If a foreigner had stumbled upon a demonstration in the Bhima square last night, he would not have understood how they are even talking about a "civil war" or a "coup".
Moreover, throughout the demonstration, it seemed that the intimidation of the media throughout the week reminded the forecasters' predictions about the Israeli winter - coming in short bursts but not really lasting.
The many who came to the square last night did not seek violence, did not try the police and above all asked themselves if this demonstration and the others that are about to come, are really capable of changing the government's decisions.
A demonstration in Tel Aviv, photo: AFP
The average age at the demonstration crossed the thirties, we hardly saw young people and teenagers.
There are of course many explanations for this, but perhaps one of the most prominent ones is the amount of long messages that were heard at the demonstration, which, as usual, was not focused on this side of the political map.
Yes, it was a demonstration centered on "preserving democracy" but also left versus right, complaints to the ultra-Orthodox, LGBT rights and calls for peace and an end to the occupation and Palestinian flags alongside thousands of Israeli flags.
Everything from everything.
Moshe ben Simhon
The young Israelis, a generation most of whom get tired of watching Tiktok videos like read the Karamazov brothers, are used to simplistic and extreme messages like Itamar Ben Gabir's.
We also saw this in the election results, and it seemed that the Israeli left did not draw the conclusions from its failure.
The first demonstration in years
But when you see Merav Michaeli and the Arab members of the Knesset in the demonstrations in the last two weeks, who are no less responsible than Rival Levin for these demonstrations in light of the fact that they were responsible for the overthrow of the previous government, there is no expectation that they will be able to appeal to young people or else they will draw conclusions and bring a different thought than "just not Bibi".
We may be living in an era of threat to Israeli democracy, but the young Israelis are probably worried about other things.
Dozens of policemen prepare for a demonstration in Tel Aviv, photo: no credit
In conversations with people inside the demonstration, just after the usual complaints against the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, one can find voices that agree that the court should be limited, that Aharon Barak controlled the mood here no less than Benjamin Netanyahu, "but it should be done through dialogue."
How it goes with the demonstrations and the hysteria as if we are just before a coup, is another question.
By the way, for many of them this was the first demonstration in years.
Whoever thinks this is a Balfour protest is wrong.
It's bigger than that, the question is if the guys will persevere.
It may be easy for the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, to direct the fire towards the protestors who stood en masse last night in the Tel Aviv winter, but what should worry him more is the wave of violence in the society we live in: the murder of Ali Jarushi is about to transform the streets of Ramla-Lod Jaffa for rivers of blood, every weekend people stab each other here as if it were a hobby and teenagers beat each other from Ramat Aviv C to Be'er Sheva.
The real danger to Israeli society, as of now, is not the protests or the reform that Levin is leading, but the daily violence that we citizens encounter everywhere.
And this is not seen either in the ivory tower of Israeli politics or in the ivory tower of the Israeli justice system.
Here, we found something we all have in common.
were we wrong
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