On the eve of Israel’s last election, we strongly believed that in order to ensure the future of the state as Jewish and democratic we must change the regime.

We had known that a new coalition with Netanyahu at the helm would not be able to achieve a separation from the Palestinians and a two-states agreement.

To bring about political change we forged a number of alliances to win in the voting booth, but we failed to bring about change and the results of the election confirmed our worst fears.

Since then we have been supportive partners in a number of initiatives to realize our agenda, to separate from the Palestinians. But regrettably all these initiatives withered quietly before they had a chance to be properly presented to the public.

In the last few months we have witnessed the dangerous direction the state has taken and we are obligated to save democracy from those who are out to destroy it.

Those ready to abolish democracy, do it to pave a messianic disastrous path. We just witnessed a kind of madness that has seized the country around the soldier who killed an unarmed, already subdued Palestinian in Hebron. The frenzy was acted out in full view of the country revealing the danger we are facing, that the law of the military can be publicly defied and defiled. Anyone who dared speak about the cowardly act of that soldier had to face scurrilous attacks, which found support in Netanyahu’s winking and nodding and his followers’ cheering on. Our immediate clarion call must be to defeat the right-wing fascist government that is out to destroy whatever is left of our diminishing democracy.

We can’t wait for the next election, nor can we leave it to politicians.

We need to create a people’s movement that will gain strength and popularity, a protest movement like the one that brought down Golda Meir’s government after the Yom Kippur war, and defeated Olmart’s government after the debacle of the second Lebanon war.

Protest movements in Israel do have tremendous power as we have seen in the past.
Recently Ehud Barak sounded the warning shot in his speech a week ago. He urged the sane citizens to rise up and bring down Netanyahu’s government because it is dangerous for the people and the state of Israel.

The train left the station but must be the front line in rousing the people to protest. We must never abandon this country to a delusional mob that has taken over all institutional centers of power to achieve messianic goals.

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Translated from the Hebrew by Ayala Emmett
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Jonathan Adereth was born in Tel Aviv in 1947. He served as an officer in the Armored Corps of the IDF during the Six days war and the Yom Kippur war. Adereth holds a BSC in Physics from the Israel Institute of Technology and had a long career at Elscint, a NYSE company specializing in Medical Imaging. He was the CEO of Elscint from 1994 to 1998. He currently serves as chairman of several healthcare companies. In 2006, during the 2^nd Lebanon war, he founded the movement for the support of the settlements along the Lebanese border. In 2013 he formed the movement of the Yom Kippur veterans for a settlement agreement with Palestinians.