Thousands of protesters descended on Israel's international airport in Tel Aviv as the first big action in the next 'less polite' phase of the protest movement, met by some confused, some disgruntled and some supportive travelers
On the night of March 26, mass protests erupted after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summarily fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for speaking out against the government’s planned judicial overhaul, and warning of dire consequences on Israel’s preparedness for war.
Swarms of angry Israelis descended on Tel Aviv’s main Ayalon highway where they lit bonfires and blocked traffic for hours in what is widely regarded as a transformational moment in the pro-democracy, anti-government protests, now entering their seventh month.
Monday evening’s huge protest at Ben-Gurion International airport is certain to go down as another watershed moment in this powerful resistance movement.
Unlike the protests on the Ayalon, the demonstration at the airport was not spontaneous. Meant to signal the first big action in the next “less polite” phase of the protest movement, as characterized by its leaders, it was announced more than a week in advance. And while tens of thousands of protesters heeded their call to disrupt activities at Israel’s main airport at the busiest time of year, they were nowhere near the numbers that stormed the Ayalon.
But in terms of sheer energy and spirit, it was very reminiscent of the night Gallant was sacked – a decision that was eventually reversed, after Netanyahu capitulated to public pressure.
The protest at Ben-Gurion was meant to begin towards the end of the work day at 5:30 p.m., with participants advised to bring luggage and passports along so that they could pass as innocent travelers in the event that they were stopped and questioned by police. But close to two hours before the official starting time, crowds had already begun to gather both inside the main arrivals hall and in a park just across the road that circles the airport.
This early-bird crowd was dominated by elderly Israelis, many of the men among them sporting t-shirts proudly declaring themselves veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Police soon ordered them to leave the premises, insisting they had no permit to hold a demonstration inside the terminal. When they refused to budge, police began removing them by force.
By then, thousands of protesters had begun to descend on the airport, many emerging from the airport train station located right outside Terminal 3. Equipped with Israeli flags, protest signs, bullhorns, whistles and other noisemakers, they quickly began filling up the sidewalk, where the airport taxi stands are located, and spilling into the street, blocking traffic all around. A large group of demonstrators set up camp on the bridges overlooking the road, where they had hung large billboards denouncing the government.
In their attempts to contain the ever-growing crowd, police often resorted to what appeared to be excessive force, in some cases grabbing protesters by the neck and squeezing. Some protesters posted photos of themselves on social media providing evidence of their wounds. Although a water cannon was brought to the site, police did not end up using it.
The noise outside the airport became so deafening that protesters who had not come prepared with ear plugs were forced to improvise, some shoving pieces of paper and bits of plastic bags into their ears to muffle the sound.
Amid the clashes and cacophony, a few well-meaning souls circled around handing out cold dates and apricots to those in need of an energy boost in the sweltering heat.
A few hours into the demonstration, a group of protesters managed to infiltrate the arrivals hall once again, greeting travelers emerging from behind customs with drums, noisemakers and loud chants of “Demokratia.” Clearly for the benefit of the non-Israelis in the crowd, many of the protesters had prepared signs in English.
As one sign beseeched those arriving in the country: “Israel has become IsraHell in just a few months. Please Save Us.” Another sign succinctly summarized the choice facing Israel today, as many protesters see it: “Democracy or Dictatorship.”
Yet another needed no words for explanation: It featured a picture of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement, with his head in his hands.
Most of the tourists rolling their suitcases out appeared bewildered. They clearly had no advance knowledge of the madhouse scene that was to greet them during their first few minutes in the country. One little girl in a stroller, reaching out for her mother’s hand, said: “Mommy, I’m scared.”
Two French tourists emerging from customs, presumably a mother and daughter pair, were asked by Haaretz if they understood what was happening. “Isn’t this Israel’s 50th anniversary celebration or something like that?” the older one responded.
In her defense, the scene on the floor of the arrivals hall did have the look of a party, with all the flag waving and noise, and Israel did, indeed, celebrate a milestone birthday a few months ago – but that was its 75th, not its 50th.
After grasping what was going on, most of these tourists seemed not so much concerned for the future of Israeli democracy as for how they were going to get to their hotels or wherever else they were headed.
Among the visitors landing during those four hours of utter mayhem were a large Birthright group from France, a bunch of Jewish-American teens heading for the Kimama sleepaway camp, participants in the prestigious Diller teen leadership program and a large delegation of Christian evangelical pilgrims from Puerto Rico.
The Israelis arriving home were clearly much more in the loop of what was happening. On more than one occasion, they joined in with protesters, chanting “Demokratia” and pumping a fist in the air while pushing their luggage with the other hand.
To be sure, not all the returning Israelis, or even those waiting for friends and relatives in the arrivals hall, were sympathetic to the protesters, and nasty exchanges, which often got very loud, could be witnessed here and there.
Police once again managed to push the protesters outside the terminal, but by 8:30 p.m., the action had moved elsewhere: the nearby police station, where dozens of protesters had been detained for questioning on the grounds of disturbing the peace and flouting police orders. In an act of solidarity, hundreds of protesters congregated outside the police station waiting for them to be released.
The tensions that defined the evening did not subside even after the police and the protesters had packed up. In a train leaving the airport station for Tel Aviv, a verbal fight broke out between a small group of protesters and an ultra-Orthodox man, who was heading home from a trip abroad and not happy, to say the least, about the delays they had caused him. It didn’t take long before the argument gravitated to some of the more fundamental issues tearing Israeli society apart in recent months.
As one young protester challenged his Haredi interlocutor before exiting at the next stop: “And what makes you think you’re a better Jew than me?”
The protests on the Ayalon had an almost immediate effect: Within a matter of days, the prime minister announced that the judicial overhaul would be put on hold, while representatives of the coalition and opposition in the Knesset tried to reach consensus on the changes. Those talks have since broken down over a dispute regarding the appointment of Knesset representatives to the judicial selection committee.
It is still too early to say what effect, if any, the airport protest will have on the judicial overhaul. For the meantime, the government appears determined to move ahead with at least parts of the plan. But the mass turnout at the airport has proven that despite wishful thinking on the part of the government, the protest movement is far from nodding off, and the demonstrators still have it within their power to disrupt normal life in the country at relatively short notice, if required.
Like the Ayalon, Israel’s international airport was targeted because of its symbolism. The Ayalon is probably the busiest highway in the country, the gateway into Tel Aviv – Israel’s business and cultural capital and a city that epitomizes the liberalism under attack by Israel’s new government, the most religious and right-wing in history.
Ben-Gurion airport is the gateway into and out of Israel, and at this time of year, with the summer break from school just beginning, one of the busiest spots in the country. Indeed, airport officials were estimating that more than 85,000 travelers would pass through the arrival and departure halls in the course of that one day.
And while the airport insisted that no flights were canceled as a result of the protest, many were delayed. In addition, for passengers landing at the airport from the late afternoon onwards, it was virtually impossible to leave the premises by car or taxi, with roads outside the airport blocked for hours on end. So, claims by the protest movement to have “conquered” or “paralyzed” the airport may have been somewhat overblown, but not totally untrue.
The day of the protest happened to coincide with the launch of a major Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin. In the not-so-distant past, many Israelis might have questioned the appropriateness of holding such an event while their soldiers were out risking their lives fighting terrorists. But that was clearly not the case on Monday evening.
In fact, many of the protesters seemed to be wondering in their heart of hearts whether the operation wasn’t deliberately timed to get them to call off the big event. As they announced in the morning, so long as the government did not put on hold the judicial overhaul, while the military operation was under way, there was no reason for them to put on hold their campaign to fight this attempt at undermining Israeli democracy.