55 thoughts on “J14: ‘The People Demand Social Justice!’ 400,000 Rally in Tel Aviv – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Why do you call Oudeh Basharat a “Palestinian citizen of Israel” – is that different in some way from Arab Israeli?

    1. There are some interesting references on the wikipedia-page on ‘Arab citizens of Israel” that explain the use of ‘Israeli Arabs’ – a label invented by the State of Israel – vs ‘Israeli Palestinian’ or ‘Palestinian citizen of Israel’, and the change within the Israeli Palestinian community itself concerning their self-identification:
      Note 12, 13 & 14
      And particularly note 15: Rebecca Torstick and note 16: Dan Rabinowitz, an anthopologist who has written extensively on the Israeli Palestinians
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizen_of_Israel#Terminology

      1. I would also recommend reading Ilan Pappé’s new book, “The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel.”
        (Yale Univ Press, 2011). It offers a lot more history than the mere appellation of the Palestinians.

        1. I put it on my list last time you mentioned it, haven’t read it yet 🙁 As ALL books by Pappe I’m sure it’s a great insight.
          Fouzi (Fawzi)al-Asmar wrote a classic back in the ’70s: “To be an Arab in Israel” that I recommend too. He probably would have used the word ‘Palestinian’ today.

    2. Yes, “Israeli Arab” is what Israeli Jews call them. They call themselves diff. variations on “Israeli Palestinian.” And that’s what you and all commenters here should call them. When you call them Israeli Arab you are offending them and their self identity.

      1. And you know each and every one of them, what is right to say and what is not right to say.
        How American of you, to require from people your “politically correct” way of talking.

        1. Whereas our cultural anthopologist ‘Free man’ – with a PhD in ‘everything Arab’ – KNOWS that the Druzes aren’t Muslims, contrary to how the majority of them (outside Israel at least) identify themselves.
          “How Israeli of you” or ‘when the chutzpah has no limits’.

          1. No, you don’t.
            Such pretentious from an American to know better than a native Israeli about another Israeli.
            Just like your president knew what is going on in Iraq, Vietnam, Afganistan and the list can continue on and on….
            Americans always knows what is best for others, that is why they are such success anywhere they meddle.

          2. Are you equating American military misadventures overseas, almost all of which I’ve opposed, with my blogging about Israel? That would be rich and downright stupid. If you want to make analogies could you at least try to make them coherent??

            And if my blogging is so off-key when it comes to Israel can you explain to me why my blog is ranked 5,000th out of all blogs viewed by Israelis? That’s pretty damn high for a political blog written by a non-Israeli in a non-Hebrew language.

          3. Very few Palestinians of Israeli citizenship use the term ‘Israeli Arab’ for themselves. The only people I have ever known to do so are Rania Fadel, the young woman whom Stand With Us brought out during Israel Apartheid Week 2011 as a way of legitimizing their ideas (“There is no apartheid in Israel – an Arab says it!”), and a handful of other people who, like Rania, are involved in right-wing pro-Israel advocacy.

            In the Palestinian communities of Israel, people see themselves as Palestinian first and foremost. If you go into towns and villages in the Galilee and ask people to tell you who they are, I will be very surprised if you get anyone saying, “Israeli Arab.” It’s a loaded term and it causes discomfort. I used to use it innocently enough, without considering its ramifications, but then friends from Arrabeh gently explained to me why people would rather I didn’t. They see it as a form of erasure, a denial of the fact that their community history predates Israel’s founding and a way of trying to make Jewish Israelis feel more comfortable about their presence. My Palestinian-Israeli friend Rouba pointed out another problematic aspect of the term when she said to me, “It’s a way of splitting us from the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, as though we are different people.”

            This is not just a characteristic of Palestinian rural life in Israel. I know one or two Jewish Israelis who were adamant that their Palestinian friends did not class themselves as Palestinian (even though they had never asked). Eventually they did ask, and were very surprised to learn that these people – fluent Hebrew speakers all, working in successful jobs in Tel Aviv – did indeed identify as Palestinian.

      2. Israeli Palestinian is different from Palestinian citizen of Israel.

        The latter implies that they are not Israeli, but merely citizens of Israel as opposed to the former which does not make any such distinction.

        It seems that the use of that term is a way of suggesting that this population are somehow less “Israeli” than others.

        Can you not imagine some people finding “Palestinian citizen of Israel” to be offensive to them and their self identity?

        Also not sure how you are able to make the blanket claim that using the term “Israeli Arab” is offensive. Is there no one who would, in fact, prefer that term?

        1. No no one except Israeli Jews who seek to divorce Israeli Palestinians fr Palestinians living in the Territories.

          As for yr blowharderie regarding National terminology, it isn’t worth the virtual paper it isn’t written on.

          If any contemporary Israeli Palestinian agrees w yr lame characterization u should’ve able to present one. The fact that u haven’t means you’re either too lazy to have done any research or u did & found nothing to support yr pronouncement.

          1. Thank you for the information. You are right, I have not done any research – it was just my own reflections on the topic. I will try to learn more about the nomenclature and its significance.

        2. Dan Rabinowitz / Khawla Abu Baker: “Coffins on our shoulders: the experience of the Palestinian citizens of Israel”, 2005, p 43-44:
          “…Israel also subjected them to a host of dominating practices. One was a discursive move involving the state’s introduction of a new label to denote them: the hyphenated construct “Israeli Arabs….”
          “The new idiom ‘Israeli Arabs’, while purporting to be no more than a technical, evidenced a deliberate design. A clear reflection of the politics of culture via language, it intentionally misrecognized the group’s affinity with and link to Palestine …”
          “The term puts ‘Israel’ in the fore, constructing it as a defining feature of “its” Arabs….. Moreover the term “Israeli Arabs” invokes spatial diffusion….The Arabs may have common cultural denominators but they have no unitary territorial focus.”
          “Israeli Arabs” which obliterates any suggestion that the group in question is related to a territory, is a label that the ethnoterritorial project called Israel could easily embrace”
          “The label “Palestinian”, on the other hand, signifies an obvious link to a specifik territory – the one where Israel had been established. Most Israelis of course refuse to recognize that the land in which they live was until recently the communal home of Palestinians. The notion that the land they see as theirs is the national home and cultural cradle of others is anathema to them, and that breeds amnesia and denial”.
          It’s all in there – one of the moments when one says: wow, why couldn’t I come up with something so brilliant 🙂

  2. 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 ?

    1. 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 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.

      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.

      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.

      The middle class, who demonstrated, carries both of them on their backs, that is the first thing that need to be changed.

      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?

      the address her cellphone is registered on is in Kfar Shmarihu

      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?

      so how did you come to your number ?

      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):

      Translation from Hebrew Haaretz: A computer program developed by Dr Erez Weinrot was demonstrated tonight on channel 2. The program provides real-time data on the number of demonstrators in a given area. It uses the signals emanating from the protesters mobile phones. According to the program there were 235,000 people at the Tel Aviv demo.

      More fr Sol on Facebook (this published later in the evening):

      Ynet is estimating 350,000 in TLV 400.000 in the whole country. I need to point that the figures were early. As I left people were still streaming in, and the numbers on the Reshet Bet were growing as we travelled.

      So your claim about what Ynet published is wrong (what a surprise!).

      1. 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.

        1. 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:
          http://www.amazon.com/Be-Arab-Israel-Laurence-Louer/dp/0231140681

          1. 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.

      2. 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.

        http://www.nrg.co.il/app/index.php?do=blog&encr_id=a28b07a102084d28785d2d933122ebb1&id=2716

        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 ?

        1. 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.

          1. 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.

          2. 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.

          3. 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).

          4. 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.

          5. 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.

          6. 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.

          7. I certainly don’t trust any of the figures you use here as you’ve proven yrself totally unreliable in other such instances. You may argue whatever you wish (now at other sites, since you’ve lost yr privileges here). But as I wrote some time ago, when the current gov’t topples due at least in part to these protests then you may continue arguing completely irrelevantly how few protesters were there. Good luck to ya.

    2. Richard is right. Just to flesh out the numbers:

      Reagan inherited a national debt of $800 billion in 1980 and tripled it in 8 years. The debt stood at just under $10 trillion when Obama was elected — and almost all of the debt growth since 1980 was in Republican Administrations. The Obama Administration was charged with another $4 trillion in 2.5 years, but did not increase spending on a single major entitlement program. Almost $2 billion was in economic stimulus public works spending ($220 billion), various tax decreases for the middle class ($500 billion) and the bank/auto bailout ($1 trillion, passed in the Bush administration but counts against the FY 2009 budget). Continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich cost $1 trillion, and reduced tax receipts because of the depression cost another trillion. Only (“only”???) about $200 billion was due to new entitlement programs, mainly the start of “Obama Care,” a term the president will accept with honor.

      The major entitlement program of the Bush years (Medicare drug benefit) cost under $400 billion total in 10 years.

      All that said, the deficits going forward, even assuming economic recovery, are scary, mainly because the population is aging. They require budget cuts and tax increases, as anyone who has reviewed the real numbers knows. But getting out of the depression should be job #1. It does little good to cut budgets and throw more people out of work, thus depressing the economy further and cutting tax revenues more.

      1. Don’t forget Obama increased unemployment security alone by 32 Billions.
        with the Obama care the total cost is way more then the 200 Billion you claim. The cost of the Obama-care alone is a staggering 2 trillion over the next 10 years.
        and talking about Obama-Care passing the bill to find out exactly what’s in it was the dumbest thing i ever heard.

        Budget must be cut, the US is digging itself a huge hole, that is threatening the US national security.

        The national debt is the US Masada. But hey, if you guys wish to commit suicide, keep on the same liberal policies, don’t cut the budget, don’t cut spending.

        1. Wow, you’re even a Tea Party animal. How impressive. Except you don’t know s^% fr shinola. What amazes me about hasbarists like you & free man is that u claim expertise in myriad subjects about which u really know next to nothing. Like U.S. politics or the U.S. economic system. You’re way out of yr depth.

          I have no idea what yr first comment about unemployment security means. It was unintelligible. As for health care, if you like a privatized health care system like we have here, by all means come over without a job & get a serious illness. Then you’ll thank yr lucky stars that the Tea Partyers didn’t prevail in the health care debate.

          If u really knew anything about economics you’d know that cutting budgets in a recession is the dumbest thing a govt can do. FDR did precisely that in 1938 & the economy sunk right back into Depression fr which it had been painfully emerging. No, u pump money into the economy in precisely the way Obama did w the stimulus (no thanks to yr buds, the Tea Partyers). Only problem is he pumped too little into the economy & stopped priming the pump too soon, which is why we’re in a double dip recession.

          1. Richard, the only thing Obama’s stimulus will achieve is the replacement of the USD with a new global currency.
            I expect a world known economist as yourself, to tell us what the implication of that would be to the US economy.
            The reason the US stepped out of the depression at the end of WWII was manufacturing, every dollar spent in the US, stayed in the US. These days, all the stimulus achieves, is prosperity in the far east. No manufacturing is done in the US (almost none) which means that every dollar spent in the US is finding it’s way (partly) to other markets.

            But yes, i don’t know what i am talking about, Only you do.

          2. I expect a world known economist as yourself, to tell us what the implication of that would be to the US economy.

            No, YOU are the “world-renowned economist” who made the nonsensical claim that the dollar would be replaced by some previously unknown currency for world trade. If this happens, it will not happen for years. Real economists know that, as opposed to you. So no, I won’t tell you what the impact of something would be that no sensible economist would say will happen anytime soon.

            The problem with you is that you read a few right wing American websites like Weekly Standard & possible National Review & think you know everything about America.

            No manufacturing is done in the US (almost none)

            First, that statement is false since the U.S. still does a considerable amount of manufacturing which would include airplanes, automobiles, & other items. Second, manufacturing was an important industry in the first half of the 20th century. But it is no longer, at least not to the American economy. Far more of our treasure is in other types of goods & services including high tech, consulting, etc.

            But yes, i don’t know what i am talking about,

            You said it. I didn’t.

          3. Nudnik must be getting his facts from Fox News. Back on this planet, “Obamacare” will not cost $2 trillion. Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, says it will save money or be revenue neutral. BTW, the CBO overestimated the cost of the drug benefit — track record is pretty good.

            It is important to note that right now, those WITH INSURANCE pay for those without — about 27% of the insurance bill goes to reimburse providers for care for the uninsured. Would not it make more sense to cover those expenses through the broader tax base? And to make sure everyone HAS insurance in the first place?

            True, good Christians in Arizona are denying treatment to the poor, letting them die in the streets. Is this now the Jewish way, too?

            On stimulus spending going abroad, Nudnik is still on that other planet. On THIS planet, the total misnamed “public works” stimulus (the ARRA bill) was $780 billion, but only $220 billion was for building things. The rest was for tax breaks. The “things” included almost $20 billion for electronic medical records, $7 billion for high speed internet, highways, and so forth. There was a “buy American where possible” provision in the law, but best guess is that $20 billion “leaked” overseas — and some of THAT allows other countries to buy stuff from us. The USA manufacturing sector has boomed. The reason so little money “leaked” is that most of the projects chosen for the stimulus program are labor-intensive. You can’t import a highway repaving project from China. Even telecom/internet projects are 80% labor, 20% equipment (some of which came from Israel, BTW).

          4. THE WEEKLY STANDARD??? This is yr source? That’s like saying Yisrael Hayom claims that Obama is a Muslim. Pretty credible, eh? WS is edited by Bill Kristol, one of charter Jewish neocons. Anything he or WS says about the debt or the health care bill isn’t worth the paper it isn’t written on.

            Could you pls learn something about American politics & publications before you continue making a fool of yrself?? I don’t pretend to know everything about Israeli politics or publications. But then again, I don’t pretend as you do, to know things that I don’t know about them.

          5. “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better”

            March 2006, Senator Barack Obama.

          6. Talk to the Republicans who refused to vote for additional revenue which is absolutely required to fix the debt problem. Without tax increases there cannot be balanced budgets. Plain & simple. Obama was right in 2006. We need leadership on the issue. And neither he nor the Republicans did so. They both punted.

            And let’s stay on topic. The subject isn’t the U.S. debt limit. So don’t publish any further comments on this subject. Understood?

          7. Instead of reading a few paragraphs in a right-wing magazine, you might actually read the full CBO report, which notes that Obamacare costs are offset by Medicaid and Medicare savings. Even the Weekly Standard only implies that the cost adds to the national debt while saying Obamacare “drains” Medicare. It is true that the “spending clock” starts now, rather than in 2014 when mandatory insurance kicks in — because the savings start now.

            BTW, as I tell any conservatives who might listen (damn few) the best cure to the problem of massive numbers of elderly paid for by relatively few workers, and the best cure for delaying decline of USA economic pre-eminence in the face of India and China growth turns out to be the same cure: Loosen immigration barriers and let young families come to the USA from almost anyplace.

          8. Instead of reading a few paragraphs in a right-wing magazine, you might actually read the full CBO report

            I’m afraid you’re expecting too much of our friend. Reading an original source? When he can have it dumbed down & ideologized by the Weekly Standard in order to fit his particular political prejudices?? He’ll take the easy way.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.)

  5. 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.

    1. 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.

  6. “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.

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