Interesting Analysis of Current Protests

 The following analysis of the present noise surrounding the governments plan to review the judicial system is interesting. Written by Amit Segal

Three times in the last generation, crowds from the center-left took to the streets in an attempt to change the direction of the country. 

 After (PM) Rabin's murder it was the Candlelight Youth. The spontaneous gatherings turned into an organized movement, which failed to change the path of political history that went to the right. The peace flag was lowered to half-mast, and the left camp collapsed. 

 In 2011, the country was swept by an unusual protest in its scope, which for a moment seemed as if it would bring down the Netanyahu coalition and lead to a change in the agenda. It died within a few months, not before sending two of its leaders to the Knesset, and absurdly because it was too large: the many demonstrators were unable to focus on one message and change the discourse from security to economic and economic-capitalist towards social democracy. 

 The 2023 protest is the most effective so far: the protesters have stopped the legislative train of a fresh and homogeneous government which has just been elected with a clear majority. The flag of democracy succeeds in annexing to it a public that, according to every poll, exceeds half of the people. 

 The elections, despite the frequent polls, are still far away. Even if they had taken place tomorrow, and even if the results had been in line with the predictions, there would not have been a government with the purity of the protesting camp. A protest that has adopted the Israeli flag as its trademark will have difficulty forming a government with non-Zionist Arab parties. A protest which focuses on equal burden and recruitment for all will pay a heavy price if you base yourself on parties whose voters have never mobilized, not because of evasion but because of opposition on a national basis. 

 It is possible to try to establish another shaky coalition, which will follow the path of its predecessor, the Lapid-Bennett government. So what's going on here? 

 Here are two more unusual phenomena that will lead us to the answer. One is that while the opposition is getting stronger according to every poll by 13 to 18 seats and hundreds of thousands of right-wing supporters are moving to the center, the main opposition party is NOT only NOT getting stronger, but is getting significantly weaker in the polls.

The other phenomenon: the support for changes in the judicial system - admittedly limited, and in conversation - remains cross-campus in all polls. There are moments, which can only be noticed in retrospect, when a controversial issue enters into a consensus: capitalism in the 1990s (prior to which Israel was much more socialist), opposition to withdrawals (from the “territories”) in the last decade, LGBT rights in recent years. There was a debate, and here it is no more. 

 A year or two will pass, a government or two, but there WILL be changes in the judicial system and they won't even be in the headlines. Netanyahu and Lapid are stepping back precisely because the protest is successful: the public that decides the fate of Israel is the center-right camp. The one that in 2021 transferred its votes to Saar and Bennett and overthrew Netanyahu, and a year later fed up with the government with Meretz and Ra’am (Arab party) and gave 64 mandates to the right. 

 The fall of the right does not absolutely mean the rise of the left, but of a political movement called "the third way" a quarter of a century ago. The phenomenon of the last generation was the collapse of Labor and the center-left parties that grew on its ruins - the most prominent of which is Yesh Atid. 

 The phenomenon of the current generation, which began with (former MK) Kahlon, is center-right parties that will grow at the expense of the Likud. At the moment it is Gantz who enjoys these votes, but it is better not to take a mortgage based on this theoretical gain just yet. 

 These are half a million voters, supporters of changes in the judicial system but in consultation, those who seek Judaism but not ultra-Orthodox, supporters of a heavy security hand and not threats on the radio. Their line is a center-right government that relies on 75 mandates from Religious Zionism (party) to (MK) Gantz, without buying support of anyone but at the nominal, not exorbitant, price: no finance minister with seven mandates, no prime minister with six, no national agenda set by two (currently 16% of the parliament) ultra-Orthodox parties. Currently there is a lot of noise which mainly confuses the supporters of the government.