To fully understand the nature of the protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we have to define two terms: “First Israel” and “Second Israel.”
“First Israel” is an exclusive club that gives its members privileges and makes it very hard for outsiders to join. It began as a fraternity of people associated with Mapai, the party that was dominant in the early statehood years and governed through centralized policies.
According to one sociologist, that group can be loosely described as Ashkenazi, secular, older, and socialist Israelis. Over the years, the club has lost its relative strength and has had to offer membership to others, but only admits members if they pay the bouncer exorbitant membership fees.
A young Sephardi Israeli outside the main cities who wants to pursue an academic career; a national-religious woman who wants to join the State Attorney’s Office; the son of parents who were part of the right-wing pre-state militias who wants to join theater productions – all these people know that in order to join the club, you have to turn your back on the places you grew up, embrace enlightenment values as defined by the club’s managers, and use the right terminology.
On top of that, one must attack Netanyahu and the Likud and show disdain for the settlers and the charedim.
The club’s power lies in the fact that even after being out of power for almost all of the past 40 years, the power-centers in Israel continue to be at their disposal through unelected means.
The right may win election after election, but only recently has it actually internalized the importance of controlling committees and apparatuses that run the government bureaucracy and the judiciary – which have been gradually chipping away at the political institutions.
Over the past several years, the right has made a quantum leap on a perceptual level. The right-wing media outlets, social media, and NGOs have managed to break the left’s hold on the flow of information and its control of the national agenda. Its fight against judicial overreach has become one of the main rallying cries of right-wing voters.
“Second Israel” has begun to fight for its political rights and, for the first time, may breach the walls of the exclusive club and actually enter the power centers that the old guard has long considered to be its own.
“First Israel” is in panic.
The protests currently being held by the left are not designed to protect democracy from some dangerous right-wing assault, but rather the exact opposite: They are designed to preserve the privileges of First Israel. They are not fighting for democratic values, but for the exclusive perks of the oligarchs. And if a period of anarchy is the price to pay, so be it.
We are at the height of a battle that will determine whether Second Israel manages to enter the gates of power or First Israel manages to deny them the limited powers that they already enjoy – and turn them into Third Israel.
If the right doesn’t wake up, the left may very well succeed. That’s what’s at stake.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.