"WHY DON'T the masses stream to the square here, too, and throw Bibi out?" my taxi driver exclaimed when we were passing Rabin Square. The wide expanse was almost empty, with only a few mothers and their children enjoying the mild winter sun.
The masses will not stream to the square, and Binyamin Netanyahu can be thrown out only through the ballot box.
If this does not happen, Israelis can blame nobody but themselves.
If the Israeli Left is unable to bring together a serious political force, which can put Israel on the road to peace and social justice, it has only itself to blame.
We have no bloodthirsty dictator whom we can hold responsible. No crazy tyrant will order his air force to bomb us if we demand his ouster.
Once there was a story making the rounds: Ariel Sharon -- then still a general in the army -- assembles the officer corps and tells them: "Comrades, tonight we shall carry out a military coup!" All the assembled officers break out in thunderous laughter.
DEMOCRACY IS like air -- one feels it only when it is not there. Only a person who is suffocating knows how essential it is.
The taxi driver who spoke so freely about kicking Netanyahu out did not fear that I might be an agent of the secret police, and that in the small hours of the morning there would be a knock on his door. I am writing whatever comes into my head and don't walk around with bodyguards. And if we did decide to gather in the square, nobody would prevent us from doing so, and the police might even protect us.
(I am speaking, of course, about Israel within its sovereign borders. None of this applies to the occupied Palestinian territories.)
We live in a democracy, breathe democracy, without even being conscious of it. For us It feels natural, we take it for granted. That's why people often give silly answers to public opinion pollsters, and these draw the dramatic conclusion that the majority of Israeli citizens despise democracy and are ready to give it up. Most of those asked have never lived under a regime in which a woman must fear that her husband will not come home from work because he made a joke about the Supreme Leader, or that her son might disappear because he drew some graffiti on the wall.
The Knesset members who were chosen in democratic elections spend their time in a game of who can draw up the most atrocious racist bill. They resemble children pulling off the wings of flies, without understanding what they are doing.
To all these I have one piece of advice: look at what is happening in Libya.
DURING THE whole week I spent every spare moment glued to Aljazeera.
One word about the station: excellent.
It need not fear comparison with any broadcaster in the world, including the BBC and CNN. Not to mention our own stations, which serve a murky brew concocted from propaganda, information and entertainment.
Much has been said about the part played by the social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, in the revolutions that are now turning the Arab world upside down. But for sheer influence, Aljazeera trumps them all. During the last decade, it has changed the Arab world beyond recognition. In the last few weeks, it has wrought miracles.
To see the events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the other countries on Israeli, American or German TV is like kissing through a handkerchief. To see them on Aljazeera is to feel the real thing.
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