Seth J. Frantzman

Netanyahu won’t be worried about Israel’s coronavirus protests

(Photo: Getty)

The Israeli Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem is located in a leafy neighbourhood of stately villas, many of which date from the era of the British mandate and combine Bauhaus and Arabic architectural styles. Over the last few weeks the neighbourhood has come to resemble more of a protest camp, festooned with a mix of Israeli and black flags and banners calling prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a dictator. Amid the Covid crisis, with Israel suffering a second wave of the virus, the protests are a unique spectacle that could grow into a wider movement.

It is a rare sustained protest against more than ten years of rule by the same man, during a historic period of relative calm and economic growth in Israeli history. Netanyahu is Israel’s political master, surviving three elections over the last year and a half by doggedly clinging to power, despite a corruption trial that began this year and numerous political enemies on the far-left and far-right. He survives because he has maneuverered all his rivals to either rely on him in coalition governments, or he has side-lined them to make the appear as part of the fringe so that he can dominate the centre.

The protesters who have gathered over the last week are largely leaderless. They appear more like the kinds of outpouring of frustration and anger we have seen in the US during the Black Lives Matter protests and the subsequent riots in Portland against the Trump administration. The mingling crowds, some playing music and others fighting police water cannons, also feel like the kinds of protests that have rocked France, Chile, Hong Kong, combining youth anger with elements of the left and other forces. It’s a complex mix. Israelis were a bit shocked that one of the protesters climbed atop a giant manorah near Israel’s parliament and took off her shirt.

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Written by
Seth J. Frantzman

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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