The end of the country as we knew it

On 11 December, barely 14 weeks ago, I wrote the following: I (and I am not alone in this) feel now that everything that has happened to Israel and to me personally is about to be taken away by the extremist government that is in the process of being formed as I write these words. The juidicial system, the education system, the police ... everything that screams 'democracy' is now considered to be 'undemocratic' and has to be replaced.

I certainly didn't expect what would happen during those 14 weeks. I didn't expect the demonstrations that would grow and grow exponentially; I didn't expect that the Defence Minister would speak on Saturday night, saying that the 'judicial reforms' are causing irreparable damage to the army and its defences and so he could not support those 'reforms'. Whilst his being fired was a predictable move by the Prime Minister, I didn't expect that thousands of people would immediately take to the streets and demonstrate against this.

I've seen similar happen in other countries, but never in my country. I can't find the words at the moment to describe how I feel .... I am trying to work but I am listening to the television - the Histadrut has called for a general strike until the proposals are removed, the airport authority has announced that there will be no more take-offs, the local authorities have joined the general strike ... it's the end of the country as we knew it.

We're still waiting for Netanyahu to make his speech that will define how things will go from here. 

As an aside, there are a few statements that have been developing within me over these past weeks -

1. Every government is supposed to work for the people and improve their life. This government has worked only to improve the lives of its members.
2. The Likud party came to power based on a platform of handling the housing crisis, handling the rising cost of living, handling violence in the Arab cities, returning law and order to the Negev and handling Iran. It has done none of these things, instead concentrating on something (judicial reform/ruin) that was never mentioned in their pre-election platform.
3. Yariv Levin, the 'justice' minister is afraid that if he does not carry on with his legislation, he will be framed for some offence (such as treason). Paranoia.
4. The same YL said on 12 January "It turns out that there is another political party in Israel. A party that did not compete in the election that took place only two months ago". The name of this party is Yair Netanyahu, the PM's son. He thinks that he rules the country.  Did he stand in the elections? Who voted for him?

I don't see how we can continue from here. The first thing to be done is cancelling the firing of the Defence Minister: the last thing that anyone wants is that the security of the country be compromised. IMHO, the most responsible thing to do should be to call for new elections but I can understand why that is an unpalatable option.

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This day in history:

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564	27/03/2013	Lost videocassettes reappear	TV series
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