Some of my Israeli friends are literally weeping from the joy, exhilaration, and sheer decency of last night’s J14 protest through the streets of Tel Aviv. The rally drew almost 400,000 people, well over twice as many as last week’s. Sol Salbe, who was there, said it was the largest demonstration he’d ever attended.
Demonstrators chanted, under the influence of the Tahrir revolution, “The people wants social justice.” They marched for a higher quality of life and standard of living. They rallied against the deterioration of housing, educational, and job opportunities, the decline in quality of health care. They demonstrated against a slavishly capitalistic, laissez-faire government which cares only for corporate profits and a draconian anti-Arab foreign policy.
Thanks to Sol Salbe for translating this portion of a Haaretz article (Hebrew) quoting the protest movement’s founder, Daphni Leef’s address to the crowd [Sol’s and my interjections are in brackets]:
Daphne Lief who addressed the crowd at the end of the rally said: “We are not in love with protest as protest, but we are in love with the kind of future that we need to have here. We’re in love with the spirit of freedom. The Knesset may have gone on recess but the spirit of freedom will reach its destiny there. Lief finished with the [movement slogan]| “The people demand social justice.”
[As a sign of broadening of the movement, a Rabbi addressed the rally. Hitherto the only mass rallies addressed by rabbis have been right-wing ones.]
“Blessed be the Holy One that we have arrived at this time,” said Rabbi Benny Lau. “We’re two days before Tisha B’Av and usually do not recite this blessing [because of an approaching fast day]. But when you see hundreds of thousands who have come out from their homes, and are joined by tens upon tens of thousands across the country, we realise that something has happened in this country. I came to offer a big thank you.”
[An even more remarkable development has been the appearance of a Palestinian citizen of Israel on the platform]
Writer and journalist Ouda Basharat who also spoke at the Tel Aviv rally said: “That‘s the way revolutions happen: they sneak upon you and spread out like a flood. Long live the youth revolution. The miracle of July arose in the sauna of heat and humidity. The movement, long dead and buried, has come back to life. It is time to make this the struggle of all the oppressed, Jews and Arabs. Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies.”
Now that’s a revolution I can get behind! Could this be the beginning of the end of the Netanyahu government? And if it is, can there be something better in store? Dare we hope?
Yediot Achronot published on its front page David Grossman’s meditation on the meaning of the new movement, A Window to a New Future (Hebrew). And don’t trust the bulls(&t peddled by Ethan Bronner in his NYT article yesterday in which he claimed that Grossman all of a sudden has regained favor inside Israel after being out of style for some time. Grossman may not always be right given his classical liberal views and he’s certainly worth wrestling with, but he never goes out of style.
A translated version of Grossman’s article appears here: link to blogzahav.blogspot.com
“Palestinian citizen of Israel” and “Israeli Palestinian” are more appropriate terms because they also distinguish Palestinians from Arab Jews, of whom there are many in Israel. It appears this group also prefers not to be identified as Arabs.
Does anyone have any reliable data that indicates how many Israeli’s prefer a theocracy to democracy?
If so, please post it.
Is Israel officially giving up on democracy?
link to english.aljazeera.net
New laws aim to make democracy subservient to the orthodox religious beliefs of a minority of citizens.
MJ Rosenberg 06 Aug 2011
They demonstrated against a slavishly capitalistic, laissez-faire government which cares only for corporate profits and a draconian anti-Arab foreign policy.
I was surprised to see this.
Everything i’ve seen indicates that the secular and religous right wing in Israel (for differing reasons) are on the rise. Not least because the liberals and progressives leave the country.
I wouldn’t compare these tent protests with the ones in Egypt. Mubarak really was a dictator, at least Netanyahu can be voted out, Israel for all it’s faults is not a dictatorship in the true sense of the word, though it’s not a democracy either, (a democracy as it should be)
Regarding the anti Arab foreign policy, that is not what they are protesting against, or am I wrong? I’ve not seen anything to indicate otherwise. The opposite in fact. The Jewish Taliban is growing in Israel, and by “Taliban” I don’t necessarily mean the religous, the secular rightists are perhap’s more insiduous (wannabe Liebermans), and anti democratic than the religious.
The problem isn’t that Bibi can or cannot be voted out. The problem is that even if he IS voted out there is no guarantee that his successor won’t be worse than he is. In fact, it’s almost assured that his successor will be no better than he, at best. That’s the dreary failure of Israeli democracy. There is virtually no chance at all that Israel can produce a leader to withdraw it fr. the morass into which it has sunk.
Thanks for picking up my work. Appreciated.
Two points. I used Palestinian citizens of Israel because that is the way the vast majority of them prefer to call themselves and it is still clear enough for outsider.
It is Daphni, not Daphne Leef (at least when she uses it herself like on Facebook.)
Thanks, Sol. I stand corrected as does the spelling of Daphni’s name.
Richard,
First of all, thank you for supporting the movement.
Second, you should notice that this is not exactly about the Bibi government or Israel’s foreign policy. Both are terrible but we’re used to terrible governments.
The protest is about the impossible cost of living in Israel. We don’t want job opportunities, we’ve got jobs, even good ones for some of us. Yet we only get poorer all the time. Prices of food, clothing, housing, health, transportation has shot up 30%-50% in the last couple of years.
A lot of people who thought they were ok economically are unable to afford more than a very basic living. They are joined by those from lower down the economic ladder who certainly deserve more help from the state.
This has happened because EVERY government in the last 20 years did all it could to renounce its obligation to the people and increase income for itself and profits for businesses – Likud, Avoda, Kadima, there is no difference.
It’s funny that you speak about this revolution, a day after the US credit rating was lowered.
I thought that the last years with Obama may have thought you guys that you can’t be irresponsible with the way you spend your money. You can’t run a large scale welfare system. It will simply bankrupt you.
The State of Israel can’t provide free education, while lowering taxes it simply doesn’t have the money for that.
In Israel there are two sectors that do not share an equal burden: Orthodox Jews and Arabs they do not contribute their fair share in taxes or in community service.
The middle class, who demonstrated, carries both of them on their backs, that is the first thing that need to be changed.
As for this revolution leader, She doesn’t suffer from any of that, the address her cellphone is registered on is in Kfar Shmarihu, one of the richest places in Israel.
as for the 400,000, Ynet, Nrg, Haaretz, Bibiton and others reported 300,000 all over Israel, and less then 200,000 in Tel-Aviv, so how did you come to your number ?
The more you write the more ignorant you show yrself to be. U.S. economic woes have nothing to do w. the welfare state and everything to do with Republican obstructionism which prevented proper fixes for our economic problems going back to the beginning of Obama’s presidency. Do us a favor & stop trying to teach us about our own country. You don’t even understand yr own, let alone mine.
I’m afraid you have only yrselves to blame for both issues. You’ve allowed Orthodox Jews a free ride fr the founding of the State because policitians were afraid to demand that the Orthodox be treated no differently than everyone else. As for Israeli Palestinians, you offer them almost nothing & then you’re shocked that they wish to pay no taxes to yr benighted racist system.
That’s unbelievably stupid & racist. Are you really saying that the failed economic policies & lack of social justice in Israeli society is due to the fact that Israel offers nothing to Israeli Palestinian citizens & receives nothing fr. them in return? You couldn’t possibly be saying that because if you were it would be practically nonsensical. So are you really arguing this? And with a straight face?
Hey, last I checked in a democracy all citizens, whether rich or poor are entitled to have opinions about social policy. Are things diff. in Israel? Are the rich not entitled to have ideas on these subjects? Or are only the Likudist corporatist rich allowed to have such opinions & express them vigorously?
Channel 2 used a computer algorithm devised by an Israeli computer science professor which captured cellphone data from protest participants. I trust a reputable computer scientist over media crowd estimates any day. This from Sol Salbe written in the early stages of the rally (he was there as well):
More fr Sol on Facebook (this published later in the evening):
So your claim about what Ynet published is wrong (what a surprise!).
Regarding the poverty that both Israeli-Palestinians/Palestinian-Arabs/whatever (I’ve met different people who prefer different names), I was under the impression that the high poverty rating that Orthodox and the prior mentioned Arab community was due to several different factors. The main ones mentioned was large families and a household that only had one working parent/adult. Another issue was the lack of both communities from the draft.
The ‘large-households-archaic-family-structure’-spin is an integrated part of the Israeli Hasbara to make excuses for institutionalized discrimination against Israeli Palestinians.
The young Israeli Palestinian families don’t differ much from the average Israelis as far as number of kids is concerned. I have female cousins with PhD’s from the best Western universities who find no work in their field of competence. It’s even worse for the young males.
This is deliberate politics from the State of Israel: to make their life so difficult that they leave, and they are regularly told so.
Tax paying Israeli Palestinians receive less than their Jewish counterparts as the public services in their “Arabs Only” communities are much lower, and the draft-spin is an excuse as Orthodox Jews receive more than the Aravim.
I’ve already mentioned a book written by a French sociologist, Laurence Louer, fluent in Arabic, who spent years within the Palestinian communities in Israel. I didn’t realize at the time that her doctoral thesis, the basis for the book “Les citoyens Arabes d’Israël” had been translated into English and published by Colombia University Press. She has very interesting observations, also on the tax boycotts in the Arab communities, and the popularity of Raed Salah for his social work, reorganizing the community-based solidarity.
I guess the title in English “To be an Arab in Israel” is a reference to the classic by Fouzi al-Asmar that I mentioned above:
link to amazon.com
In this case, I believe we are both right (outrageous, I know). According to a United Nations report in 2009 by John Casterline, Palestinian-Arab fertility was quite high 1950 to 1985; however, it has begun to fall since then, lowering by roughly 31%, or 5.1 median births by 2005-2010. Israeli fertility has risen and leveled out to roughly 3.1; some estimates put both nations/peoples/groups/whatevers as eventually evening out in that respect.
I’m not doubting that there’s prejudice, bigotry, and laxness in the enforcement of certain equality laws, or the damage they do to the economics of groups. I have friends in Israel who testify as such, and as part of a minority in America who has been the target of blatant discrimination, I know about the hardships involved. Such things are unjustifiable no matter the circumstance, which is why I’ve supported civil rights groups/parties in Israel.
There is no way on earth 250K people attended the demonstration last night, You wish to know how many folks were in tel-aviv last night ?
Two guys who write for NRG did the math.
No way that there were 250,000 people in Tel-Aviv, simply because of space limitation.
link to nrg.co.il
But hey, who am i to disturb you spreading BS claims ?
As for Obama and his welfare policies.
Let’s give you a crash numbers overview, during the 8th years of Clinton term, the national debt rose by 1.1 trillion dollars. During the 8th years of GW Bush, the national debt rose by 4.5 trillion. That’s approximately 4 times more then Clinton. Obama was able to raise the national debt by 3.1 trillions in 2.5 years or so. That’s about 4 times more then Bush, and 16 times more then Clinton.
But hey, if you want to support his policies and mortgage the future of your great grand children, who am i to stop you ?
Just a quick reality check, lets assume the congress will not spend a nickle from now on, and will pay down the national debt at a rate of a 100 millions / day, it will take the US 383 years to pay down it’s national debt.
Big part of it, is thanks to GW, Bigger part of it belongs to Obama and his liberal policies.
as for you claim that it is racist to say that the secular middle class carries both orthodox and Arab communities on their backs….I am sorry you are offended by that, if you are being hurt by reality you have a huge problem.
If you wish to talk about facts, we can check the municipal tax collection in both communities, and compare that to the municipal budgets. then i would like you to explain the differences. You do know i hope that part of the municipalities budget comes from tax collection right ?
You, who didn’t attend & who has smeared the J14 movement more than once offer one source to support u. And we don’t even know whether yr source hasapolitical ax to grind. While Sol, who WAS there offers a computer algorithm based on the number of cell phone pings– & we’re supposed to believe u??
Not to mention the BBC said there were 250K in T.A.
You don’t suppose to believe me, you can stop being lazy, read the article and see for yourself.
They even describe the issues with the trendIT software and model, one of them has to do with the software ability to handle a big mass of signals, in such situation it’s accuracy goes down to zero.
But hey, if you put your faith in Sol Sable, who was there, and preformed a head count (an extremely scientific method – he was there) , Rather then putting you faith in simple old school math, who am I to argue.
It is just like a Likudnik whose ox is gored to want to count how many oxen can dance on the head of a pin. As for me, I’m content in the knowledge that no matter how many were there the days of yr favorite prime minister are numbered.
That ridiculous article assumes the protest took place in Kaplan st. only, while in fact there were simply TOO MANY people that the protest spread over several other streets (and I know this because I was one of those people, actually there).
Thanks Shai. Glad to hear you were there & that you’ve stuck a pin in Nudnik’s balloon.
And let me also add this link to cafe.themarker.com
AND another link link to mako.co.il
(sorry for spam)
Shay, it’s really simple math
the root of the meter squared divided by the estimated number of people, will give you the space in centimeters allocated to each person. all you need to do is place the numbers in the equation.
do this simple math exercise, and come back tell us how much space would be allocated to each person should there had been 250K people demonstrating in Tel-Aviv.
How do you know how many people take up any particular amt of space at a political rally? What is the amt. & how did you or your Likud friends come up w. the number? Have you researched the subject? It ain’t a simple math exercise I’m afraid.
The question is how many people can fit in a square meter in a rally, Google the term and you will find the answer of between 5 and 11 depends on the people size and the police instructions. More then 4 people in a square meter is considered unsafe and usually violates protest license.
the rest is a numbers game, we know that the area of the demonstration was 16920 sqm. which means 67680 people in the main area. be generous and double the number you will come to 120K people, but 300K ? that means that every person would be standing on a 4cm * 4cm square, my shoe sole is bigger then that.