It wasn't only the cottage cheese or the housing shortage, but many injustices that came together. It was the outcry of the middle class that carries the country on its back, serves in the army and the reserves, pays taxes and gets in return an unsuitable income for a dignified life. In brief, what we saw in the tents that arose on every available boulevard and sidewalk was the protest of the best of our youth, who are marching toward a gloomy and hopeless future. They did it without party organization, without the Histadrut and without backing from the right or left - a new kind of demonstration that was united by the naive desire to live in dignity. An unprecedented demonstration.

That's what made the tent protest so multilayered, with so many participants. Entire families, including infants, arrived without organization. They simply spread all over the country. This was the only authentic demonstration I can recall in Israel that wasn't organized by political bodies.

The leaders who cut their teeth in the field, many of them still immature, were themselves surprised at what they had brought about. They didn't conceal their surprise at the fact that they had organized a demonstration of 300,000 people - the largest demonstration ever in Israel that was not organized from above. They were so amazed by their success that they forwent another mass protest for tomorrow night, fearing that fewer people would show up. Although the leaders in the field, stunned by their success, didn't know exactly how to proceed, they scared the political establishment and caused panic among the prime minister and his closest deputies in the cabinet.

The camp protest reached dimensions that made the government understand that it will be impossible to end the tent uprising using a few million here, a few million there, and vain promises. Benjamin Netanyahu did what he always knows how to do: He formed a committee of 18 people.

But this committee doesn't look like one that ends with fudging. The camp rebels are not the type who can be deceived so that they'll go home with an imaginary sense of honor as if they've won. Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg's commando-unit committee didn't begin work until he had extorted a commitment from Bibi to carry out the recommendations for easing up on the middle class.

In his present situation, Netanyahu reminds me of that Jew from the joke who climbed the circus trapeze promising to jump. But when he got to the top and saw the audience calling on him to jump, he asked in a trembling voice: What do you mean jump? How do you get down from here? Bibi understood that his basket of gimmicks is empty - that to finish his term he'll have no choice and be forced to confront the social and economic processes that are dictated to him.

Bibi has reached the point where he has to decide on his government's priorities and challenges in the near future. He has to run against himself as the leader of the rightist camp, with a defense budget that Ehud Barak as "Mr. Tsunami" is trying to dictate to him, with Bibi's submissive alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, the settlers and the settlements, and with Avigdor Lieberman, who in the tent demonstration only noticed that the swanky restaurants were full and everyone was eating sushi. The only thing that isn't clear is which country he's foreign minister of.

The tent protest proves that it's possible to achieve important objectives without violence and loss of life. It serves as an example for demonstrations of a different kind, when in September the UN General Assembly recognizes the Palestinian Authority as a state. It's a message for our neighbors in Gaza and for Israeli Arabs that in a democratic society there's a different kind of demonstration, one without spilling blood. Because violence begets violence.

Time will tell what value there is to the promise that Commando Trajtenberg extorted from Bibi to ease up on the middle class. In any case, the tent protest has exhausted itself and the demonstrators would do well to fold their tents at the height of their success. In other words, now, before the suspense declines and the Palestinian issue overshadows the domestic revolt.

But don't throw the tents into the trash, keep them in the closet. Maybe you'll need them again. If they cheat you, if they don't keep their word, the next step will be elections and removing Bibi from power.

No country can accept a prime minister who turns his ouster into a profession.