A modest online riot erupted in the middle of the week, when a reserve officer in one of the IDF's special operations units went on air and warned that any progress in enacting "one of the coup laws" would not only set the streets on fire, but would also cause "a huge problem in the reserve systems," and perhaps even in the "permanent formations."
Look at how we've gotten used to lowering our heads in the face of threats. Move them from one ear to another. It is already perfectly natural, in these violent fumes, to declare on the radio that the streets are being "set on fire"; Disruption, paralysis, blockage, vandalism - anything goes. Nor does it generate much hysteria when officers warn, back it up, encourage it, and it doesn't matter if they wrap it up nicely in a verbal stunt of "not showing up" or "not volunteering."
Hundreds of thousands of people protest against legal reform across the country
What's new? Not much - only this time it all happened on IDF Radio, which sparked a small scandal - not necessarily about the content, but about the fact that the soldiers' home provides a platform for the threat of refusal in the IDF. This is indeed ironic and unconscious, but get off the pitchforks. Dont Shot The Messenger. Neither GLC nor Reno Tsror, the presenter of the program in which Major R. was interviewed, are the story here.
Order of silence
The problem is not with those who speak, whether they warn or echo calls for "burning the streets" and political disobedience. The bigger, more fundamental problem is with those who remain silent – more precisely, those who remain silent. This means, of course, those who are in charge, both organizationally and substantively, of the legal and judicial systems in Israel: Attorney General Gali Bahar-Miara and President of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut. Don't they have anything to say about nearly six months of protest that scratched – and occasionally crossed – sensitive boundaries of disturbances, disobedience and calls for refusal? What happened when suddenly public norms of compliance with the law are not in their purview?
Elected officials are persecuted, harassed, forced to use police forces to move from point to point, and call in special forces to escape the crowds marching on their whereabouts – and the judicial system is silent. Guerrillas harass the leaders of the Kohelet Forum and invade their offices, blow up public events on campuses and elsewhere, publicly harass public figures – and the judicial system is silent. Reservist officers and former senior security officials call for refusal of orders, failure to report for service, enlistment in civil disobedience with all that entails – and the judicial system is silent. Roads and intersections are blocked on a weekly basis, sometimes in coordination with the police (thank you very much) and sometimes by surprise, main traffic arteries are confiscated from the public, people get stuck in traffic jams, activists organize to blockade Ben Gurion Airport, start fires on the Ayalon Highway or just jam the intersection for hours - and the justice system is silent.
You can't hear her voice. Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
Within a few months, Israeli protest tools were introduced into the Israeli protest repertoire reserved for extreme situations, including various violations of the law, while dangerously flirting with fumes of violence and calling for confrontation. Methods of operation whose symbolic purpose is the willingness to risk arrest, indictment, conviction – have been completely whitewashed and made transparent. It is suddenly a natural right to silence, block, disrupt and encourage violations of the law. There is no police or judicial authority that would mark this dangerous slide – on the public and normative level – as an unacceptable phenomenon, as a danger in itself to the democratic fabric.
This silence is infuriating, first of all, because it is selective: we remember beautifully how the heads of the system knew how to warn against a dangerous slide down the rule of law and to incite moral panic about "disturbing public order" in previous waves of protests – and the disengagement at their head. This double standard is well known. This silence is especially infuriating when you think about the last time the working souls decided it was time to break the silence. How can we forget Attorney General Bahar-Miara's harsh warnings about the "legislative blitz" at that panic conference at Haifa University? A short time later, President Hayut also spoke up, warning in a scathing speech against "crushing democracy."
Their speeches were the opening shot. Tens of thousands demonstrating against the legal reform, photo: Giti Palti
These speeches were, to a large extent, the opening shot of the protest, and the greatest and most significant provider of legitimacy for its escalation. It is not for nothing that many Miara and Hayut became protest heroines, whose portraits are printed on signs and waved at demonstrations. How can we forget one of the grotesque moments of recent times, when Meretz Party head Zehava Galon, wearing a dress decorated with the faces of the two, walked the catwalk at Tel Aviv Fashion Week?
Can't turn a blind eye
This means that Bahr-Miara and Hayut are well aware, as the cliché goes, of the power of their words – and their silence. They know exactly what their status and public weight are in the political and ideological circles that promote the protest. It is clear to them what kind of tailwind they have given to the demonstrations, and it is clear to them the magnitude of their contribution to imposing the atmosphere of crisis and panic from the end of democracy. They had enormous driving power in their high-profile speeches at the outset – and they have a considerable influence in their silence going forward. Because it turns out that you can speak out loud – and you can be silent even louder. As a result of all this, they cannot turn a blind eye to the legitimacy they give to radicalization in the discourse and methods of protest.
This teaches us something profound about the class commitment of both of them personally, and of the system they head, to the concepts of the rule of law, enforcement of order, and democratic culture. It would be a shame to corrupt words about Ehud Barak or Major R. We need to start talking about those who allow these phenomena to expand without any public, systemic and normative restraint. We need to talk about the spirit of the commander. Or in the present case, on the spirit of the commands.
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