It was about the type of democracy Israelis wanted to have. And the relationship between those democratic values and the country’s Jewish identity. And who decided and defined what Jewishness and Judaism was in Israel. It was about whether the old-school pragmatic and secular Zionism which had served as the foundation of Israel’s establishment had finally given way to a more nationalistic and religious form of Zionism. Could the tension between these very different Zionist visions end up tearing Israeli society apart? And if it hadn’t yet, was it not inevitable due to demography?
One thing the protests were not about was about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At an early stage, some of the groups within the broader protest movement tried to make it about ending the occupation as well. The more mainstream elements in the movement’s leadership were less inclined to adding the Palestinian issue to their banners and reckoned that by doing so they would distance many Israelis who would otherwise join them. So they demanded the anti-occupation groups remain on the sidelines and flooded the protests with blue-and-white flags in a bid to reclaim Israeli patriotism from the Netanyahu camp.
People demonstrate outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv over the judicial reform bill, March 30, 2023 (Photo by JACK GUEZ / Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
But in doing so, they were inadvertently buying into a core tenet of the Netanyahu strategy. Because for years the prime minister had argued that the Palestinian issue was a distraction and a rabbit-hole that only obsessives insisted on going into. Israel could preserve the status-quo with the Palestinian Authority controlling semi-autonomous enclaves of the West Bank and Hamas ruling Gaza, and no diplomatic process was needed. Over the years, the Netanyahu strategy worked. International pressure to make concessions to the Palestinian decreased. There were outbreaks of violence in the West Bank and periodic clashes with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, but these could be “contained” and didn’t last long. And meanwhile, some of the Arab states who like Netanyahu viewed Iran as their main threat, would gradually “normalise” their ties with Israel paying no more than lip-service to the Palestinian cause.
Rather than challenging the Netanyahu Strategy, the protest movement focused on the other issues where it looked like they could move the dial. And indeed by the summer, the judicial overhaul seemed to be running out of steam. Only one of its components had been passed by the Knesset and a clear majority of Israelis, as well as some of the coalition’s members, opposed passing further parts.
Netanyahu and his Likud party was already lagging in the polls but he had one shining star on his horizon The attempts by the Biden administration to broker another “normalisation” agreement, this one with the regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seemed eager and in an interview with Fox News in September, openly spoke about such an agreement being just around corner. He had vague promises for the Palestinians as well, but it looked as if those would mainly translate into billions of dollars and a few diplomatic token gestures to the Palestinian Authority.
In the opposition they muttered about “Bibi’s luck” which just as it seemed to have run out, was suddenly being revived by the Saudi opening. A deal with MBS many predicted would boost Netanyahu’s ratings once again and allow him to pivot away from the failed legal reforms. That theory was not be tested in 2023. Instead it would be the Netanyahu Strategy of containing and ignoring the Palestinians, which even many his opponents already conceded had succeeded, which would fail on October7, just days after the MBS interview.
Hamas had been planning for years its devastating surprise attack on the Israeli communities and IDF bases near the border with Gaza. But many analysts and intelligence officers believe that their desire to stymie the Saudi deal - in which they would have been doubly marginalised first when the Palestinian issue was once again sidelined, and second when it would be their rivals in the PA who would receive the Saudi compensation - was one of the key factors in choosing October 7 to carry out the massacre and dramatically change the entire narrative of 2023.
As the year draws to a close, the IDF is well on its way to destroying Hamas’ military capabilities in Gaza. Hamas’s rule of the coastal strip now extends to barely a third of the territory and is being squeezed daily. Whether these key objectives of the war - along with the release of nearly 130 hostages still being held in Gaza - can be achieved remains to be seen in 2024. But when the Hamas leaders in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa the masterminds of the massacre finally meet their overdue deaths in the new year and Hamas plays no part in the day-after solutions for Gaza, they will still have succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on both the Israeli and international agenda.
October 7 meant that Israel had to face all its fundamental challenges in 2023. And though the war meant that politics as usual have been suspended and most Israelis put their internal differences firmly aside as the nation mobilised. But it would be an illusion to think and hope that the deep faultlines exposed in Israeli society before the war won’t resurface again once it is over, exacerbated by the deep divisions over the future of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, which they will no longer be able to ignore.
But there is perhaps one glimmer of hope for 2024. In the polls that were conducted in the weeks before a large majority of Israelis, including many who in principle supported legal reform, said they were against continuing its legislation. A similar majority is now both firmly in support of the war in Gaza, while also calling for elections and the replacement of Netanyahu the moment the war is over.
Israelis know they face in 2024 a period of deep reckoning in which they will have to make difficult decisions which will determine the country’s future for a generation or more. But if the polls are to be trusted, they want to find a better way for having that debate without their disagreements being hijacked and exploited by a divisive and discredited lead
