The allegation is met with denial and ridicule, but it requires further inspection nonetheless: What role is the Left playing in the current demonstrations being staged by Israel's Ethiopian community? Political parties, thought leaders and bevy of organizations and foundations sponsored by the New Israel Fund – all are exhibiting the telltale marks of its influence.
The swiftness of the response and efficiency of action is astonishing; they are always there, in the earliest stages, holding printed signs, wearing matching shirts, in relatively large groups. Activists directly linked to the fight against racism, alongside activists protesting the occupation or on behalf of African refugees. The questions the Right is asking in this context are legitimate.
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The great mystery is whether the radical Left has stoked and incited these protests from the outset, or is simply hitching a ride in the hopes of fanning the flames and creating a type of anarchistic crisis? I don't have an answer; and I don't believe a militant video or hostile posters, or "a list of organizations" stirring the pot, are absolute proof of the existence of a super-plan to tear apart Israeli society.
Politicians were there, that much is obvious, because it's a free photo-op, and the Tamar Zandbergs of the world won't miss an opportunity to use the protesters as statistics for their political campaigns. But yes, this entity known as "the fund's organizations" tend to target the most fragile and sensitive of seams in Israeli society, and pick at them.
It disguises itself as a fight against racism and solidarity with the disenfranchised, but it always ends with marking the Jewish state as an idea born in original sin, and with the call, tacit or overt, to wipe out the Zionist project. The suspicions, therefore, are justified and should be examined.
There's one fact, though, that can't be denied: They were there, and they are always there. Ultimately, when youngsters take to the streets to protest, they mainly encounter the Left, cynical as it may be; but far less so Right. Here and there they'll meet a Knesset member from Likud or Habayit Hayehudi, but not much else.
Massive civic representation is virtually nonexistent. And youths from the Ethiopian community, the Right likes to tell itself, are Zionists, more than few are religiously traditional, and many of them identify with the Right; in other words, "they're with us" in the nationalist camp.
But when they take to the streets to protest institutionalized discrimination – and right now the establishment is right-wing, lest we forget – they instead run into Breaking the Silence and Meretz youth.
This is a giant missed opportunity for the Right, and not just on a fundamental level – it truly needs to be there alongside them even if it believes the protests aren't justified this time; because the frustrations are obviously real and have built up over a long period of time. It's a missed opportunity because there are youngsters growing up here who have become accustomed to viewing the Left – either its political parties, organizations or both – as a partner for cooperation and solidarity. When the Right accuses these protesters of being "incited" by the Left, it isn't only forgetting that it also hates being labeled a "mindless herd," it is also shirking its social responsibility.
