Antonio García Martínez
Tablet, Aug. 23, 2023
“If we lose, then all of Israel will be like Jerusalem.”
I’m jet lagged and jostled, in the back of a Maserati SUV driven maniacally by a guy named “Shay” on Israel’s Highway 1 between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Next to me, also crammed between shrink-wrapped cases of drinking water, is Maya Zehavi, a member of the Israeli crypto community and the reason why I’m here. Riding shotgun is Sarit Radman, the mother of Moshe Radman, one of the handful of ad hoc leaders of Israel’s protest movement around a judicial reform bill that has divided the nation. The goal is to deliver ima Radman to her son at the head of the procession for the big photo op as they enter Jerusalem.
The Radman-finding challenge is made harder by the fact that the protest, a snaking, chanting mass absolutely festooned with Israeli flags, is hogging up most of the highway save for the left-most lane which is bottlenecked with cars. Wedged between police motorcycles and howling protesters, even Shay gunning the Maserati’s sonorous V8 engine gets us nowhere.
Eifo Radman!? Eifo Radman!? (Where is Radman?) our driver Shay yells at random mishtarah who’ve dismounted their motorcycles and are trying to channel the chaos. The sun is broiling, and some of the marchers have walked all the way from Tel Aviv, over 60 kilometers away. Many are soaked in sweat, holding homemade signs, and chanting slogans with transported looks on their faces. The march to Jerusalem was concocted, Arab Spring-style, in a WhatsApp group a few days ago, but the emotion culminates months of Israeli political infighting and cultural clashes between the secular left and the religious right.
Surprisingly, one of the police responds with directions to Radman, and Shay hurls us through a gap in the flag-waving bodies toward Jerusalem. We drop off ima Radman for the photo op—soon to be shared on WhatsApp and thence Twitter and the mainstream media—before packing into Shay’s Maserati again and roaring up the rolling Judean Hills toward Jerusalem proper.
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