– by Yoav Peck – 12/1/2023

Here is a reflection from Yoav Peck, a Jerusalem organizational psychologist and co-director of community relations at the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum, about the incoming government and the dire political landscape.

Annie Edson Taylor was an American schoolteacher who, on her 63rd birthday in 1901, survived a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She survived, but she died penniless and her funeral was paid for by public donations. As Israel’s incoming government assumes control of things, I wish us a happier story than Annie Taylor’s. Her life after the plunge was a mess. We Israelis will also survive the precipice past which we are plunging today. None of us know what will unfold.

Yet, as the second week of this government draws to a close, we are getting a preview of what we may expect in the coming months. Our justice minister has declared war on the courts, seeking most ominously to enable the Knesset to override Supreme Court decisions, essentially neutering the Court. The minister of security is urging the police to use harsher tactics in controlling anti-government demonstrations. He achieved a knock-out in bringing the often-violent Border Police under his personal control. Evictions and home demolitions are increasing in the occupied West Bank, and every day innocent Palestinians are killed by soldiers who already feel the loosening of the reins that restrain their behavior. 

A coalition MK recently demanded the arrest of opposition leaders, calling them traitors. A new minister who campaigned on his hatred of gay and lesbian alternatives, is taking control of external educational programming that schools bring in to enhance the kinds of learning they cannot provide. The list of freedom-choking legislation and coalition-deals is seemingly endless. And this orchestra is led by a prime minister who is desperately seeking to remove the multiple court cases he personally is confronting. A man whose vision of the future, he once proclaimed, is that “Israel will forever live by the sword.” 

This is only a glimpse at what we are facing in these troubling days.  When we meet colleagues and friends, the discussion is depressing, the grim jokes are about renewing passports and one-way flights abroad. 

And yet there may be a silver lining to the gathering clouds. Many initiatives for combating the oppressive wave are appearing like fresh growth after a rain. Thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government last Saturday, with a spirit we have not seen since we successfully campaigned to remove Netanyahu from office in 2021. International voices, opposed to our new direction, are sounding more strident, with even the pleasant and appeasing ambassador to Israel warning that settlement expansion will not be acceptable to the Biden government. Meanwhile, preliminary probes for renewed Jewish-Arab cooperation are emerging. We maintain a tenuous hold on possibility. Perhaps it has to get worse before it will get better. There is so much we don’t yet know about where we are heading. 

We may have plunged over Niagara, but we survived. And what we do know is that we are here in Israel to live, not only to survive. Living requires freedom, freedom from fear and oppression. It means knowing we live in a just world, where the value of human dignity guides our actions. Again this weekend we will march for freedom and justice. We will gather our forces and build the strength of a powerful opposition. No padded barrel will protect us, as we drop into the torrent. Only our will to live.