A tent city romance

By SARAH NADAV
Revolutions are like love affairs and follow a similar trajectory. They start out exciting, intoxicating and the world looks brighter a better place.
In Israel we are hot and heavy in the middle of it. Anybody who has been at one to the recent protests will tell you that it is intoxicating. In the sweaty embrace of thousands upon thousands of people it is easy to feel that this love will last- that it cannot be denied. It is a heady seduction which is crossing boundaries which have never, ever been crossed before. At last Saturday night’s protest there was right/left, religious/secular, Jewish/Muslim/Christian who were all united.
In Israel’s history I don’t know if there has ever been an issue or a time which galvanized people across such a wide spectrum. But this stage is temporary. Eventually the glamour will wear off and either real love develops or it blows up in everyone’s faces (this kind of love is too passionate to just fade away). In general, revolutions either burn bright and then burn out or become lasting movements.
Bibi is buying time, waiting for September and counting on the Palestinians or Syria to wag the dog and take the pressure off of him. He is counting on us to go back to school and work and for the movement to fall apart. What he doesn’t realize is that people will not wait for September, and like any lover- will not be ignored.
What Bibi needs to do is fall in love with the protesters. He needs to embrace them. He needs to realize that he must be grateful to the people who put him in power, who fund his government through their taxes on whom his international standing is based on. We are the ones he brags about- our ingenuity, our “can do” attitude, our intelligence.
Hell hath no fury like a protest scorned. To Bibi, at best we are needy lovers at the moment but if we wakes up he will see that there is a window of opportunity here for him to be a hero of epic proportions. If Bibi blows the people off now it will be at his own peril because this kind of love comes just once in a lifetime.