Ehud Barak calls for civil insurrection to collapse government

Barak, who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, and later as deputy prime minister and minister of defense in a Netanyahu government 2009 to 2013, has become a bitter opponent of the current prime minister.

By David Isaac, JNS

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday repeated his call for a civil insurrection to topple the Netanyahu government.

“We need to get to a civil insurrection,” said Barak, during an appearance on “Moriah & Berko,” a Channel 13 news show co-hosted by Moriah Ashraf and Eyal Bercovic.

Asked to explain what that meant, Barak said he meant hundreds of thousands taking to the streets guided by political, academic, high-tech and market leaders, among others.

When Ashraf asked what the limits of the insurrection should be, Barak said, “The limits are the shutdown of the country until the government falls.”

Barak, who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, and later as deputy prime minister and minister of defense in a Netanyahu government 2009 to 2013, has become a bitter opponent of the current prime minister.

Speaking at an anti-government protest rally in Tel Aviv in July 2024, Barak urged the thousands present to engage in “nonviolent civil noncompliance.”

Israeli prosecutors at the time mulled whether to prosecute Barak on charges of incitement and sedition.

At a rally in Jerusalem in April of last year, he said that his goal was to use mass protests as a pressure lever to bring about early elections to replace the Netanyahu government.

“My message is elections now,” Barak told JNS.

In February, Barak called on the public to “besiege” the parliament in an ultimate attempt to force elections, bring down Netanyahu and implement a two-state solution, which includes a Palestinian state.

The former premier told Army Radio that “30,000 citizens need to camp outside the Knesset in tents for three weeks, day and night,” until “the country shuts down [and] Netanyahu realizes that his time is up.”

In March 2023, Ehud Barak revealed his strategy for a “counter-revolution” to bring down the Netanyahu government.

Speaking at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a London-based think tank, Barak said he was certain his side would win, adding, “and we have even empirical evidence for this.”

He referred to research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, who co-authored a 2012 book, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.”

Barak said the two researchers looked at hundreds of civil protests from 1900 to 2006, noting that “they found a common denominator”—protests that succeeded included 3.5% of the population, or roughly 8% of the adult population that were “tenaciously and persistently” kept up.

“At the end the government either falls or capitulates. We already crossed this number in less than three months so we are heading in the right direction,” Barak said, referring to protests against the government’s judicial reform plan.