and led to a (partial) victory of the protest movement
1. The writing was on the wall. The Balfour protest movement was just a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Already prior the elections it was clear that Netanyahu was going to push these legal reforms, and by then, the Balfour protesters had already gained experience and expertise and had learned from their mistakes. They came prepared, and their lead-time was impressively short.
2. There is no one protest bloc. It’s not only pilots or bankers, cyber-techies or psychologists, reservists or anti-corruption activists that we’re seeing on the streets. When there is not one sector that can be delegitimized, it’s almost impossible to break up the movement.
3. The flag. In some sense, the Right has had a monopoly over the flag since the 80’s. In fact it was snatched from the zionist left and appropriated by the Revival (HaTehiya) party, featuring the photograph of the late Yaacov Shabtai. In the first protests, you could still spot some Palestinian flags on the fringes of the radical left, but since then a sea of Israeli flags have drowned them out. Independence day is coming up soon and the flags in the street will inevitably be associated with the protest. What will the supporters of the regime overhaul do? they can’t wave the flag. And if they choose to do so, well, it’s a catch 22.
4. Military generals are anything but anarchists. Or terrorists, or criminals or ‘leftists’ for that matter. That delegitimization worked a few years ago with the New Israel Fund and left-wing NGO’s, when the right-wing deemed them as traitors and backstabbers. But they were few and the propaganda machine was too heavy. Today, not even an army of bots could stifle this mass-movement against Netanyahu and his government.
5. Because of the urgency. A protest movement needs a prime-time, or at least a time-frame, and the urgency leading up to the pending legislation was the best fuel of this protest. Just like a runner-up campaigner has a deadline, so too Yariv Levin, Simcha Rothman and Netanyahu created a clear time-line for the judicial reforms, as if to say; if you don’t move fast, you’ll be overhauled. The declared ‘pause’ on behalf of Netanyahu is meant to dissipate that sense of urgency.
6. Because of strong democratic institutions. Years of weakened bureaucrats got the overhaul supporters thinking that this time too they would face no resistance. But the Attorney General, the courts, senior security officials, senior treasury officials, Governor of the Bank of Israel, the Chairman of the National Trade Union and even Chief of the Israel Police — all of them spoke out. Indeed, Israel’s democracy is under threat, but its democratic institutions are still viable.
7. Because of a good PR strategy. It’s not easy to explain to the public why resistance to a regime overhaul is crucial, but once the protest movement focused its efforts on the not-so-ulterior motives of this overhaul, namely: to appoint favorable judges in order to evade trial; to pass the Incapacitation Law to stay in power; to pass the “Gift Bill” that allows Netanyahu to get “donations” for funding his trial — that’s when the masses of protestors felt they knew what it was about. And on top of that, the campaign led by lawmakers and professors of law across the country, helped the average Joe wrap their head around this crucial moment.
8. Because “they’re not nice”. But not violent either. Golda Meir once said that about the Black Panthers, the Mizrahi activists who fought for social justice in the 70’s. And indeed, the protestors are not polite. They are making this nightmare coalition drink from the poison that they force-fed those who preceded them in power. They’re not polite or friendly, they are neither apologetic and they are not backing down — and it’s working.
9. Because it’s fun. If you’re not protesting, you probably feel left out. The protests have become the weekend outing on Thursday and Saturday nights. Think about (the average) pediatricians, programers, teachers, nurses, and accountants: the most they’ve engaged with politics in their lifetime is through watching the evening news. But now, they’re part of making history.
10. Because he asked for it. Not everything in life is a paraphrase or a metaphor. Sometimes ruthless politicians are truly ruthless. Add to that the extravagant weekends in London and Rome amidst a national crisis; the proposal to extend the prime-ministerial term by another year, for a total of five years; the prohibition of Chametz in hospitals; the “legal” bribing of elected officials and more. All of the above served as real-time examples of what will happen when those people in power will get to appoint judges. It seems as though the Prime Minister is doing all in his power to fuel the claims against him, and so far it's working: the first battlefield was won: it was a decisive victory for the protest movement.