I am a citizen with no public microphone but I believe in civic responsibility and I try to do what I can to bring a peaceful message to the streets of my town. I carry in my car a large poster of Combatants for Peace ’73 that says: “Bibi You Failed, Go Home.” I park my car for several hours in different places around town. The most remarkable and encouraging sign that I take from my action is that no one has vandalized my car. In the last elections if I had done it, some right-wing zealots would have smashed my windows and destroyed my car. The fact that my car is intact is a promising sign of the time, that the violence of the right has lost some of its legitimacy and appeal. It is no longer so cool. There are more voices for change and peace that have gained ground in the public domain and that is very encouraging.

Netanyahu is aware of the desire for change and the growing opposition to his policies and he is trying to capture his previous dominance in the unseemly way that we have seen time and again. His misguided political conduct was well captured in an article, “Bibi Returns to Balcony” that our friend Yonathan Aderet* brought to public attention. I offer some of what Aderet wrote because it has everything to do with the issues that have become part of life in Israel under the prime minister’s leadership for a number of years. He has allowed/legitimated the flourishing of a violent right-wing public space.

Aderet writes: “A few days ago Haaretz published an article ‘Bibi returns to Balcony’, meaning his return to a shameful event, to the very balcony in Zion Square in Jerusalem where years ago he stood looking down as a wild right-wing mob displayed violent posters attacking Yitzhak Rabin as a Nazi traitor. Netanyahu stood there ready to deliver his speech to his cheering supporters.

“This time around Netanyahu has avoided any interviews and ignored the public by not offering any public appearances. Until now, that is, when the polls show him losing ground. It is saddening to see that his only planned public appearance will take place in the very same place where Rabin was murdered. The is same Netanyahu who stood years ago looked down at wild crowd waving pictures of Rabin dressed in S.S. black uniform and the prime minister who was silent all along when a segment of Israelis created an atmosphere of hatred that contributed to the murder of Rabin.

“A few days ago Netanyahu met with Likud leaders at the Park Hotel in Netanya. Did Netanyahu forget the terrible killing that took place there 13 years ago? Or did he choose it on purpose? As someone who lost four family members in that tragedy it seems to me that his choice should be attributed either to stupidity or to malice, or both. A politician who starts a campaign at the Park Hotel is going to end up in Rabin Square. There is no accident in these unseemly tasteless public appearances of our prime minister on his way to his house in Caesarea.

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*Yonathan Aderet is seventh generation Israeli one of the founders of Combatants for Peace ’73 and a pioneer of Israel’s high-tech industries.

**Translated from the Hebrew by Ayala Emmett