Soon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Sunday night announcement that he would move to fire Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director Ronen Bar, a joint message went out from major protest organizations calling for a mass protest of the firing later this week.
The firing is seen by the organizations and by many Israelis as a direct continuation of the contentious judicial reform and a clear attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid the "Qatargate" investigation of his office and consolidate power by replacing Bar with a more friendly appointee.
"The decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, is being made by a person in a blatant conflict of interest, whose office is under a security investigation for cooperation with Qatar, and a black flag of illegitimacy flies over it," read a joint call to protest from the organizations.
"Netanyahu has no public mandate to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet; this decision poses a direct and clear threat to Israeli democracy," the organizations said, adding that their leadership will meet on Monday.
The firing and the protest announcement raise a few questions, the first of which is whether a mass protest can stop the firing.
The current track record of the protest movement on stopping firings is split – with mass protests stopping the first firing of then-defense minister Yoav Gallant and failing to stop his second firing.
It's critical to note that the first firing of Gallant led not only to massive, spontaneous protests across the country but also to a shutdown by academic institutions and a general strike by the Histadrut Labor Federation, which undoubtedly played a major part in delaying Gallant's sacking the first time around.
This track record exists, of course, in the context of a much longer track record in which protests against the judicial reform managed to stall a slew of laws that the coalition had the political power to pass.
Influence of the protests seemed to have shunk
The power and impact of protests today have seemed to shrink, in great part likely because the protests themselves have changed and shrunk.
After the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, many protesters were called up to IDF reserve duty, with others choosing not to protest during the war and many shifting their attention to focusing on bringing the hostages home.
The protest movements today have remained focused on the hostages, with some pursuing the joint effort of bringing the hostages home and bringing the government down, seen by many as intrinsically linked.
All of this has seemed to lessen their impact, but the protests have still played a major part in the public pressure to bring the hostages home, which likely pushed the political echelon to continue to work to advance hostage deals.
The second question raised by the protest organizations' announcement is, "Can the protest movement bring the masses of Israelis and the institutions out to the streets to join in the demonstrations needed for a shot of stopping Bar's firing?"
It doesn't take many people to create meaningful protest – especially if these people are willing to strike from work. Citizens can fairly easily create impactful economic shutdowns or other strikes that the government cannot overlook.
The one-day strike called by Histardut head Arnon Bar-David after Gallant's first firing had an estimated cost of NIS 2.5 billion, Ynet reported, adding that the estimated lost national product of a general strike in which the entire economy shuts down is NIS 5.8 billion per day.
The announcement of IDF pilots that they would stop serving because of the judicial overhaul placed a huge amount of pressure on Israel's government to halt the reform.
The White Coats – the medical professional's protest, includes a significant number of doctors and other healthcare providers, a strike by whom would also create significant pressure on the government.
Presidents of Israel's research universities said last week that they would protest the firing of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, and so may well join a protest against the firing of Bar.
The last strike called by Bar-David to support the hostage protest, however, did not clearly achieve its goals and was met with criticism, possibly leaving Bar-David reluctant to throw his weight around again.
Whether or not the protest organization will be able to mobilize large crowds and gain the necessary support from institutions after over two years of intense protests, which followed closely on the heels of significant protests between 2020 and 2021, not to mention after a year of a grueling and horrible war, remains to be seen.
Not only have the years of protest warn protesters down, they have also normalized huge protests, taking away the shock value of massive crowds in the streets.
It may be especially hard to bring people out, given that many protesters feel they must remain focused on protesting for the hostages.
Some believe these protests are one and the same, and activists in Jerusalem's Hostage Family Forum activist group said that the decision to sack Bar "proves once again that bringing the hostages home is not a priority for Israel's government."
Yonatan Shamriz, the brother of slain hostage Alon Shamriz, who was killed by IDF forces alongside two other hostages who escaped their captors, made a connection between the firing and the failure of Israel's institutions.
"Fire the Attorney General, fire the IDF Chief of Staff, fire the head of the Shin Bet… all to send the message that everyone is to blame except them," he said on Sunday.
"An autoimmune government that is burning down all state institutions, with ongoing distrust between it and the people. Everyone needs to go home—but first and foremost, the one who conceived the concept and turned Hamas into a military force capable of capturing towns."
The final question raised by the firing and the call to protest is: if even mass protests cannot save Bar's job, why not?
What has happened since the judicial reform was blocked by a wave of protest and mass rallies in the streets halted Gallant's firing?
One possibility is that the government has become immune to mass protests and the widely held public opinion they reflect – knowing that the failures of October 7 are not those from which it can come back in the eye of the public, and so places less stock in public opinion.
Another is that the war has split public attention sufficiently and discouraged public criticism of the government during wartime enough to take the edge off the protests. Would the pilots, who showed up on October 7 en masse in spite of threats that they would not serve if the reform continued, refuse to serve in the midst of war?
Protest organizations are working overtime, calling on the public to show up and stand against what they are calling a credible threat to Israel's democracy. Time will tell if the public shows up and if the government cares.
