They demanded higher wages, less cramped quarters, better food. Theyassembled on the lower decks and refused to budge from there.
A few old hands from the engine room tried to extend the scope of theprotest. They claimed that the captain was grossly incompetent, that theofficers were nincompoops and that the voyage was bound to end indisaster.
But the leaders of the protest resisted. “Let’s not go beyond our practicaldemands,” they said. “The course of the ship is none of our business.Whatever some of us may think about the captain and the officers on thebridge, we must not mix matters. That would only split the protest.”
The passengers did not interfere. Many of them sympathized with theprotest, but did not want to get involved.
It is said that one drunken English lady was standing on deck, a glass ofwhisky in her hand, when she saw the huge iceberg looming. “I asked forsome ice,” she murmured, “but this is ridiculous!”
FOR A WEEK, or so, all the Israeli media were riveted to the goings on atthe UN.
Ehud Barak had warned of a “tsunami”. Avigdor Lieberman foresawa “bloodbath”. The army was prepared for huge demonstrations that werecertain to end in unprecedented violence. No one could think of anythingelse.
And then, overnight, the bloody tsunami faded like a mirage, and the socialprotest reappeared. State of war Out, welfare state In.
Why? The commission appointed by Binyamin Netanyahu to examine theroots of the protest and propose reforms had finished its work in recordtime and laid a thick volume of proposals on the table. All very good ones.Free education from the age of 3, higher taxes for the very rich, moremoney for housing, and so on.
All very nice, but far short of what the protesters had demanded. Thealmost half a million demonstrators some weeks ago did not go out intothe streets for that. Economics professors attacked, other economicsprofessors defended. A lively debate ensued.
This can go on for a few days. But then something is bound to happen– perhaps a border incident, or a settlers’ pogrom against a Palestinianvillage, or a pro-Palestinian resolution at the UN – and the whole mediapack will veer around, forget about the reforms and return to the good oldscares.
In the meantime, the military budget will serve as a bone of contention.The government commission has proposed reducing this budget by 3billion shekels – less than a billion dollars – in order to finance its modestreforms. Netanyahu has voiced agreement.
No one took this very seriously. The slightest incident will enable the armyto demand a special budget, and instead of the suggested tiny reduction,there will be another big increase.
But the army has already raised hell – quite literally – describing thedisasters that will surely befall us if the diabolical reduction is not chokedin its cradle. We face defeat in the next war, many soldiers will be killed, thefuture investigation committee will blame the present ministers. They arealready shaking in their shoes.
ALL THIS goes to show how quickly national attention can swingfrom “protest mode” to “security mode”. One day we are shaking our fistsin the street, the next we are manning the national ramparts, resolved tosell our lives dearly.
This could lead to the idea that the two problems are really one, andcan only be solved together. But this conclusion meets with resoluteresistance.
The young leaders of the protest insist that the demand for reform unitesall Israelis – male and female, young and old, leftist and rightist, religiousand secular, Jew and Arab, Ashkenazi and Oriental. Therein lies its power.The moment the question of national policy comes up, the movement willbreak apart. End of protest.
Difficult to argue with that.
True, even so the rightists accuse the protesters of being leftists in
disguise. Very few national-religious people appear at the demonstrations,and no orthodox at all. Oriental Jews, traditional voters for the Likud,are underrepresented, though not altogether absent. People speak of amovement of the “White Tribe” – Jews of European descent.
Still, the movement has succeeded in avoiding an open split. The hundredsof thousands of demonstrators have not been called upon to identifythemselves with any particular political party or creed. The leaders canrightly claim that their tactic – if it is a tactic – has worked up to now.
THIS CONVICTION has been reinforced by recent events in the Labor Party.
This moribund congregation, down in the polls to a mere 7% of the votes,has suddenly sprung to new life. A lively primary election for the partyleadership has restored some color to its cheeks. In a surprise victory,Shelly Yacimovich has been elected party chairwoman.
Shelly (I dislike these long foreign surnames) was in the past an assertive,abrasive radio journalist with very pronounced feminist and social-democratic views. Six years ago she joined Labor and was elected to theKnesset under the wing of Amir Peretz, the then leader, who she has nowsoundly beaten.
In the Knesset, Shelly has distinguished herself as a diligent and relentlessmilitant on social issues. She is a girlish-looking 51, a lone she-wolf,disliked by her colleagues, devoid of charisma, not at all the hail-fellow-well-met type. Yet the party rank and file, perhaps out of sheer desperation,preferred her to the members of the bankrupt old guard. The atmosphere inthe country produced by the social protest movement certainly contributedto her success.
In all her years in the Knesset, she has not mentioned any of the nationalproblems – war and peace, occupation, settlements. She has concentratedexclusively on social issues. On the eve of the primary, she shocked manymembers of her party by publicly embracing the settlers. “The settlementsare no sins or crimes,” she asserted, they were put there by Labor Partygovernments and are a part of the national consensus.
Shelly may really believe this or she may consider it good tactics – thefact is that she has adopted the same line as the protest movement: thatsocial affairs should be separated from “national” affairs. Seems you canbe rightist on the occupation and leftist on taxing the rich.
BUT CAN YOU?
On the morrow of the Labor primaries, something amazing happened. In arespected opinion poll, Labor rose from 8 to 22 Knesset seats, overtakingTzipi Livni’s Kadima, which sank from 28 to 18.
A revolution? Not quite. All the new Labor votes came from Kadima. But amove from Kadima to Labor, while interesting in itself”, is not important.The Knesset is divided into two blocs – the nationalist-religious and thecenter-left-Arab. As long as the rightist bloc has a 5% edge, there will be nochange. To effect change, enough voters must jump from one side of thescales to the other.
Shelly believes that by shunning national issues and concentrating onsocial matters, voters can be moved to make the jump. Some say: that’sall that counts. What’s the use of putting forward a program of peace, ifyou can’t change the government? Let’s first come to power, by whatevermeans, and than see to peace.
Against this logical argument, there is the contrary contention: that if youstart to embrace the settlers and ignore the occupation, you will end up asa minor partner in a right-wing government, as has happened before. AskShimon Peres. Ask Ehud Barak.
And then there is the moral question: can you really chant “the PeopleDemand Social Justice” and ignore the daily oppression of four millionPalestinians in the occupied territories? When you abandon your principleson the way to power, what are you likely to do with that power?
THE JEWISH High Holidays, which started the day before yesterday,provide a pause for reflection. Politics are at a standstill. The protestleaders promise another huge demonstration, restricted to the socialdemands, in a month’s time.
In the meantime, the Titanic, this beautiful masterpiece of navalarchitecture, is riding the waves.