More Divided than United: Israeli Social Protest during Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020

Abstract

The Covid-19 epidemic that struck Israel in March 2020 found Israel in the midst of an ongoing political crisis. The connection between a health crisis and a shaky political system (mainly because of indictments against the prime minister) has created three protest movements against corruption, dysfunction of the central government and severe feelings of discrimination in the population. Each protest sought to achieve different goals. The “Black Flags” protested over government corruption demanding the resignation of the prime minister; ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated against the hardline policy that the police adopted against them, including restrictions on religious rituals and on Biblical and Talmudic study; and the self-employed protesters demanded financial compensation from the state − once they received it, their protest dissipated. There were no common goals or coordination among the three protest groups. By analyzing through a combination of three approaches − contingency, functionalism, and relative deprivation, the 2020 protests in Israel were more divided than united. Without an agreed-upon leader, it failed to achieve any social-political goals.

Keywords

• israel
• covid-19 pandemic
• political corruption
• protest