Will Americans Take a Page Out of the Israeli Protest Movement's Book?
Since his inauguration in January, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has made good on its campaign promises at a breakneck pace.
In just two months, he and his adviser Elon Musk have gutted the U.S. civil service and international aid programs, and deported hundreds of immigrants – including ones with legal status in America – to a Salvadorian prison.
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Additionally, they have rolled back protections for LGBTQ people, cracked down on international students who protested against the Gaza war, demanded that schools end their diversity and inclusion programs, presented massive tariffs on international trading partners, and a slew of other actions.
For Israelis who are hearing about these assaults on civil rights, the rule of law and American democracy, it raises a simple question: Why aren't the streets on fire?
Activists demonstrating near the U.S. Capitol in Washington last week. Political activism can serve as a coping mechanism for setbacks; disengagement can also be a response.Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images via AFP
Protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government began in January 2023, mere days after Justice Minister Yariv Levin presented the governing coalition's plan to overhaul the judiciary. Weekly demonstrations became a part of the routine and traffic pattern in major cities, with some 100,000 people gathered each Saturday night at Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street to chant, start bonfires and demand that the government roll back its plans to defang the courts.
According to police estimates, between 6 and 7 million Israelis participated in these protests between January and September 2023. This is no small feat for a country with a population of less than 10 million.
But aside from campus protests against the Gaza war – and the deportations of their comrades in the pro-Palestine demonstrations – there have been few rumblings in the United States.
Protesters demonstrating at a "Hands Off!" protest against the Trump administration last week in Los Angeles.Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images via AFP
There have also been small, regular protests at Tesla dealerships, where they express their anger and dismay toward Musk and his actions within the administration via picketing the company. Most of these actions are peaceful and composed, but the government has vowed to crack down on those who vandalize the cars.
But Saturday was the first major mobilization. A broad coalition of over 150 organizations, including the ACLU, the Women's March, Planned Parenthood, MoveOn, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Women Voters, Greenpeace and the Workers Circle, came together to host about 1,300 protests around the country under the banner "Hands Off!" According to the organizers, millions attended.
"Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights – enabled by Congress every step of the way," the event's webpage reads.
"They want to strip America for parts – shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid – all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won't be anything left to save."
Campaigners during a protest near the U.S. Capitol in Washington last week.Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images via AFP
One 55-year-old woman, a writer and editor from Asbury Park, New Jersey, spoke to Haaretz about attending the "Hands Off!" protest in the nearby town of Red Bank. She said over 2,000 people attended despite the rain and cold.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, described the event as "relaxed, friendly and nonviolent" for both the protesters and the police. From what she's seen of the other "Hands Off!" protests, the mood was positive. "What I saw on Saturday was music and chanting and a lot of laughing, and it felt joyful," she added.
Many Americans prefer a different arena: the court of law. There's this attitude that problems will sort themselves out in the court. They think they don't need to go out and protest. In the end, the system, the laws, won't let them do it.
Eli Cook
Since the election, she's gotten involved with Indivisible, a nationwide anti-Trump movement with over a million members. They've taken action locally, meeting with their congressmen and showing support for elected officials who have opposed the president. Saturday's protest was their first major demonstration, she said – something the group was gradually working toward.
"One of the founders describes it as building the muscle so that when it's time to demonstrate, you aren't out there with too few people, without a cohesive message, without a unified opposition in the Senate. We didn't rush right into the streets; we sort of worked toward it," she said.
"I can't really speak about Israel, but I think that you folks over there have that muscle honed, and that's why it might have felt easier to speak out and get to the streets immediately: you already knew how to do it quickly. I think we needed more work to get to that point."
Disengagement as a coping mechanism
The first Trump term saw large-scale displays of dissent from the outset. In 2017, hundreds of thousands of women (and their allies) marched on Washington after the inauguration, with hundreds of thousands more taking to the streets in local protests under the Women's March banner. The demonstration, which highlighted Trump's statements about women, threats to abortion access, LGBTQ+ policies and more, became an annual event.
In 2020, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer spurred unrest. The Black Lives Matter movement, which had been active long before the killing, organized protests in thousands of U.S. cities. According to polls, between 15 and 26 million people participated in these demonstrations, making it one of the largest protest movements in American history.
Protesters flooded the streets of several major U.S. cities last week to oppose the policies of President Donald Trump, in the largest demonstrations since his return to the White House.Credit: Etienne Laurent/AFP
Matthew Simonson, a senior lecturer in the Political Science Department at Hebrew University, said there have been small protests by people directly affected by Trump's policies during this term, including on college campuses and outside of government offices that are being defunded and shut down.
Until last Saturday, though, "What we have not seen is a widespread mobilization of allies of the people affected by these changes." This contrasts with last year's mass protests against the Gaza war, in which most of the participants were not Palestinian, or the protests in the wake of Floyd's murder, in which most of the participants were not Black. "It's not that no one is protesting, but that these protests have not become a big coalition of supporters."
He said that just as engaging in political activism can be a coping mechanism for political setbacks, so, too, can be disengaging – which is the case for many who voted against Trump.
"There is a sense of futility and demoralization that comes from the fact that people fought against the Trump administration with great enthusiasm and unity from 2016 to 2019 and seemed to have succeeded, at least to the extent that Trump did not get reelected the first time. But then to have him reelected with an even larger percentage of the popular vote – in fact, with a majority this time – I think probably feels like a repudiation of all those efforts."
The first Trump term saw large-scale displays of dissent from the outset. In 2017, hundreds of thousands of women (and their allies) marched on Washington after the inauguration, with hundreds of thousands more taking to the streets in local protests.
The Democratic establishment, he said, is in a similar state. They, too, are shocked and demoralized. "The Democratic leadership seems to be a bit directionless, and I think as they start to get more pushback from their voters, perhaps through town hall meetings, which they've been starting to hold, and through a sense that maybe they really can mobilize support in the midterm elections, we might see them spring into action, or start seeing new leaders emerge who criticize the current Democratic leadership."
With the short-lived victory of the anti-Trump efforts from the first time, as well as the ineffectiveness of the Gaza protests last year, Simonson said he thought "that social movements are at a point where they're questioning their tactics and how effective mass mobilization can be. So there may not be a lot of energy to create big protests if they don't feel like they've been getting results."
In some ways, he said, a wave of disruptive protests can have adverse effects. "We're in a moment of backlash against progressive policies on affirmative action, trans rights and other social justice issues. There's a risk that, much as it might feel good to block highways and have government agencies go on strike to create mass disruption, such actions might worsen the backlash and deepen the polarization that gives President Trump more legitimacy in cracking down."
Anti-Netanyahu protesters blocking a road in Tel Aviv earlier this year.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
When midterms approach, he added, people who have tuned out of politics may find their voice again. But it may look different. "Instead of using it to go to the streets, to shout and hold signs, they might use it to campaign for members of Congress. But we'll have to wait and see, just to figure out where that energy gets directed or if it continues to be dissipated."
Simonson said that Democrats who are dissatisfied with the administration's policies can take some inspiration from an unlikely source: the tea party movement during President Barack Obama's administration. "I would say, pressure your own party's elected officials and try to show them that you are ready to invest and care about this issue," he said. The tea party "helped usher in a more oppositional, conservative Republican majority in Congress," whose influence is felt to this day.
"It may have worsened polarization and made the country more divided. But from the point of view of people who opposed the Obama administration's policies, it certainly seemed to fire up the Republican opposition to his agenda."
The courts need the street
Eli Cook, a senior lecturer in the history department and head of the American Studies Program at the University of Haifa, noted that even though major movements have cropped up in the country over the decades, the United States has never had the major protest culture that other places have.
Instead, many Americans prefer a different arena: the court of law. "There's this attitude that problems will sort themselves out in the court," he said. "They think that they don't need to go out and protest if there are bad people doing bad things. In the end, the system, the laws, won't let them do it."
During his first term, Trump did not challenge the courts when they overturned one of his administration's policies, which Cook cites as a factor that may have kept people from protesting.
This time, Trump and members of his circle have stated that their election victory gives the administration a broad mandate to enact their policies, which has already put them at odds with the courts. Even though a federal judge ordered a halt to the deportations to El Salvador of Venezuelans accused of gang affiliation, White House officials did not stop the flight. Since the order was given orally, they claimed that they did not have to enforce it, and the plane had already departed.
"The questions that we're asking now are: When the courts say no to Trump, how are they going to enforce that? Who is actually going to come and put Trump or one of his people in contempt of court? Who actually has the power to enforce the law?" The decision not to halt the flight, Cook said, "was like a toe in the water – they were testing to see how far they could push this."
In this case, Americans who oppose the administration can take a page from the Israeli protest movement's book. "I definitely think that [American] people don't understand – and I think Israelis do understand this very clearly – that the courts need the street," Cook said. "They need that support. The judges are people too, and they can be pressured too." The same goes for the Department of Justice, the U.S. Marshal's Office, the FBI and other law enforcers, he added. "They need backing. They need support. And maybe if the constitutional crisis gets worse, we'll see that."
The price of protest
One deterrent right now is the increased price of protesting. Cook noted that many pro-Palestinian campus protests in 2024 dissipated because the students feared they would be identified and that it could affect their job prospects. "There was a general chilling effect," he said. Part of this "has to do with what I would call the cynical way in which certain people have taken advantage of the problem of antisemitism in America and used it in order to legitimize Trump and the far right."
Cook pointed to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest last month of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student from Turkey who participated in the pro-Palestinian movement on campus. "If I go and protest against ICE picking up random people off the street," he said, "I might worry that they're going to call me an antisemite. They're going to say that I'm supporting Hamas."
He noted that surveillance capabilities have also changed since Trump's first term. "There are cameras everywhere. You can't just anonymously go to these protests now and not worry that your name is going to end up on some list."
But other countries have much heftier prices for protest. In Israel, elderly citizens have been hit with water cannons. Millions of people have protested in Turkey recently, despite declining civil rights. Gazans are protesting Hamas, even though it might kill them.
Cook responded that, unlike these places, the United States has a very different relationship with the concepts of community and solidarity. "In America, you're taught at a very young age that you have to first and foremost look after number one – yourself," he said. "What you're asking people to do is sacrifice something of themselves for a larger cause. And unfortunately, America has just become such an extreme capitalist, neoliberal society. I think for a lot of people, that's very hard to do."
"Trump, Musk and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights," the Hands Off! webpage reads.Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images via AFP
He added that Americans are generally willing to pay that large cost if there is a large benefit, but "I think Americans, more so than Israelis, don't believe in their ability to change the world around them."
Cook noted that, as an American Israeli, he was initially skeptical of the protest movement in Israel. Netanyahu's coalition got so many votes, he said, that it seemed unstoppable. "But I think a number of times we saw that you can stop it. There is something about mass protests that work."
He added, "It's just something that happens in the air, something that happens in the media, and it gives you a certain energy, a certain power, that is very hard to quantify or to model in a social scientific model that Americans are so fond of, but it's real and it matters."
Trying to protect people
Back in New Jersey, the 55-year-old protester is concerned, both for herself and for the people she cares about. "I feel compelled to speak up, mostly for my friends. I have friends who are of other races. I have friends of other genders. I have friends who work in special education. I have friends who have autistic children – not to mention all of this stuff affects us all," she said.
"But really, what gets me going is trying to protect people, the marginalized." The issue of tariffs, which will financially affect Americans – no matter who they voted for – will likely be a catalyst for others to speak out, she believes.
If she hadn't joined a protest movement, she added, she may have disengaged as well. "I think I probably would sit back and say, 'Well, the government is run by people who know right from wrong, and everything is going to be okay.' But democracy, as we are learning, requires a hand on the wheel, and we are the hand on the wheel."
She wants to remind Americans that "power is distributed across lots of different places, both local and national, and every place in between across our country, and a lot can be done to slow the things that are going wrong, to throw sand in the gears in certain places and to stop what we can."
And in the meantime, they can go to protests and start their own, wherever they may be.
"You can see in the photos and the posts that are coming in across social media: This was literally everywhere, and it will maybe be heartening to people who've been thinking that they're alone in their anger at this administration, so what can they do?" she said. "They've learned in the past few days that that is not true, and that is a big, big deal."