As the insanity in Israel continues, women are protesting by..... SINGING

Every day -- no, every hour -- brings us new levels of craziness in Israel. Yesterday, things got really out of hand with a singing war an a segregated bus. Yeah, I know....

Once again, it is nearly impossible to keep up with the daily dose of outrageousness in Israel. Nevertheless, I bring you a few snippets.

Closing down Tel Aviv for Bibi’s lightrail photo-op

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu closed down Tel Aviv for nine hours because he wants a photo-op with the new Tel Aviv lightrail that is opening tomorrow. Bibi wants to make sure that no protesters photobomb his shot. So, yeah, nine hours of people not being able to get in and out of the city. Here is a video of a storeowner in Jaffa trying to get the police to give him a timeline of when he will able to get in to his supermarket storehouse. (Answer from the police office: I don’t give a shit. Translation mine.)

By the way, this story obscures a different issue with the lightrail, which is that even though the previous Transport Ministry Merav Michaeli had promised that this lightrail would operate on Shabbat to accomodate the non-Shabbat observant Israeli majority, that promise has been rescinded by this government with its radical-religious stakeholders. Israel is often an impossible place to function for people who are not religious or not Jewish and have no way to get around on weekends. The lightrail could have been a solution for some people in some areas, but even that this radical-religious-rightwing government is not going to allow.

All the while trying to erase protest in order to protect the image of King Bibi.

The segregated bus battle heats up

The sheer number of girls and women being told to get off the bus, get to the back of the bus, or cover up on the bus is growing every day. Just this week, we have had a busdriver forcing a group of teenage girls to sit in the back of his bus and cover up, a haredi woman publicly advocating for gender-segregated preschool playgrounds, a religious female MK from the Blue and White party, Tehila Friedman, advocating for gender segregated nature trails, and a whole series of stories about women being forced to the back of the bus by both passengers and busdrivers. One busdriver refused to speak to females getting onto the bus. Although there are calls to fire these busdrivers, that hasn’t happened yet.

Girls sent to the back of the bus and given blankets to cover up — btw it was 40 degrees Celsius outside. The boys who got on the bus with them sat in the front and wore whatever they wanted. The busdriver said, “You’re in a Jewish state. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-13/ty-article/.premium/israeli-public-bus-driver-tells-girls-to-cover-up-sit-in-back-youre-in-a-jewish-state/00000189-ef29-db6f-a1e9-efbf9a9c0000

It is important to understand that the issue of forced gender segregation by religious passengers on buses did not start today or even with this government. It has been going on for at least 30 years. I know this because (a) in 1994 when my now-30-year-old daughter was a baby sleeping on my shoulder, I was forced to the back of a bus by Bar Ilan university. So that was already a thing. And (b) I wrote a book about all this, The War on Women in Israel (Sourcebooks 2014), in which I researched the entire history of this awful phenomenon and chronicled the rise and expansion the misogynistic radical religious sects who want to turn all of Israel into a gender-segregated space. If you want a quick explanation of why gender segregation in Israel’s public spaces is not PROTECTION for women but an act of EXCLUSION of women, take a look at this essay I wrote about this point earlier this year.

Astoungingly, this is all happening DESPITE the fact that it is illegal. After a series of Supreme Court petitions since around 2011 when there was a large protest against these practices and they became illegal — rulings that make busdrivers who fail to protect their passengers liable with fines of around a month’s salary — these practice were kept at bay for what felt like a few years.

And then this radical-religious government came in and empowered all of these radical religious forces who, very seriously, hate women. Hate the presence of women in their world. The presence of women’s bodies. Of women’s voices. Of women’s faces. Of women’s photos. Of women’s skin. Of women’s ideas. Of women’s aspirations and desires and wants. All of that is now the enemy of a large swath of the Israeli public that has an enormous amount of governmental power.

That’s not all.

Of the 141 anti-democratic bills on the table right now to promote religious, anti-democratic governance, a few are aimed at women. For example, Aryeh Deri put forth a bill that would send women to prison for up to seven years for dressing in shorts at the Western Wall.

Even though the bill has possibly been put aside (for now), the fact that these declarations are made in the public sphere empowers religious misogyny and the punishing of women and girls deemed disobedient.

Moreover, the law doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Legally, girls who experience discrimination can sue for 120,000 NIS (~$30,000). And in theory, bus drivers can lose their jobs. But none of that is having much of an impact.

That is genuinely scary.

New Women’s Bus Patrol

This week, a new women’s protest movement formed: The Women’s Bus Patrol. Within a day, it had a few thousand women signing up to ride the buslines where these incidences have been taking place, and to sit in the front. (Full disclosure, I immediately signed up, but I haven’t done the patrol yet….but thankfully there is no shortage of volunteers. You can join the group here.)

A red-shirted woman from the newly formed women’s bus patrol stands in the front of a bus in which women were sent to the back. She is smiing broadly while the men around her look away.

Women from the group have been reporting on their experiences protecting spaces on the bus for women. This is potentially a very powerful moment, and has had some unexpected reactions.

In one incident, the women were forced to the back of the bus, but decided to use it as an opportunity to engage with female haredi passengers. It was a moment of dialogue.

The women in the back were talking to each other — until the haredi men in the front found out. That is when the haredi men started singing very loud, in order to make sure that the haredi women would not be able to engage with those protesting women.

So the women protesters responded in a very logical way: They started to sing, too! They sang songs about peace… (Well, of course they did.)

And that’s when all hell broke loose. Click below to see the Ynet video of haredi men frantically trying to cover their ears or jump off the bus in case, God forbid, they migh hear women singing.

A haredi man desperately covering his ears because women are singing in the back of the bus.

My hunch is that this entire situation is going to continue to get worse before it gets better.

Oh, and this whole story made the front page of today’s New York Times, with the face of Women Building an Alternative protest leader Mor Zer Katzenstein right there, red shirt and megaphone and all.

Other, more invisible topics: Palestinians

Believe it or not, there is so much more going on with this terrifying government and its ardent followers, much of it is far from the headlines and is often hard to keep track of.

One of the most important “invisible” issues to keep track of is what is happening to Palestinians on a daily basis. Here are three stories from just this week that were not reported on at all in the Israeli media:

Kossami Omar al Wallaji, 16, and Muhammed Rabahi Najum, 25, of Akbat Jabber were riding on a motorbike, unarmed, when they were shot and killed by Israeli forces, for unknown reasons, posthumously dubbed “terrorists”. Najum worked as a lifeguard for a few years at the swimming pool on Kibbutz Kliya.

Halil Sarur of Na’alin was supposed to get married this week. The night before his wedding, Israeli forces came in to his home and turned it upside down. Like that. Whatever their reasons were, whatever they were looking for, we will never know, because the people whose houses get invaded at any time and in any way have zero legal rights and protections. These home invasions happen on a daily basis, are part of the regular terror that Palestians fear because the IDF can come and go as they please in people’s homes with no oversight, and there is no media coverage or critical assessment of these practices in the entire Israeli government/army apparatus.

Same thing with house demolitions, indefinite detentions with no charges, and unwarranted arrests at checkpoints. All of this is happening to Palestinians on a daily basis, in even greater intensity and less oversight with this government, and no end in sight. Just a reminder that all this is still happening while the protest movement screams about democracy. Just to remember that for many people, Israel has never been a democracy. And we should not be looking away.

One guy who is remarkably persistent in posting about these events is Meir Baruchin, who I follow regularly. He posts in Hebrew, relentlessly, and I highly recommend following him.

I also recommend watching Breaking the Silence, important truth-tellers whose voice needs to be amplified. See below for one of their videos.

More to come.