Protesters Struggle To Envision Life Without Bibi Against Whom To Protest

“I’m sure we’ll still have the Haredim to target as the source of our society’s ills.”

Jerusalem, March 16 – A group of demonstrators who have dedicated their Saturday nights to cacophonous marches through the streets of Israel’s capital, bellowing their demand that the country’s incumbent prime minister step down, or calling on the public to vote him out next week, acknowledged in interviews today that they have not given thought to what happens under the not-implausible scenario in which the premier in fact loses the privilege of forming the next government, which would deprive the demonstrators of the raison d’être of their most cherished preoccupation.

Enthusiastic participants in the “Lekh” campaign – the imperative “Go away!” rendered in the typeface of Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party logo – conceded in conversation with a journalist that they refuse to consider what happens if, as they insist, Netanyahu fails to attract enough votes to represent a credible core around which to form a coalition, and they, the chanting marchers, must find some other activity on Saturday nights.

“I haven’t thought about it,” admitted Albi Pistoff, 28. “It’s been so long since there’s been anything to do except protest that I haven’t yet wrapped my head around what it means for someone other than Netanyahu to form and lead a government. I mean, there are teenagers alive today who wouldn’t remember a time before Bibi at the helm; it’s been, what, almost twelve years of all Bibi, all the time? You can understand it’s not so easy to get used to the idea of someone else in office, and I’m having trouble visualizing what that means for the country, yes, but mostly what I’m going to do with my time. I just can’t see myself demonstrating against a Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the guy who basically embodies Anyone But Bibi.”

“What do you mean, not protest?” wondered Tamir Brogez, 24. “There’s nothing else to do around here. I can’t imagine there isn’t something else worth marching against that can’t fill the Bibi niche just as easily. Okay, so it won’t have the same flavor, the same valence, as blaming one guy for everything that’s wrong with my life – and I don’t mean myself, God forbid – but I’m sure we’ll still have the Haredim to target as the source of our society’s ills. Bunch of parasites. Yeah, that could work. I might even start making the transition this coming Saturday night.”

News media have voiced similar uncertainty as to how they might function in the absence of one central villain whose ouster they can attempt to facilitate while pretending objectivity.

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