Like prisoners of war returning home, values are returning to Israel’s public discourse. Pale and emaciated, still somewhat shocked, they are happy to be here and are even happier that what was, will be no more. They find themselves in tents, a very familiar setting in the history of both Zionism and Judaism. It was in tents that the third great wave of Zionist immigration established the principles of a model society and it was from them that the work battalions left to settle and defend the land. It was with tents that Zionism took to the land. It was in tents where the spirit of the Palmach was conceived, as it sought to become a moral and exalted fighting force. Tents seem so apt and new for us, particularly because they are so old; from the early youth groups to the entire history of the Zionist community in Palestinian, they were a symbol of moral action.

Anyone believing that this protest is a sectarian uprising of the middle class is quite wrong. The backbone of Israeli society has become bent under the burden of exploitation in the plantation colony that has been built here. It found itself consumed from all sides- in prices paid to the cartels and monopolies, in the paychecks it received and the demands raised by an obtuse and detached political establishment. However, contrary to other sectors, the demands that have been placed at the forefront of the protest- social justice, mutual responsibility, essentially a new deal for Israeli society- are not positions that distinguish and exclude major populations in Israel.

A lot is said about the lack of precision in this campaign, but its great power stems precisely from the fact that  rather broad ethical demands that are being voiced. The old political echelon is still thinking in terms of coalition negotiations: they’ve built tents, we’ll offer them biscuits and they’ll all go home. All is dandy. As if the protestors were some small sectarian party interested in increasing allowances for more lack of work.

 

The protest, which is all-Israeli, rather states: No. We are not asking for anything, but we are asking for everything. We are not speaking in slogans and we are not speaking in the supermarket list language of the old-time deal-making politics. We are speaking in terms of values, and we want a new deal.

This broad approach is the reasons that enfeebled populations, the kind that make less than the middle class does, have found a home in the protest.

One could cite the example of last week’s protests, but in fact already at the protest’s inception there emerged tents in the periphery, in places where the middle class is but a thin and upper crust. They emerged there because the protestors in Rothschild Boulevard, as also the leaders of the cottage cheese protest, declined to demand one or another payment in kind, which is disputable in nature. Social justice is not a demand for some gifts to be bestowed on the middle class, but rather is a general cry for rectifying  injustice. A cry for a moral change.

This is the profound political meaning of the summer of 2011. For too long now our political echelon has scorned values. The ethical discourse is considered naïve, outcast, and most of all- ineffective. Power was above all. Surrender to any coalition-related demand was received with a smile and understanding; that’s just the way of the world. Politicians were not graded based on their values, for they would have been proving their lack of a killer instinct. The public issue that was raised regarding public figures who had been convicted of criminal offenses was the length of the moral turpitude established by law- not the ethical significance of their guilt.

This is the reason new forces were rejected in politics. The “newcomers” may have presented the right ethical attitude, but it was experience (and particularly poor experience) that was more sacred than integrity.

This old style of politics bears no connection with present day Israel.

The Trajtenberg committee would do well to remedy some of the faults in Israel’s economy, but it would be even better if our politics would change and transform and more than anything come to understand present-day Israel.

 

Present-day Israel is taking to the squares and demanding social justice, with signs that were drawn in people’s home without having invited some strategic consultant. When it arrives at the squares it speaks of solidarity and seeks change through the collective rather than through its leaders. And when present day Israel returns home, sweaty but happy, it creates the sense in which many share around now: renewal. And to the values it says: welcome home.”

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