The echoes of drums, the colorful bandannas and naïve street performances outside the Prime Minister's Residence, the words of the police and the mouthpieces of filth of a few bullies who identify as Netanyahu supporters and the hate speech of some of his opponents, the crumbling constructs of normalcy and social media brimming with dirt and scum, bring to mind images from another difficult summer -- the summer of the 2005 disengagement.
Fifteen years have passed. Then, too, there was an enormous rift, a much worse one than today's. Back then, there were also violent fringes who were full of hate. Israeli society was threatening to break down then, too. Democracy was truly about to disintegrate. The government trampled -- it's true, literally -- the rights of the protesters. It hijacked public opinion and ignored the voters. But "all offenses" -- and there were plenty -- were "covered by love," according to Solomon's wisdom in the Book of Proverbs.
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"Love will win," insisted the residents of Gush Katif, who were eventually expelled from their homes. They believed that and sowed their fields until the wee hours of the morning before the expulsion. I saw it with my own eyes. They faced the expressionless soldiers and police who had been trained to distance themselves emotionally from the residents they had been ordered to uproot from their communities and their homes, and served them coffee and cake. Many of the evacuees fell on those who had come to expel them, and broke through the lack of expression with their tears and embraces. But they did not prevent the expulsion. Psychologists at pre-expulsion seminars for IDF and police personnel had not prepared the uprooters for a response like that.
It wasn't a performance. There was something real and pure there that is so lacking on both sides of the current protests. Back then, the slogans were "unconditional love" and "Anything but a war between brothers." Menachem Begin understood that in 1948, when he prevented his fighters from firing back at the IDF soldiers who set the Altalena weapons ship on fire. The political and rabbinical leadership of the anti-disengagement movement in 2005 understood that, too.
In her book Not at Any Price, which was published six years ago, researcher Anat Roth exposes the records of discussions by the leadership at the time, which demonstrated the responsibility that is so lacking today. Zambish (Zeev Hever), who along with Ariel Sharon mapped out the settlements in Judea and Samaria and was one of its main executors, told his comrades: "We can pressure the country, but in the end, we won't break it. We go won't pass the point of no return … we cannot save the Land of Israel at the price of defeating the people of Israel and cutting it into pieces … that's not a victory." Hanan Porat talked about "the heroism of restraint." Rabbi Eliezer Melamed explained that "the struggle is limited, because we have taken on the responsibility of not causing a civil war." Pinchas Wallerstein reminded his friends that "Even if we feel terribly betrayed -- we are also responsible for the people of Israel." Even the so-called "extremist" of the bunch, Rabbi David Dudkevtich of Yitzhar, had clear boundaries: "Because you're my brother, because you're a Jew, I won't harm you, but I'm willing to let you harm me." In Katif, in Kfar Maimon -- where masses hoping to stop the disengagement gathered -- that view was inculcated. It was taught to hundreds of thousands, both before and after.
In Kfar Darom, I saw the 17-year-old son of Lazar Amitai, a local resident and Border Police officer, handing an Israeli flag to his friends who were on the roof of the besieged synagogue. As if he was asking them in his own way: We might be disengaged from here, but our soul is not disengaged from the country. Only a few months later, after the expulsion, Lazer's son and his friends enlisted the same army that expelled them. Many of their parents went on to make other deserts bloom and established new communities. They realized that the national home of the Jewish people, the state of Israel -- even with smaller borders -- was bigger than any wrong and confused government, and that the whole -- the people of Israel -- was greater than the sum of its parts or any disputes between them. They realized that more united us than divided us.
They included Yossi and Tova Hadad, whose home -- like many others in Gush Katif -- took direct mortar hits in the last few years it was standing, and whose daughter Racheli was wounded in a shooting attack on a school bus in Kfar Darom. Hadad comforted his children, his voice trembling: "Gush Etzion fell, too, and for 19 years its children dreamed of returning home. We'll come back here, too." He and his family packed some of their belongings, read Psalms, rent their clothing, and holding on to each other marched past the Kissufim checkpoint, waving the Israeli flag that had flown outside their home for so many years. Like most Gush Katif residents, they didn't lift a finger against the soldiers, or curse them. They accepted the difficult and mistaken decision, like the real mother in the biblical story, understanding that if they did differently, then "Neither I nor you would have it."
The question we should be asking ourselves now is where is the "real mother" of our time? Neither the protesters, who are mostly expressing real distress, nor Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has already been deemed a dictator and compared to Erdogan in Turkey or even Hitler, understand that the division and rifts are bringing us close to a civil war in which there are only losers.
The prime minister, by the very nature of his job, has a greater responsibility than the people who oppose him and he is expected to calm his enraged supporters and remind them of the "heroism of restraint" that prevented a civil war during the disengagement and over the Altalena, as well as deter them from violence against the people who are protesting against him.
The leaders of the completely understandable protests against the economic fallout from the coronavirus, are not exempt, either. They need to make it clear to the public that the government, even if they see it as corrupt, is replaced only in an election, and an election was held for the third time only a few months ago. They need to deter the protesters from street actions that could prompt an attempt on the prime minister's life. They need to realize and admit that no one is trying to take away their democracy. More than that: In comparison to similar and even more intense protests, the police are treating them with kid gloves.
Legal scholar and human rights activist MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh (Blue and White) is convinced that "We'll find a balance between the corona bill and conflicting rights," that the bill not only gives the government extra authority at a time of emergency but also "protects the rights to demonstrate, rule of law, and the courts."
"You are burning barns," she warned her opposition colleagues a few days ago. "Take responsibility," she said. In other words: "Not at any price."
But instead of trying to calm things down and curb the violence, the impression right now is that both camps are waiting with baited breach for a violence event that will serve as the match for a huge conflagration and serve their political interests. This is a twisted expectation, a real moment of darkness, and a reflection of greater loyalty to one's peer groups than to the people of this nation.
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