Now the Arab Spring threatens to engulf Israel, and worse still the contagion has now invaded the Israeli body politic.
Israel PM forms panel to quell protests
Protesters paid homage to the uprisings taking place across the Arab world, waving banners reading "This is Egypt" and making reference to Cairo's Tahrir Square, where Egyptian protesters gathered during their uprising.
The movement further expanded as many groups later joined in over a wide range of economic issues.
"This started out as a housing crisis when a young woman was evicted from her flat when she couldn't afford her rent," Ron Kampeas, Washington bureau chief at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, told Al Jazeera. "But it's ballooned and encompasses much more than that now."
"There was planned privatisation of what was once a socialist economy, and there weren't adequate plans to bring along the middle classes and lower-middle classes, as a new wealthy class arose in Israel."
The popular movement has snowballed into the biggest internal threat yet for the right-leaning government. Polls released last week show Netanyahu's approval ratings have dropped, while support for the protesters is very high.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/20118711551547128.html
The government is pretending to be responsive, but the newly appointed economic advisor let this slip:
Netanyahu said he was establishing "a special team" headed by prominent economist Manuel Trachtenberg, the head of Israel's National Council for Higher Education.
"I have mixed feelings about being tasked with this mission, because changes are imperative, but the responsibilities and the risks are enormous," Trachtenberg told Israeli radio.
Yes, that's right, the man tasked with resolving the economic issues which brought protesters into the streets in the hundreds of thousands has mixed feelings about it.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/10361/massive-protests-force-israel-leader-to-promise-change
And this stiff arm from Netanyahu:
Netanyahu explained that the recommendations of the team will express the need to maintain fiscal responsibility in the budget. Speaking in reference to the downgrading of U.S. credit rating, and in light of growing financial uncertainty in Europe he stressed that his government "must act under financial responsibility while making repairs that express social sensitivity."
Netanyahu said he planned to hold a broad dialogue with the demonstrators, but added "we cannot please them all."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/07/israel.protests/
And another roadblock thrown up hear against the "unprofessional":
However, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan, who sits on the panel, suggested to Israel radio on Sunday that "The protest cannot dictate every government decision. Not everyone who is leading it is a professional. The government has to produce solutions, and it will be put to the test. To those concerned about the price of housing, there is a message here: there will be much more significant construction of residential housing that will bring about a lowering of prices."
And these howlers:
Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon took the opposite tack, saying that the protest was a backhanded compliment to the prime minister.
"If anything, this demonstration is a demonstration of trust in Netanyahu - though that may sound upside-down: 'Sir, we demand of you, we insist, you know how to, you are capable of fixing this,'" Kahlon said, and pointed out the seeming lack of public support for the opposition party, Kadima.
"This doesn't feel like an anti-government protest," Amir Mizroch, editor of Israel Hayom's English Newsletter Edition wrote on his personal blog.
"The people here want the government to fix things, to get to work. If it doesn't, then it should go. That's democracy. That's the middle class way," according to Mizroch.
Netanyahu has so far refused to meet with protest movement leaders, claiming that they represent a political left-wing agenda that aimed at toppling the government.
More accurately:
The New Israel Fund, which largely supports left-of-center issues, was an early financial backer of the protests, and in recent days sent an urgent email request to donors to continue funding their activities.
"None of us knows for sure what this movement will achieve, but we do know that the government is hoping that the protests will just fizzle out. We can't let that happen. The people in the streets want to keep the pressure on. They're coming to us for help," a copy of the letter obtained by Xinhua read.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-08/07/c_131034533.htm
The protest organizers are calling for a million person march in September:
The protest organizers — a loosely organized group of young Israelis stunned by the mass response to their complaints — have called for a million-person march in 50 cities across the country on Sept. 3. While they have sought to steer clear from appearing political in their calls for reform, the mass rallies have given voice to the growing wealth disparity in the country and what critics contend is an inequitable distribution of government resources.
"Netanyahu and his ministers won't be able to ignore this outcry," veteran commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Sunday. They would be obliged to listen, "not because they believe the outcry is justified, but because it reflects a force that threatens their continued hold on power."
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=14248867
Here's a terrific piece from one of the Israeli left's finest journalists:
Tel Aviv was bursting at the seams on Saturday night. It was not the mother of all protests - it was the grandmother of all protests. The city looked like one of the stormiest cities on earth. Streams of people were flowing in every direction, some on foot, some in cars. Buses and trains spewed out the crowds, and not everyone even managed to get to the area of the protest. An amazingly large sign, in Hebrew and Arabic - the latter faces a threat to its status as an official language in this country - read "Egypt is here."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-is-beginning-to-celebrate-a-new-independence-1.377328
Many are trying to cast this revolt in a non-radical light. Every revolution draws right- and left-wing grievances into its mobilizations, but for some there is a decided class-consciousness to the movement:
Protesters appeared to have a more sweeping agenda on their minds. Traveling by car, bus, train and foot, some 230,000 Israelis, according to police estimates, descended on Tel Aviv to mount the largest social protest in the country's history. Young, old and middle-aged, they beat drums and waved flags, some chanting, "Social justice for the people" and "Revolution."
Some held signs reading "People before profits," ''Rent is not a luxury," and "Working class heroes." In Jerusalem, more than 30,000 protesters gathered outside Netanyahu's residence after streaming past some of the most expensive real estate in the city. Other protests took place in further flung cities in Israel's north and south, drawing about 10,000 people.
And much the same economic issues animate the Israeli protesters as have brought tens of millions of Arabs into the streets of their respective countries:
Moshe Levy and his wife Naama are middle-aged Jerusalemites who have a combined monthly income of almost $6,000 but are overdrawn at the bank by $9,000. They said they don't often go to demonstrations, "but I think this one is important," Moshe Levy said. He said he worries for his four children. "I hope their future will be better than mine," he said.
Ehud Rotem, a 26-year-old student and bartender who also lives in Jerusalem, sees a bleak future for people of his generation. "It's hard to live in this country, we go to the army, work and pay high taxes and still don't earn enough" to make ends meet, he said.
The protests initially targeted soaring housing prices, but quickly morphed into a sweeping expression of rage against a wide array of economic issues, including the cost of food, gasoline, education and wages.
http://www.mail.com/news/world/610366-270000-attend-israels-biggest-pocketbook-protest.html
Israel's social protesters are not just naive sushi eaters
The size of the protest on Saturday night clearly made a mockery of the slanderous statements about "Ashkenazi leftists eating sushi and smoking nargilas." You know these statements are false if you heard Yuval Seri, a teacher of physics and philosophy from Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood; an Orthodox man who will soon attend a course for company commanders in the IDF reserves; the Israeli Arab author Oudeh Basharat; Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, a founder of the liberal Orthodox group Tzohar; and Rabbi Benny Lau, founder of the Beit Morasha social justice institute.
To head off concerns that some of these young people's demands might be accepted, the neoliberal economic experts have rushed to explain that these people don't know what they're demanding. For years, the neoliberals have said the public is pleased with the current order. Suddenly, in three steamy weeks, it turns out that 90 percent of the public, including of course many Likud voters, support the motto "the people demand social justice."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-s-social-protesters-are-not-just-naive-sushi-eaters-1.377324
The one good thing about Alan Dershowitz is that he can always be counted upon to say something amusing. One would think that self respect might restrain him from making such idiotic pronouncements as what follows, but apparently he has none. He has only race loyalty, and to the bitter end. And for him, one can hope, it will come soon. His entirely specious and meretricious argument:
WASHINGTON – Prominent Israel advocate Prof. Alan Dershowitz hit back at a book by the founder of J Street charging that he and others have silenced criticism of the Jewish state, in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post.
J Street President Jeremy Ben- Ami’s recently released book, A New Voice for Israel: Fighting for the Survival of the Jewish Nation, singles out Dershowitz, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and other members of the US Jewish establishment...
“It’s a myth that criticism of Israel is silenced,” Dershowitz said in a phone interview with the Post on Thursday. I have spoken at AIPAC many times and have criticized Israeli policy. AIPAC has never silenced me, because AIPAC knows I’m pro-Israel.”
That's right Dersh', it's because you are rabidly and sociopathically pro-Israel.
So far we haven't heard from the Ziogandist on the ongoing protests, no doubt he's huddling with his cabal of media spindoctors trying to figure out the best way to parse it.
Anyway, we thank D' as always for the levity.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=232749
Speaking of humor, let's here from Israel's head bankster:
Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fisher said that Israel, whose unemployment rate is only 5.7 per cent, hasn’t had such good economic conditions in 40 years, and acted perplexed at the protesters. A group of Likud legislators dismissed them as “sushi-eaters.” According to a Ha’aretz poll, though, 87 per cent of their countrymen share the protesters’ fury over housing prices, which have doubled in the last twenty years. Rents in Tel Aviv are up 25 per cent in the last two years. This trend has been driven in part by rich American and European Jews buying apartments in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and only living in them occasionally. Meanwhile, the Israeli welfare state has gradually eroded. Among developed nations, income disparity in Israel is second only to that of America. Traffic in Tel Aviv runs thick and there’s no subway system, discouraging suburban flight. Gas costs the equivalent of $8 a gallon.
Out of touch maybe?
http://killingthebuddha.com/ktblog/israels-cottage-cheese-uprising/
Pearls of wisdom:
Legendary social activist Charlie Biton, who was among the leaders of a protest movement against the government in the 1970s, told the demonstrators in Tel Aviv: "40 years have passed since the day I stepped out, instilled with faith, against the injustice surrounding me. Since then, year after year, I've been waiting for a new generation to stand up against injustice – and here it is."
"My hope withered from year to year, as the injustice grew… But now, after 40 years, my vision has been realized," Biton said..
Rabbi Benny Lau, whose ideas I do not entirely share, nevertheless equated zionism with social justice:
Another speaker at the rally, Rabbi Benny Lau, told the masses: "We are on the eve of a social tikkun. Our right for this land is conditioned upon social justice."
"We cannot afford to see such terrible gaps; that's not a Jewish state," he said. "We cannot afford to see people who are working and making a living yet unable to buy a home; that's not a Jewish state."
'Bibi, you pig'
One of the social struggle's organizers, Gil Sasson, told Ynet: "We have here an unprecedented collective awakening; we are witnessing a people sobering up….what started as a battle for affordable housing has turned into a protest movement that is snowballing and is now aiming for a system-wide change."
Amid the numerous signs and posters held up by protestors was an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu riding a pig, with the caption: "Bibi, you pig, give back the country to us."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4105195,00.html
Will this revolt have repercussions beyond Israel's borders?
Here's a realistic discussion of the topic which I recommend:
The Tent Protests in Israel:
Can They Break Out of the (Zionist) Box?
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/halper070811.html
Like all rebellions, the Israeli uprising is a mixed bag, and onto it one can easily graft one's own conceits, but make no mistake, something marvelous is happening here, and at the moment its promise can only be dimly viewed. A quarter of a million people from a sparsely populated country taking to the streets is quite an achievement. It defies obviation, and belittles its critics. As Joe Strummer wrote: "The future is unwritten."
