Regime change has arrived in Israel

I wanted to believe that all the mass protests would have some kind of effect. But flicking away criticism is exactly what this government is skilled at. It's the whole point.

***Regime change in Israel***

Well, we've arrived. We are here. It's happening. The laws aimed at turning Israel into a dictatorship are going through. One after another, the laws are passing -- even the one with a historic 26,000 objections that the guys in the Knesset three days to read through. One after another they are passing into law.

I don't think that there is any really turning back from this anymore. The forces of power, aggression, greed, and violence have officially taken over, embarked on a final battle of destruction. And they are deliberately putting measures into place that will make it difficult if not impossible to undo these changes. On purpose. They are preparing for the next stage, when someone else may be PM, and it will be impossible to restore democracy. That is happening, right now.

Watching what is going on in the Knesset is like watching a slow motion beheading, one drop of blood at a time, each one incredulous.... till the entire body is broken, beyond repair.

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And I'm asking myself: How did all this start?

Because the process that got us here didn't start yesterday, or even with this government. The process of the power-grab-at-all-cost started gradually. It was reinforced with culture, the language, the everyday grass-roots aggression and force. The practices of silencing criticism and disempowering minorities -- this has been in our culture for a very long time.

It became legitimized when people in charge began using these verbal-cultural tactics not only on the everyday level but also on the systemic, governmental level, to destroy their enemies and critics and keep them away from locations of actual power.

We saw this very clearly in Trump America. Trump was incredibly adept at using toxic discourse to train tens of millions of people in how to twist truths in order to hurt and stymie others. He would say a crazy-making lie from his platforms, and millions would repeat it. His troops ALSO became adept at everyday toxicity.

In Israel, too, we have had a similar process, in which the Bibi says a crazy-making thing and his followers copy -- adopting his gaslighting tactics to twist truths. He spent years or decades forming armies of loyalists willing to engage in everyday toxicity.

We see examples of this every day. Just yesterday, as Bibi was complaining about the fact that air force reservists are striking -- and what he said was, "THAT is the end of democracy!" His attack was mind-numbing in its absurdity, but that is what he has become the master of throughout his career. He twists facts and realities, he flings back any criticism (exactly like trump), and turns his critics into enemies of the state.

Bibi Netanyahu, the Great Debater — the Great Gaslighter

And now, all these Knesset members in his coalition -- many of whom are as toxic or even more toxic than Bibi, like Simcha Rothman, Yarin Levin, Tali Gotlib and Almog Cohen -- they are all very comfortable in their posts and have been well-trained in how not to be moved by any kind of criticism. They are masters of flicking off an entire protest movement with flick of the tongue. And now they re in power. They are able to use their powerful perches in ways that match the rhetoric. That's where we are.
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This is a Rwanda lesson, by the way. It reminds me of the genocide museum in Rwanda -- which has a huge section on the Holocaust, by the way, and which was inspired by the Holocaust. In this museum they trace very clearly how the civil was was planted by rhetoric decades before. It looked to the world like one day a bunch of Rwandans woke up and started massacring their neighbors and friends. But in reality, the seeds for this were planted by certain politicians and members of the media who used all kinds of words, like "vermin", to turn certain citizens into enemies of the state. It happened over years if not decade. But that's where it ended.

From toxic rhetoric to toxic politics to violence.

We don't have to look far. Ben Gvir's police have already given us ample evidence of violence against protesters. We know where this is headed.

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I have to admit, I'm feeling very depressed about this today. Very. A few months ago, I really thought that the protests were working. I saw things like international pressures, the hi-tech protest, the intense energies everywhere -- and i thought, things are moving, something is changing. Something. I really, really, thought the protests were moving something.... After all, it's very, very hard to comprehend a reality in which ALL OF THIS is happening, all these voices of protest are crying out -- and his has absolutely no impact on the people in charge. That in itself is such an intensely toxic dynamic that it's almost incomprehensible.

But of course, that kind of complete dismissal of the other is precisely the core of the entire regime change that we are witnessing. The WHOLE PURPOSE of this is to create a government that has zero obligation to listen to any kind of minority voice. I should have understood. None of this matters. None of this has any effect. Hundreds of thousands of protesters don't matter. They have the majority votes, they have the police, soon they will have the supreme court. What else does a leader need in order to completely stifle opposition?

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But I also have some other deeply troubling thoughts running through my brain. And they have to do with how far back these toxic tactics go. The Zionism that I grew up on was Bibi's Zionism. Back when he was the revered UN ambassador and would get up and have all kinds of debates about why Israel was right and everyone else was wrong. He's been doing this for 50 years -- and look where it got him! And I can't help wonder how all of this has contributed to Israel's political and military culture, and what Zionism means in the world today.

I was trained in this, in how to do a Bibi. Totally trained. First in high school with Yotav's class in Zionism where the class was entirely designed like debate prep. We weren't learning ACTUAL history. We were learning how to talk back to anyone who criticized Israel. Anyone who said Israel did something wrong was being anti-semitic. Palestinians were all lying.....

My Zionist training continued in college with AIPAC activism, and turning all those lines into forceful disprovings of Palestinian narratives.

The height came when, for a brief time, I worked for NGO Monitor as a content writer. My entire job description was to find articles or quotes by Palestinians and prove that they were lying. My. Entire. Job. One day, I walked into a staff meeting and said, "Why can't we let Palestinians have their narratives?" Silence. I was out shortly thereafter.

That last experience was life-changing for me. As if for the first time in my life I realized that I had ALSO been a soldier in this machine, trained in systemic gaslighting. And little by little, I had to peel back the layers and the language and find the truth for myself.

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And so I'm looking at today's Israel, with "Bibi the Great Debater" as Prime Minister, and knowing that actually he is "Bibi the Great Gaslighter". And how much of this has contributed to what Israel is today. How much of our political system and our cultural system is all about stifling any criticism and looking away when another is saying, "YOU ARE HURTING ME." How much of that has been given to us as training since, like forever -- since Israel came into existence.

These are the deeply troubling thoughts running through my brain today. Where I'm asking myself -- as a Jewish woman who once deeply identified with Zionism, who has lived in Israel for 30 years, raised my kids here, built a home and a life -- I'm asking myself, is this what Israel is? Is this perhaps what we have always been? Have we always been building a culture whose goal is to look away as the other person cries out in pain? Is that perhaps what we have been building up to all along?

I don't like the answers that are coming up for me here. I'm sure many of you have different perspectives. Happy to hear yours.

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