"Go to jail!" "Out of power!" Paris Square, a crossroads of avenues in the center of Jerusalem, has become the breakwater for all protests by Israeli civil society to demand the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted for fraud and bribery. Each one carries their own banner. For more than two months, thousands of citizens from all over the country have attended a kermesprotest organized outside the political parties against a prime minister who has been in power for more than three decades. Without leaders, nor slogans nor speeches, in the vicinity of the official residence of the head of the Government emerges in a more festive atmosphere than of confrontation a rebellion of the Jewish secular middle class, fed up with being fed up with Netanyahu,
On Saturday night, the Plaza de Paris was a space of creativity in grim Jerusalem, with musical performances, dances, and theatrical and artistic performances. It resembled a gazebo in cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. In fact, a majority of the 20,000 protesters came from the coastal economic and cultural capital. "I don't know if all this will help Israel change, but we are already changing," explained Ravid Shomit (last name figurative, at his request), a 25-year-old graphic designer based precisely in Tel Aviv. Along with his friends - tattoos, black T-shirts, piercings - all newly graduated reservists trying to make their way through life after prolonged Israeli military service, he derisively embodied the description of "anarchist" with which Netanyahu dismisses all protesters. .
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- Protests in Jerusalem
Young people have come out of apathy to join a protest in Israel for the first time since the social movement of the indignant, which in 2011 occupied a central Tel Aviv boulevard with tents, emulating Cairo's Tahrir Square or the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. But the participants in the rally were full of mature citizens. Sadi Ben Shitrit, 56, turned into an unofficial spokesperson - "we don't have bosses, the parties don't influence us," he said - from the Crime Minister group, ended up being forcibly evacuated by agents of the Border Police (militarized body) to end of the night. “We will not move from here until the rogue prime minister leaves. Every day we will be more ”, asserted this mechanical worker from Kibbutz Gat, in southern Israel.
Crime Minister is one of the civil society groups leading the weekly protest at the end of the Sabbath, the Jewish holiday, in the vicinity of the prime minister's official residence, on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. Another of the most significant is Black Flag, which calls protests at roundabouts, bridges and crossroads throughout the country, in the wake of the revolt of the French Yellow Vests. Assigned to this protest movement, Assaf Romano, 56, has come to Jerusalem from Upper Galilee. “I don't know if Netanyahu will hear us at his house. It is clear that we are not the anarchists and radicals you are talking about. Here are only the people of Israel ”, warned this renowned painter. "I'm seeing works of artistic expression everywhere," he added with satisfaction.
Nurit Niv, 43, was walking through the Paris square with her seven-year-old daughter after having overcome the barriers established by hundreds of policemen from all Israeli bodies, including the militarized one. It has come from Beit Shemesh, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. "We are not afraid. I know that last week they sent the water cannons against the protesters and there were dozens of detainees. I don't see the danger, at least for now ... ”, assured this special education teacher, who is not active in any party. Her husband is marked in civil society with the refusenik mark : he refused to perform military service in the occupied Palestinian territories. On Saturday night, the security forces strictly followed the new instructions from the prosecution and allowed unauthorized marches. Only 16 arrests were made in the most massive concentration since the start of the protests. And also the most peaceful.
Nor is Smadar Lahav Elenstein, a 60-year-old financial services employee in Jerusalem who commands the Mothers Wall platoon. "We stand between the young, who are our children, and the police, who also have a mother, so that there is no violence," he explained smiling. Her two sons - 26 and 24 years old - attend the march every week. "I have also come to demand the resignation of Bibi, but I want it to be in peace," says Smadar.
Another Israel, less conservative and stressed, is shown in the Paris square. But it is not the country as a whole. They are not the voters of the Likud (Netanyahu's party), nor the ultra-Orthodox (only a handful of Hasidis were seen on Saturday in the square with particular requests), nor the Arabs of Palestinian descent with Israeli nationality, who represent 20% of the population. Protected by bodyguards, ex-Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, a former Netanyahu squire and now a leader of the centrist opposition, wandered without attracting attention.
The surreal atmosphere was dominated by a gigantic flag of the United Arab Emirates, the first Gulf country to normalize its diplomatic relations with Israel. Slogans have been incorporated into the dominant slogan of Netanyahu's resignation against the government's management of the pandemic, which has gotten out of control in Israel, or the economic crisis after confinement, which has left a quarter of a society accustomed to the full without work. job. Others call for an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories, or to be able to travel to the grave of a rabbi in Ukraine, or simply the extinction of capitalism.
“It cannot be compared to the massive protests in Belarus. The protesters [in Paris Square] are not going to overthrow Netanyahu, ”argues analyst Anshel Pfeffer in the Haaretz pages . "But this widespread and sustained protest may already have had consequences, forcing the prime minister to abandon his idea of bringing the elections forward [they would have been the fourth in less than two years]," concludes Pfeffer, also a biographer of the Likud leader.
A new protest is stirring up the discontent of the middle classes in Israel. Carlos Lewenhoff, 73, has traveled from Tel Aviv to see for himself. “This is not the traditional left,” pointed out this retired journalist, who immigrated to Israel from Uruguay half a century ago. "Here is the center-left, a certain progressive opposition united by the common denominator of the rejection of Bibi [by the family nickname of Netanyahu]," he reflected aloud at the epicenter of the demonstrations. "And decidedly, it looks much more like Tel Aviv than Jerusalem," he acknowledged with a knowing wink. The young designer Ravid summed it up loudly at the beginning of a night of screaming, dancing and noise, a lot of noise: "We have to do something so that this country does not go to hell."
