I once saw in a Western a Red Indian (or should I say a Native American?) putting his ear to theground and hearing a train tens of miles away.
In the course of the years I have tried to imitate that Indian. I try to hear changes in the publicmood long before they appear on the surface. Not to prophesy, not to guess, just to hear.
Now I perceive the approach of a great wave of opposition to the bloody war against thePalestinians (nicknamed “Peace of the Settlements, following the name given to the 1982invasion of Lebanon, “Peace of Galilee”). The revolt of the soldiers who refuse to serve in theoccupied Palestinian territories is an important symptom, one of many.
We have seen in the past several such public upheavals, that start with opaque noises and growquickly into a public uproar. Such a wave rose during the Lavon affair in the 50s and led to thedismissal of Ben-Gurion. Such a wave carried Moshe Dayan into the Defense Ministry on the eveof the 1967 Six-Day War (led by the women nicknamed “the Merry Women of Windsor”), and the nextone, which swept him and Golda Meir away after the Yom Kippur war. Such a wave got the IDF out ofBeirut, and later out of South Lebanon (led by the “Four Mothers” movement.)
The mechanism can be compared to a transmission of spiked wheels. A small wheel with a strong,independent drive turns a bigger wheel, which in turn moves an even bigger wheel, and so on,until all the establishment changes course. This is how it happens in Israel, this is how ithappens in all democracies (see: Vietnam).
It always starts with a small group of committed people. They raise their feeble voice. Themedia ignore them, the politicians laugh at them (“a tiny, marginal and vociferous group”),the respectable parties and the established old organizations crinkle their noses anddistance themselves from their “radical slogans”.
But slowly they start to have an impact. People leave the respectable (meaning linked to theestablishment) organizations and join the fighting groups. This compels the leaders of theorganizations to radicalize their slogans and to join the wave. The message spreadsthroughout the parties. Politicians who want to be reelected adopt the new slogans.”Important” journalists, serving as weathercocks, smell the change and adapt themselves intime to the new winds.
The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead said about this: “Never doubt that a small group ofthoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that everhas.” And the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, said: “All truth passes throughthree stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is acceptedas self-evident.”
Now it happens again. It is difficult to fix the exact moment when it started. Perhaps after thedemolition of some 50 homes in the Rafah refugee camp. Or at the mass-meeting called by GushShalom in Tel-Aviv, when Colonel Yig’al Shochat, who had lost a leg in the Yom Kippur war,called upon his comrades, the airforce pilots, to refuse to execute orders that aremanifestly illegal, such as bombing Palestinian towns, and when the philosopher Adi Ophirproposed to open files on IDF officers who commit war crimes. Suddenly the public woke up to thepossibility that war crimes are being committed in its name. The mental block was broken, apublic debate about war crimes, and consequently about the occupation itself, began.
The announcement by 50 reserve officers and soldiers that they refuse to serve in the occupiedterritories broke a dam. The number of refuseniks grew quickly, the phenomenon shook themilitary-political establishment. For the first time, the leaders of the establishment sawin their nightmares the possibility of a big uprising of soldiers who say: This is where westop, we will not go on. When public opinion polls showed that nearly a third of the Jewishpublic supports the refuseniks, the panic grew. At the same time, hundreds of Israelisvisited the besieged Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
Then came the big, joint demonstration of the militant peace movements (“The OccupationKills All Of Us!”) in Tel-Aviv’s Museum Square. Organizations that had got used during thelast 16 months to demonstrations of a hundred, two hundred people saw before them ten thousandenthusiastic demonstrators, who have left despair behind them and were demanding action.
This demonstration had, of course, an impact on the “established left”, which is nowcompelled to confront the new mood of their own public.
This is the beginning of a process. Nobody can know yet how powerful it will become and how far itwill go. But one thing is certain: something is happening.