Free the hostages. Hold elections. Share the burdens of war.
Protesters are filling Israel’s streets. Again.
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Among the ingredients that successful protest movements need are unity and clarity. Huge pro-democracy demonstrations in Israel last year had that. Six months into the war in Gaza, the ranks of Israeli protesters are growing. But their agenda is overflowing.
But Israelis are dealing with so many issues simultaneously that the protesters – many of whom demonstrated last year to protect Israel’s democracy – don’t know what to shout loudest.
Before the war in Gaza, demonstrators had the “very concrete target” of preventing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from implementing his proposals to overhaul the judiciary, explains Professor Tamar Hermann at the Israel Democracy Institute.
But at demonstrations since the war began, she says, almost 80 different minor groups are calling for a variety of things, including Mr. Netanyahu’s ouster and the formulation of a day-after-the-war plan. The “overarching principle,” she says, is dissatisfaction with the government.
Still, this lack of focus, even guilt about demonstrating when soldiers are dying, is sapping the protests’ energy, participants say.
“We’re juggling so many balls; it’s hard to keep track of all of them,” says Uriel Abulof, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University. “What we are seeing … is a deep fatigue, because we have been doing so much for such a long time. Many people are, simply put, tired.”
At the intersection of Tel Aviv’s Kaplan and Begin streets, some demonstrators were putting up posters that called for immediate elections.
Thousands of others, wrapped in Israeli flags or beating drums, listened to a speaker urging the military conscription of the nation’s ultra-Orthodox religious population to share the burden of war.
From a few hundred yards away, one could hear the anguished and angry cries of “Deal now!” by the families of hostages seized by Hamas one horrible day in October, demanding the government negotiate their release.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused on
Among the ingredients that successful protest movements need are unity and clarity. Huge pro-democracy demonstrations in Israel last year had that. Six months into the war in Gaza, the ranks of Israeli protesters are growing. But their agenda is overflowing.
The two demonstrations eventually merged, as the political rally joined up with that of the families.
Once the protesters got home that Saturday night, they watched on their TV screens the surreal unfolding and interception of Iran’s missile-and-drone barrage. On Sunday, everyone was back at work and in coffee shops.
Israelis currently are dealing with so many issues simultaneously that protesters, among them many of the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets last year against the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul, don’t really know what to shout about loudest.
Before the war in Gaza, demonstrators had the “very concrete target” of saving democracy by preventing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from implementing his reforms, explains Professor Tamar Hermann, a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
But at demonstrations since the war began, protesters – generally older people – are from almost 80 different minor groups calling for a variety of things, including Mr. Netanyahu’s ouster and the formulation of a day-after-the-war plan.
The “overarching principle,” Professor Hermann says, is that of dissatisfaction with the current government.
Fatigue, focus, guilt
But the lack of focus, an immense tiredness, and even guilt about holding political rallies when soldiers are dying for the country are sapping the protests’ energy and participation, attendees say.
“We’re juggling so many balls; it’s hard to keep track of all of them,” says Uriel Abulof, an associate professor of political science at Tel Aviv University. “What we are seeing … is an ongoing and growing exhaustion, a deep fatigue, because we have been doing so much for such a long time. Many people are, simply put, tired.”
From January 2023, Israel was roiling with protests against the proposed judicial overhaul, which detractors said would weaken the nation’s democratic checks and balances. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets on Saturday nights, in Tel Aviv and other cities.
The protests peaked in March that year, after Mr. Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who called for dialogue and a pause in legislation that he said was endangering state security. Some 400,000 citizens and a general strike brought the country to a standstill.
Mr. Netanyahu blinked; Mr. Gallant was reinstated.
Then on Oct. 7, a stunned nation was thrust into mourning, and war against Hamas. The protests stopped in a show of unity, and many demonstrators were called up to fight.
The protest movement pivoted, mobilizing its network to set up an army of volunteers who fed, equipped, and transported soldiers; provided hot meals and clothing for evacuees from front-line communities; worked abandoned farms; and stepped in where state institutions failed.
“Sense of frustration”
Some two months into the war, however, anti-government protests resumed and have been gaining momentum since. Considering the scope of the government’s and army’s failure to keep citizens safe and to bring many of the hostages home, the demonstrations might be thought surprisingly mild.
South African-born Jonathan Schwartz, a lawyer and grandfather, has taken part in almost all the anti-Netanyahu protests – both before and after the start of the war.
The demonstrations are “totally lacking energy,” he admits. “There is a sense of frustration.”
Mr. Schwartz, whose son, daughter, and nephew were called up for military reserve duty after Oct. 7, says the fact that the war is ongoing is a key factor keeping people at home.
He goes to these rallies because he feels he has “no choice,” he says. “But I don’t think they will succeed.”
Hannah McKay/Reuters
His brother-in-law, Maxie Garb, who used to march alongside Mr. Schwartz in the protests, hasn’t been attending the political rallies since the start of the war.
“I don’t feel comfortable going to political demonstrations while we still have hostages [in Gaza] and soldiers dying in the war,” Mr. Garb says. Demonstrating now will not make a difference, he adds, and the priority should be getting the hostages back. “Once the fighting is over, everybody will come out in force, and there will be very big demonstrations to change the government.”
To have an effective grassroots movement, says Professor Hermann, you need the power of numbers, which is not yet manifest at the recent demonstrations, because people “are focused on getting their life in order” amid the trauma of Oct. 7 and the exhaustion of war.
“People [are] coming back after many days in military service; there are those that were evacuated from their homes; people are focusing on their family, businesses, and their psychological situation,” she says.
The protest “muscle”
Nevertheless, the protests have been gaining momentum. Tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem March 31 at the start of a four-day demonstration, for which protesters and hostages’ families pitched tents.
On April 13, just before the Iranian strike, scores of thousands of people attended rallies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“It’s a muscle you need to stretch again,” says Lee Hoffmann Agiv, field operations manager for Bonot Alternativa. Her women’s rights advocacy group created the stunning displays of women dressed in red “handmaids” attire during protests against the judicial overhaul.
People will come out in full force once the time is right, she says, forecasting that that could happen in May, when the Knesset reconvenes and after the nation marks Memorial Day and Independence Day.
Others, like Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Abulof, think the trigger will be when opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot leave the emergency wartime government.
“I believe we will have two very intensive months,” at the end of which “we’ll have to finish the job, make the government step down, and go to elections,” says Ms. Hoffmann Agiv. “We have no choice; that’s the money time.”