Grassroots anti-Netanyahu campaign gathers pace

THE ISRAELI left is rallying its troops and preparing for a battle to change the government come the next election. But the action is at the grassroots level, not within political parties.

The Labour party, today part of the Zionist Union, is in turmoil as its leader Isaac Herzog faces both heavy internal opposition and a corruption probe.

But a grassroots anti-Netanyahu campaign is gathering pace, holding meetings throughout the country, running stalls on high streets and gathering Facebook “likes” by the thousands. It calls for dovish policies towards the Palestinians and opposes right-wing domestic policies. “We are the people we have been waiting for,” its head, Polly Bronstein, tells its followers.

Determined not to preach to the choir, it has been holding events near the Gaza perimeter to reassure the public that it takes security issues seriously, and trying to garner support on the centre-right and among Charedim.

Darkenu, which means “our way”, has a special weapon — retired, senior members of the defence establishment, who say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is failing on security. The campaign’s chair is Baruch Spiegel, former deputy head of the unit that implements Israeli policy in the West Bank, and former defence minister Efraim Sneh serves on the board.

Efraim Halevy, the former Mossad head, has spoken at Darkenu events, and Shaul Arieli, former IDF brigade commander in the Gaza Strip, teaches evening classes for activists. “The public comes to the Darkenu course to learn about the history of the conflict, the negotiations and the solutions, and that encourages them to become active,” said Mr Arieli. “There is a feeling of urgency and awareness of the dangerous trends in Israeli society.”

Darkenu is a reincarnation of V15, the anti-Bibi get-out-to-vote campaign run during last year’s election, rattling Likud and prompting it to try — unsuccessfully — to try to use the courts to get it closed down. V15 used, Likud claimed, a legal loophole to gather foreign donations and pass them to the Zionist Union. Now, a Likud politician is promoting legislation to restrict Darkenu.

Ms Bronstein stresses that there is no connection between her group and the Zionist Union, and entertains the possibility that a different Likud leader could provide a satisfactory leadership change. However, her vision is notably similar to that of the Zionist Union: both want Israel to finish building the separation barrier as top priority, creating a de-facto separation from most Palestinians. Although Ms Bronstein is not — yet — calling for negotiations, she holds the hope that it is “un-Israeli to say that we can’t change reality”.

It is un-Israeli tosay thatwecan’t change reality