in response to any show of violence, verbal or physical. "Violence erodes the basis of Israeli democracy. It must be denounced, condemned and isolated," said Yitzhak Rabin minutes before his murder. Those who operate along this line of violence that shouldn't be crossed is drilling a hole in our boat, and must be thrown overboard. The system as well needs to act more forcefully; freedom of expression is sacred, but just as sacred is the duty to investigate and judge those who harm or threaten to harm others, and fantasize of throwing Molotov cocktails or killing this "traitor" or that.
This is not a call for unity or reconciliation. The current discourse in Israel is turbulent, and it is the essence of democracy to shift the potential for violence to a level of passionate debate and discussion. No one is being asked to love thy brother, even if that would be nice, and there's no requirement to feel empathy or affection for your political rival. But there must be a concrete border that cannot be crossed.
The blaming, as well, of the rival camp and attempts to label it as violent is unhelpful. It is stupid and mostly reeks of an effort to ensure a false integrity, and achieve political gains from an act that by any calculation will cause massive loss for all of us. If the urge is uncontrollable, we can combine the two, continue insulting the other side and simultaneously look inwards critically, which could melt the feelings of justice and show that extremists exist in both camps. If that's still hard for you, it's worth remembering it will hurt a lot less than the next murder.
