The discourse last night at the demonstrations, especially between parents and their children, served as further evidence of the chasm that is increasingly opening between the various parts that make up Israeli society.
The children who arrived in Jerusalem, or went to the bridges in Gush Dan, will no longer find anything in common with the children of Almog Cohen, Simcha Rothman or Tali Gottlieb.
The parents who dictate a daily schedule to their children, however independent and critical they may be, mold them into a certain way of thinking and way of life.
Whoever thinks that in less than ten years these children will enlist in the IDF and forget what has been happening here in the last few days, is telling himself a Cinderella story with a happy ending.
Thousands in a demonstration in front of the Knesset building // Photo: Yoni Rikner
In reality, the gaps in Israeli society are widening every day.
It was enough to listen to the conversations in which phrases such as "there is a chance that we will not know our country anymore" or "we will always have Tel Aviv", to understand that if things do not move to calm soon, each side will hermetically lock in their positions.
Despite the attempt to characterize the protesters in recent days (as "Ashkenazim", "rich", "Tel Avivites" and the like), it seems that every such attempt is made mainly for headlines, or as a tool for political confrontation.
If you are still looking for the one who is absent from these demonstrations, then it is the Arab population, which currently keeps its feet away from the demonstrations as if it lives in another country, and as if it doesn't really care about what is happening here.
It's true that its representatives in the parliament are being rude as usual, but does an entire population really not think that what is happening here is critical for them as well?
Most of the public is indifferent
Yesterday's demonstration in Jerusalem did not reach any desired catharsis, with the exception of the fact that those who got a seat on the train back to the Hafcem district, felt as if they had won a lottery ticket, given the dangerous crowding in the carriages.
The majority of the Israeli public may be indifferent to the protests, but in the end even those who chose to go to work or send their children to school, feel what is happening in this country: the traffic jams, the rising prices and the talk in the coffee shops.
The gaps are growing.
Demonstrators in the form of "A Handmaid's Tale", photo: E.P
torch.
Hoping for calm, photo: AFP
The recent demonstrations also urge those whose lives consist of the pursuit of livelihood and watching reality TV, to take a stand here or there, and above all to be interested in what is happening around them.
Indifference is of course possible, certainly in the era we live in, which encourages separation and zero movement in space, but in the end it is precisely those who are sitting quietly now that cause concern, in view of the lack of care.
The right-wing people who were walking around the demonstration area in Jerusalem insisted on pointing out, once again, that in the end it was barely 100 thousand people who came in the middle of the week to demonstrate in front of the Knesset.
However, in no situation did these arguments flare up into a situation of violence.
Despite this, the relative silence cannot hide the fact that beneath the surface, the gaps between the two sides of the barrier in Israeli society are growing, and the chance for dialogue is diminishing.
After everyone got off at the train station and scattered through the streets with Israeli flags, some of them received comments from passers-by.
Others actually tweeted their support.
The differences between Tel Aviv, which was still barely trying to maintain a normal working day, and Jerusalem, which was finally enslaved to demonstrations, were felt for a moment.
The news broadcasts announcing another terrorist attack in the tough city they had just left reminded everyone that we are still in the Middle East after all.
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