The recent success of Israel’s “Kaplan protest movement,” the large-scale, heavily funded anti-government demonstrations that have dominated Israel’s streets for the past two years, was never really about rescuing the hostages held by Hamas since the terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The movement’s true achievement was far more subtle and far-reaching: the complete redirection of Israel’s political, military and emotional compass from “victory” to “hostages, now!”

Originally born out of opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary, the Kaplan movement (named after Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, which was the epicenter of protests) reinvented itself after the Oct. 7 massacre in the south. Many of its tactics and slogans in opposition to

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