►Israel protests over Covid-19 crisis
V THOUSANDS OF Israelis took to the streets this week to protest against the government as second wave COVID cases rocketed and claims of mismanagement grew.
The number of active coronavirus patients has passed 30,000, more than triple the number during the peak of the first wave, and at demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere, crowds condemned what they characterised as fumbling government policy.
Many of the protestors called for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a call that is echoing on the opposition benches in Knesset. “Israel’s citizens are out of time,” said leader of the opposition Yair Lapid on Sunday. “We’re in a real state of emergency. I call on all the factions in Knesset to show him the door.”
Protestors and opposition politicians say they are concerned that the government’s powers may be set to grow. As the JC went to press the Knesset was about to debate a bill intended to give ministers the authority to enact various restrictions on the public without a vote by MKs.
The government says it will boost its ability to manage the pandemic but some experts are siding with the critics. Amir Fuchs, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, said that if approved the bill is “likely to further sow confusion and deepen the growing mistrust among the public”
The size of the protests has snowballed to 10,000 nationally on some evenings. But some have said that demonstrators are putting lives in danger by unnecessarily bringing together large numbers of people. Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kisch said that a big Tel Aviv rally was a “health terror attack,” according to media reports.
The gatherings have morphed into general protests against the government, tapping in to anger over Mr Netanyahu’s insistence on leading the country despite being in the midst of a corruption case and an alleged loss of values by the government.
Activists have devised all sorts of strategies to get attention, from one woman who mounted a large menorah near Knesset, topless, to a group of people who decided to hold a protest march from Caesarea, where Mr Netanyahu lives, to his official residence in Jerusalem. “We’re walking in the main streets, against the direction of the traffic, to make our point,” one of the 15 marchers, Aviv Jasman, told the JC. “People see us and honk in support, some people invite us to their houses and we talk about how we think Israel is losing its values thanks to this government and the person at the top.”
In Israel, unlike in Britain, the government has not stumped up money to pay salaries of furloughed workers and some 21 per cent of Israelis are unemployed. Small business owners are furious over what they say is the paucity of their grants and the bureaucracy they face in obtaining them.
Restauranteurs are particularly angry that the government is trying to enact restrictions that would close them down, to try to limit the spread of the virus.
The restauranteurs claim there is a lack of epidemiological evidence to support this.
Demonstrators say that a decision taken last week, but not yet implemented, to give one-off handouts to almost all Israelis, with families set to receive a minimum of £450, is a bad use of taxpayers’ money, which should be deployed to give ongoing help to those in need.
The protests were just one of several headaches facing Mr Netanyahu. His corruption case returned to court and the judge dropped a bombshell, saying the PM will be expected in court three times a week when the trial begins.
There were also strikes by social workers and nurses, although both are now resolved.
Dealing with conflicting political pressures has become a trademark of Mr Netanyahu’s political career but he does not have experience in dealing with pandemics, and the policy he enacted after the first COVID wave is coming back to haunt him.
On May 4, as Israel was hurtling back to normality after seemingly subduing the first wave, Mr Netanyahu declared victory and lauded Israel as a “model” for “many” other countries.
Now, there are once again warnings that the health service could be in danger.
A Hebrew University statistics team has said that the quality of care could drop when there are more than 1,000 COVID patients in moderate or serious condition. Israel already has around 400. Ministers have approved new restrictions to battle the second wave, including the closure of many shops over weekends.
Now, the policy that Mr Netanyahu championed in May is widely criticised in medical circles, especially for allowing large gatherings soon after lockdown, where many people have been infected, and for failing to take firm steps to limit the impact of a second wave, like investigating who virus carriers have encountered and quarantining everyone at risk of infection.
In the media, even the Netanyahu-supporting Israel Hayom has criticised his government. “A string of failures and unforced errors have resulted in Israel squandering the success of its lockdown, unable to contain a second outbreak,” the paper’s diplomatic correspondent Ariel Kahana claimed on Tuesday.
But Mr Netanyahu and his closest supporters say that the government is doing its best in unprecedented circumstances.
The Prime Minister says that his latest economic measures will boost the economy, and that he has ordered every ministry to submit plans for the safe opening of the economy, saying he is trying to avoid a general lockdown and his goal is “to flatten the curve, to gain control, and to effect a safe exit from this phase, from this wave.”
He claimed:
“We are working at the pace of the coronavirus.
We do not have many choices. It is not a normal situation.”
We are working at the pace of the coronavirus’