This is (also) the story of an army that had a state. Along came a government that acted to overturn the orders of the government in the army’s state, whereupon the army rose in protest against the government.
Even in the wake of the spectacular march to Jerusalem, whose likes have never been seen here before, there is no mistaking the protest’s militaristic character, which overshadows its civilian foundations.
This protest has taken on the bright khaki and overly blue hues of the Israel Air Force. Its language is military, most of its leaders are former service members. Refusal to serve is its most effective weapon, and its ultimate goal is to keep the state as it was before.
After it seemed as if Israel had matured and weaned itself from its militarist childhood diseases, its worship of generals and the cult of military service, along came the protest movement and demonstrated that militarism has not waned.
On the contrary, it has reached new heights. There is no better proof than this: When a democratic protest finally emerged, it rests on military underpinnings. It is a military zone, even if it’s not a closed one.
There is no contrast greater than the one between the military – a patently nondemocratic organization – and democracy. That is not to say that there is no democracy with an army, or that an army is necessarily anti-democratic. And yet, is the army democracy’s gatekeeper? Are we like Turkey? Where exactly did our generals learn the rules of democracy, in the army bases? In the casbah of Nablus? In the military tyranny over another people, which has been its chief occupation for decades?
Israel has gone even further. Even the former heads of its secret services are the protectors of its democracy. People whose vocation is abuse, whose routine consists of political detentions and killings, the cruel extortion and exploitation of the weaknesses of large numbers of people, interrogations under torture as well as abductions without any judicial review, are now the framers of the democratic protest.
Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen and Yuval Diskin now stand at the forefront of the struggle for democracy, after heading an organization that employs Stasi tactics in the territories; they are the ones who are explaining to us how precious democracy is.
Listen to the military jargon: the protest movement’s “front” and “headquarters” the “coalition of shirkers” (of Benjamin Netanyahu)”; the protest of the pilots, and the “dramatic” news conference Saturday evening of all the reservists’ organizations in the protest movement. There’s no escaping the career soldiers in its leadership: Ehud Barak and Dan Halutz, “brothers-in-arms” in their brown shirts; other organizations whose identity is a function of its members’ military service as well as the associations and petitions of the veterans of units that are their most important and impressive markers of identity. The entire protest is painted in military colors.
Even the old-new savior who popped up over the weekend, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, is a former general, the commander of Operation Cast Lead and a right-winger. Where did Gallant learn about democracy? In Gaza City’s Zeitoun district, where as head of the army’s Southern Command he was responsible for the killing of 23 members of the Samouni family and for the killing of four women and girls of the al-Aish family?
Perhaps Gallant has changed his spots and is now a democrat in his soul, the Israeli John Locke. But his becoming the hope of the liberal camp tells the entire story. It’s fascinating that most of the protest’s effectiveness stems from its militaristic character. Let the physicians strike, let the business leaders convene, the university lecturers march, the high-tech entrepreneurs and employees threaten and the poets and authors sign petitions.
In the end, it’s the generals who will stop the judicial coup. If that doesn’t illustrate the nature of Israeli society, what would? It is right to salute the protesters, especially after last weekend with its disturbing sights. But one should remember that saluting is also a typical military act.
“I have a son in Hawara, and this is what they’re doing to us,” cried a demonstrator in Tel Aviv this weekend, wrapped in an Israeli flag, in the face of the jets of a police water cannon. He has a son who oppresses Palestinians at the Hawara checkpoint, he’s proud of it, and that’s why he is fighting for democracy.