Last week's 600,000 strong right-wing demonstration was funded on a shoestring - a few organizations, personal costs and crowd-funding. No highways were blocked, no fires set, no anarchic behaviior.
On the other hand, there is a high cost to organising the much more costly, anarchistic and frequent left-wing demonstrations. I wonder who is paying for them?
The buses transporting tens or hundreds of people from city to city. The megaphones. The placards. The cost of flags. Permits, security, food, water. And most importantly the logistics.
Then there is the cost that each single participant has – transportation to and from the venue, work time missed, closed workplaces and the danger of being crushed when in a large mob. Police standing by to ensure that there is no terrorist attack on large numbers. More police trying to clear highways. Children as well as uninformed teenagers and adults who are just going with the flow.
There is damage to the economy. Damage when major highways are closed. Life-threatening cases when sick people cannot reach hospitals. Huge costs when large numbers of police and security have to be prioritised for demonstrations. As for security, our enemies can be seen laughing at the weakness of our society as portrayed in the satirical television show Eretz Nehederet, when two enemy leaders are having a picnic at our expense.
Backing the leftist demonstrations are most of the major media – TV, radio and newspapers, definitely not reflecting the right and the majority who voted in the existing government.
Once upon a time there were two separate kingdoms – Israel and Judea, both destroyed by our enemies when we disagreed. After all the efforts to rebuild Israel today and the loss of tens of thousands of our soldiers in wars we do not want enemies among our own people.
The issue with the democracatic process, unlike autocratic regimes, is that those who lose an election may be a significant minority. However once the election is over and the decisions are made, that minority has no right to cause a division among the population which can lead to the destruction of all of us as our enemies see our weaknesses.
Those who have knowledge of who is funding all of these Leftist demonstrations need to stand up and publicize who they are, the names of those groups and their leaders and where the money to stage such ugly scenes is coming from. Is it coming from interested parties in other countries? From anti-Israel organizations? That information should be available. Responsible journalists in the main media are missing handing out by not investigating and puslishing that information.
We the public are calling for the right to know where these funds are coming from.
Leonie Ben-Simon is a freelance journalist living in Israel with an MBA from Monash University, Victoria Australia.