6 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי
“How Goodly Are Thy Tents”
FIRST OF all, a warning.
Tent cities are springing up all over Israel. A social protest movement is gathering momentum. At some point in the near future, it may endanger the right-wing government.
At that point, there will be a temptation – perhaps an irresistible temptation – to “warm up the borders”. To start a nice little war. Call on the youth of Israel, the same young people now manning (and womanning) the tents, to go and defend the fatherland.
Nothing easier than that. A small provocation, a platoon crossing the border “to prevent the launching of a rocket”, a fire fight, a salvo of rockets – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.
In September, just a few weeks from now, the Palestinians intend to apply to the UN for the recognition of the State of Palestine. Our politicians and generals are chanting in unison that this will cause a crisis – Palestinians in the occupied territories may rise in protest against the occupation, violent demonstrations may ensue, the army will be compelled to shoot – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.
THREE WEEKS ago I was interviewed one morning by a Dutch journalist. At the end, she asked: “You are describing an awful situation. The extreme right-wing controls the Knesset and is enacting abominable anti-democratic laws. The people are indifferent and apathetic. There is no opposition to speak of. And yet you exude a spirit of optimism. How come?”
I answered that I have faith in the people of Israel. Contrary to appearances, we are a sane people. Some time, somewhere, a new movement will arise and change the situation. It may happen in a week, in a month, in a year. But it will come.
On that very same day, just a few hours later, a young woman called Daphne Liff, with an improbable man’s hat perched on her flowing hair, said to herself: “Enough!”
She had been evicted by her landlady because she couldn’t afford the rent. She set up a tent in Rothschild Boulevard, a long, tree-lined thoroughfare in the center of Tel Aviv. The news spread through facebook, and within an hour, dozens of tents had sprung up. Within a week, there were some 400 tents, spread out in a double line more than a mile long.
Similar tent-cities sprang up in Jerusalem, Haifa and a dozen smaller towns. The next Saturday, tens of thousands joined protest marches in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Last Saturday, they numbered more than 150,000.
This”] has now become the center of Israeli life. The Rothschild tent city has assumed a life of its own –a cross between Tahrir Square and Woodstock, with a touch of Hyde Park corner thrown in for good measure. The mood is indescribably upbeat, masses of people come to visit and return home full of enthusiasm and hope. Everybody can feel that something momentous is happening.
Seeing the tents, I was reminded of the words of Balaam, who was sent by the king of Moab to curse the children of Israel in the desert (Numbers 24) and instead exclaimed: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, Oh Israel!”
IT ALL started in a remote little town in Tunisia, when an unlicensed market vendor was arrested by a policewoman. It seems that in the ensuing altercation, the woman struck the man in the face, a terrible humiliation for a Tunisian man. He set himself on fire. What followed is history: the revolution in Tunisia, regime change in Egypt, uprisings all over the Middle East.
The Israeli government saw all this with growing concern – but they didn’t imagine that there might be an effect in Israel itself. Israeli society, with its ingrained contempt for Arabs, could hardly be expected to follow suit.
But follow suit it did. People in the street spoke with growing admiration of the Arab revolt. It showed that people acting together could dare to confront leaders far more fearsome than our bumbling Binyamin Netanyahu.
Some of the most popular posters on the tents were “Rothschild corner Tahrir” and, in a Hebrew rhyme, “Tahrir – Not only in Cahir” – Cahir being the Hebrew version of al-Cahira, the Arabic name for Cairo. And also: “Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu”.
In Tahrir Square, the central slogan was “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime”. In conscious emulation, the central slogan of the tent cities is “The People Want Social Justice”.
WHO ARE these people? What exactly do they want?
It started with a demand for “Affordable Housing”. Rents in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere are extremely high, after years of Government neglect. But the protest soon engulfed other subjects: the high price of foodstuffs and gasoline, the low wages . The ridiculously low salaries of physicians and teachers, the deterioration of the education and health services. There is a general feeling that 18 tycoons control everything, including the politicians. (Politicians who dared to show up in the tent cities were chased away.) They could have quoted an American saying: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
A selection of the slogans gives an impression:
We want a welfare state!
Fighting for the home!
Justice, not charity!
If the government is against the people, the people are against the government!
Bibi, this is not the US Congress, you will not buy us with empty words!
If you don’t join our war, we shall not fight your wars!
Give us our state back!
Three partners with three salaries cannot pay for three rooms!
The answer to privatization: revolution!
We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, we are slaves to Bibi in Israel!
I have no other homeland!
Bibi, go home, we'll pay for the gas!
Overthrow swinish capitalism!
Be practical, demand the impossible!
WHAT IS missing in this array of slogans? Of course: the occupation, the settlements, the huge expenditure on the military.
This is by design. The organizers, anonymous young men and women – mainly women – are very determined not to be branded as “leftists”. They know that bringing up the occupation would provide Netanyahu with an easy weapon, split the tent-dwellers and derail the protests.
We in the peace movement know and respect this. All of us are exercising strenuous self-restraint, so that Netanyahu will not succeed in marginalizing the movement and depicting it as a plot to overthrow the right-wing government.
As I wrote in an article in Haaretz: No need to push the protesters. In due course, they will reach the conclusion that the money for the major reforms they demand can only come from stopping the settlements and cutting the huge military budget by hundreds of billions – and that is possible only in peace. (To help them along, we published a large ad, saying: “It’s quite simple – money for the settlements OR money for housing, health services and education”).
Voltaire said that “the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give it to the other”. This government takes the money of decent citizens to give it to the settlers.
WHO ARE they, these enthusiastic demonstrators, who seemingly have come from nowhere?
They are the young generation of the middle class, who go out to work, take home average salaries and “cannot finish the month”, as the Israeli expression goes. Mothers who cannot go to work because they have nowhere to leave their babies.
University students who cannot get a room in the dormitories or afford accomodation in the city. And especially young people who want to marry but cannot afford to buy an apartment, even with the help of their parents. (One tent bore the sign: “Even this tent was bought by our parents”)
All this in a flourishing economy, which has been spared the pains of the world-wide economic crisis and boasts an enviable unemployment rate of just 5%.
If pressed, most of the protesters would declare themselves to be “social-democrats”. They are the very opposite of the Tea Party in the US: they want a welfare state, they blame privatization for many of their ills, they want the government to interfere and to act. Whether they want to admit it or not, the very essence of their demands and attitudes is classically leftist (the term created in the French Revolution because the adherents of these ideals sat on the left side of the speaker in the National Assembly). They are the essence of what Left means - (though in Israel, the terms “Left” and “Right” have until now been largely identified with questions of war and peace).
WHERE WILL it go from here?
No one can say. When asked about the impact of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai famously said: “It’s too early to say.” Here we are witnessing an event still in progress, perhaps even still beginning.
It has already produced a huge change. For weeks now, the public and the media have stopped talking about the borders, the Iranian bomb and the security situation. Instead, the talk is now almost completely about the social situation, the minimum wage, the injustice of indirect taxes, the housing construction crisis.
Under pressure, the amorphous leadership of the protest has drawn up a list of concrete demands. Among others: government building of houses for rent, raising taxes on the rich and the corporations, free education from the age of three months [sic], a raise in the salary of physicians, police and fire-fighters, school classes of no more than 21 pupils, breaking the monopolies controlled by a few tycoons, and so on.
So where from here? There are many possibilities, both good and bad.
Netanyahu can try to buy off the protest with some minor concessions – some billions here, some billions there. This will confront the protesters with the choice of the Indian boy in the movie about becoming a millionaire: take the money and quit, or risk all on answering yet another question.
Or: the movement may continue to gather momentum and force major changes, such as shifting the burden from indirect to direct taxation.
Some rabid optimists (like myself) may even dream of the emergence of a new authentic political party to fill the gaping void on the left side of the political spectrum.
I STARTED with a warning, and I must end with another one: this movement has raised immense hopes. If it fails, it may leave behind an atmosphere of despondency and despair – a mood that will drive those who can to seek a better life somewhere else.
Mostrando postagens com marcador צדק חברתי. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador צדק חברתי. Mostrar todas as postagens
sexta-feira, 5 de agosto de 2011
MEMO TO THE MARCHERS
The answer is that the atmosphere on Planet Netanyahu is slowly suffocating us.
5 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
By Bernard Avishai*
Are our economic problems a result of the absence of peace? If we continue with the peculiar version of “Zionism” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents, are things bound to get worse? Yes. Hell, yes. But before we connect the dots, a word of caution:
Israel’s high degree of inequality is not, by itself, proof of economic injustice so much as of how globalized the Israeli economy is. Our growth is driven by high-technology exports in software, value-added components, advanced medical devices and other “solutions.” So we are bound to have a social profile more like Silicon Valley than a manufacturing city like Wolfsburg, Germany. I could work a lifetime teaching at a business school and not amass the fortune of one former student, who just sold his start-up to Getty Images for over $20 million. Bless him.
The real question is whether those of us who do not have a shot at a fancy technology jackpot have growing incomes and an improving quality of life. Does what we earn and pay taxes on leave us with enough for essential things like higher education, medical care, cars and fuel − and, yes, housing? If not, why not?
The answer is that the atmosphere on Planet Netanyahu is slowly suffocating us:
• The settlement project was, and is, insufferably expensive. Upwards of $20 billion have been spent on settlements and infrastructure in occupied territory, and that doesn’t include the costs of securing them. Meanwhile, traffic on the coastal plain long ago graduated from heavy to infuriating; mass transit projects in major metropolitan areas are constantly postponed.
• The industries that liberated Palestinians will focus on, and draw regional investment to, are precisely those that lower-income Israelis are bound to benefit from: tourism, construction, retail, food processing. Israel and Palestine are one business ecosystem. Israel could generate another $8 billion in GDP just from doubling its number of tourists from 3 to 6 million a year. (Florence gets 12 million.)
• One-sixth of the government budget goes to defense, and that fraction is creeping up to incorporate new weapons systems. Social services are inevitably trimmed. Moreover, the ratio of national debt to GDP is stuck at around 75-80 percent, not unmanageable as long as interest rates remain low and growth rates remain high, say, 4-5 percent a year. But if Israel were to enter periods of lower growth − as would be inescapable with greater political isolation, that is, with Israeli start-ups facing new obstacles to building relationships with European corporations − it would be impossible to outpace the social tensions we now see or the discontent in the Israeli-Arab community.
• Educational infrastructure is in serious decline. Critical preschool is crushingly expensive for young couples. High-school classrooms average 30-40 students. University budgets have been slashed. Yet the Netanyahu government is focusing on the “Zionism” content of the curriculum, not on development of critical thinking in a science-driven economy.
• The health-care system is in crisis, yet Israeli medical training is world-class. Medical tourism, especially from neighboring Arab countries and the Gulf, could rejuvenate the Israeli medical realm overnight.
• Participation in the Israeli workforce is among the lowest of OECD countries, about 56 percent as compared, say, with 68 percent in Japan, which is among the highest. This is largely because of the long-standing policy of the Likud and Company − a policy Yossi Sarid, when he was education minister, tried to change − to keep ultra-Orthodox yeshivas on the dole.
• The major driver of high land prices is the Israel Lands Administration, a throwback to the old Zionist Jewish National Fund (whose lands still constitute about a fifth of the ILA’s holdings), managing roughly 90 percent of Israel’s land for “the Jewish people.” Privatization and auctioning of land is necessary to bring the cost of housing down. But this would mean that Arab towns would be able to buy much more land for their own development, which is anathema to the Israeli right.
• Ginning up the cost of flats themselves, especially in Tel Aviv’s and Jerusalem’s core, are absentee owners: Wealthy Diaspora Jews who − excited by the right’s pandering, and encouraged to think of Israel as a kind of metaphysical theme park − drive out younger buyers and renters.
• Incessant war tension, among other things, has degraded the quality of life. A million Israeli Jews live abroad today, disproportionately well-educated people who could be founding companies at home.
• Last, though not at all least, is Netanyahu’s freewheeling approach to market regulation − so much like that of American Republicans, and masked by ultra-nationalist distractions. This means concentration of ownership in Israel: The wealthiest 16 families own 20 percent of the top 500 companies. Conglomerates take super-profits from, in effect, monopolies in banking, telecom, food retailing, media and so forth. But they are also over-leveraged, and highly invested in real estate. Let the air out of the housing market − by releasing a great deal more ILA land, for example − and some will find themselves under water, kicking off a recession. Until we break them up, we must live with their need for higher national growth rates than can be achieved with a continuing occupation.
Without peace, in short, the “start-up nation” is bound to run down. And the marches prove that the young of Tel Aviv − with global experiences and cosmopolitan instincts − do not live in a bubble. It is Netanyahu and the right, settlers and the Orthodox and Russian Putinists, who live in a bubble. God willing, the streets of Tel Aviv will burst it even before the streets of Ramallah do.
*Bernard Avishai is the author, most recently, of “The Hebrew Republic.” He writes for numerous magazines, including Harper’s and The New York Times Magazine. He teaches business at the Hebrew University and blogs at TPM Cafe and Bernard Avishai Dot Com.
5 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
By Bernard Avishai*
Are our economic problems a result of the absence of peace? If we continue with the peculiar version of “Zionism” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents, are things bound to get worse? Yes. Hell, yes. But before we connect the dots, a word of caution:
Israel’s high degree of inequality is not, by itself, proof of economic injustice so much as of how globalized the Israeli economy is. Our growth is driven by high-technology exports in software, value-added components, advanced medical devices and other “solutions.” So we are bound to have a social profile more like Silicon Valley than a manufacturing city like Wolfsburg, Germany. I could work a lifetime teaching at a business school and not amass the fortune of one former student, who just sold his start-up to Getty Images for over $20 million. Bless him.
The real question is whether those of us who do not have a shot at a fancy technology jackpot have growing incomes and an improving quality of life. Does what we earn and pay taxes on leave us with enough for essential things like higher education, medical care, cars and fuel − and, yes, housing? If not, why not?
The answer is that the atmosphere on Planet Netanyahu is slowly suffocating us:
• The settlement project was, and is, insufferably expensive. Upwards of $20 billion have been spent on settlements and infrastructure in occupied territory, and that doesn’t include the costs of securing them. Meanwhile, traffic on the coastal plain long ago graduated from heavy to infuriating; mass transit projects in major metropolitan areas are constantly postponed.
• The industries that liberated Palestinians will focus on, and draw regional investment to, are precisely those that lower-income Israelis are bound to benefit from: tourism, construction, retail, food processing. Israel and Palestine are one business ecosystem. Israel could generate another $8 billion in GDP just from doubling its number of tourists from 3 to 6 million a year. (Florence gets 12 million.)
• One-sixth of the government budget goes to defense, and that fraction is creeping up to incorporate new weapons systems. Social services are inevitably trimmed. Moreover, the ratio of national debt to GDP is stuck at around 75-80 percent, not unmanageable as long as interest rates remain low and growth rates remain high, say, 4-5 percent a year. But if Israel were to enter periods of lower growth − as would be inescapable with greater political isolation, that is, with Israeli start-ups facing new obstacles to building relationships with European corporations − it would be impossible to outpace the social tensions we now see or the discontent in the Israeli-Arab community.
• Educational infrastructure is in serious decline. Critical preschool is crushingly expensive for young couples. High-school classrooms average 30-40 students. University budgets have been slashed. Yet the Netanyahu government is focusing on the “Zionism” content of the curriculum, not on development of critical thinking in a science-driven economy.
• The health-care system is in crisis, yet Israeli medical training is world-class. Medical tourism, especially from neighboring Arab countries and the Gulf, could rejuvenate the Israeli medical realm overnight.
• Participation in the Israeli workforce is among the lowest of OECD countries, about 56 percent as compared, say, with 68 percent in Japan, which is among the highest. This is largely because of the long-standing policy of the Likud and Company − a policy Yossi Sarid, when he was education minister, tried to change − to keep ultra-Orthodox yeshivas on the dole.
• The major driver of high land prices is the Israel Lands Administration, a throwback to the old Zionist Jewish National Fund (whose lands still constitute about a fifth of the ILA’s holdings), managing roughly 90 percent of Israel’s land for “the Jewish people.” Privatization and auctioning of land is necessary to bring the cost of housing down. But this would mean that Arab towns would be able to buy much more land for their own development, which is anathema to the Israeli right.
• Ginning up the cost of flats themselves, especially in Tel Aviv’s and Jerusalem’s core, are absentee owners: Wealthy Diaspora Jews who − excited by the right’s pandering, and encouraged to think of Israel as a kind of metaphysical theme park − drive out younger buyers and renters.
• Incessant war tension, among other things, has degraded the quality of life. A million Israeli Jews live abroad today, disproportionately well-educated people who could be founding companies at home.
• Last, though not at all least, is Netanyahu’s freewheeling approach to market regulation − so much like that of American Republicans, and masked by ultra-nationalist distractions. This means concentration of ownership in Israel: The wealthiest 16 families own 20 percent of the top 500 companies. Conglomerates take super-profits from, in effect, monopolies in banking, telecom, food retailing, media and so forth. But they are also over-leveraged, and highly invested in real estate. Let the air out of the housing market − by releasing a great deal more ILA land, for example − and some will find themselves under water, kicking off a recession. Until we break them up, we must live with their need for higher national growth rates than can be achieved with a continuing occupation.
Without peace, in short, the “start-up nation” is bound to run down. And the marches prove that the young of Tel Aviv − with global experiences and cosmopolitan instincts − do not live in a bubble. It is Netanyahu and the right, settlers and the Orthodox and Russian Putinists, who live in a bubble. God willing, the streets of Tel Aviv will burst it even before the streets of Ramallah do.
*Bernard Avishai is the author, most recently, of “The Hebrew Republic.” He writes for numerous magazines, including Harper’s and The New York Times Magazine. He teaches business at the Hebrew University and blogs at TPM Cafe and Bernard Avishai Dot Com.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOUSING CRISIS
3 August 2011, Gisha http://http://www.gisha.org גישה (Israel)
Tent cities have sprung up around the country, as people frustrated with the high cost of housing in Israel and inspired by campers on the tony Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv are sleeping outside and blocking main roads in protest. Media coverage of the tent protests has captured the attention of Israeli government representatives, including the prime minister, who are scrambling to make campaign-style promises of more affordable housing.
(Tent city protest on Rothschild boulevard, Tel Aviv. Photo: Yael Bodasher)
Meanwhile in Gaza, a different kind of housing crisis continues to unfold, off the radar of most Israelis, including those protesting for social justice and housing rights here in Israel.
The housing crisis in Gaza, like the one in Israel, is the result of several factors. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. The three-year, complete ban on entrance of construction materials from June 2007 – June 2010. It is estimated that each year around 13,000 new units are needed to meet the demand of natural growth
2. Compounded by the ban on entrance of materials, the consequent total or partial destruction of over 60,000 homes during Operation Cast Lead
3. Continued restrictions on the economy in Gaza which result in low purchasing power and which therefore translate to people not being able to afford the materials that do enter via illicit tunnels
The changes Israel announced in June 2010 to "ease" the closure policy (letting in otherwise banned construction materials for international projects approved by the Palestinian Authority) have not significantly helped alleviate Gaza's housing crisis, as international agencies (the only ones who can get materials transported through Israel) have mainly addressed other urgent needs for re-building (hospitals, schools, clinics, civilian infrastructure, etc).
The flourishing tunnel trade in Israeli-banned construction materials, which incidentally also turns the local government a handsome profit in taxes, has helped those who can afford the materials coming through the tunnels to re-build or repair their homes, as well as develop or renovate a few hotels and resorts. By virtue of the fact that the tunnel trade is illicit and risky, the materials brought through are more expensive than those bought from Israel or the West Bank.
(Construction process in Gaza, May 2011. Photo: Mohammed Azaiza)
According to data from the Shelter Cluster, of the homes that have been completely demolished in Gaza - 3,502 during Operation Cast Lead plus 953 in other military operations and in other circumstances - only 198 have been re-built (.04%!). Of those with major damage, approximately 43% have been repaired. Estimates for housing needs in Gaza run in the tens of thousands, for a population of 1.6 million.
We're not asking Israel to build new homes in Gaza or provide incentives to contractors to build affordable housing. We're just asking Israel to lift the closure of Gaza so that residents there can solve their own housing crisis.
Tent cities have sprung up around the country, as people frustrated with the high cost of housing in Israel and inspired by campers on the tony Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv are sleeping outside and blocking main roads in protest. Media coverage of the tent protests has captured the attention of Israeli government representatives, including the prime minister, who are scrambling to make campaign-style promises of more affordable housing.
(Tent city protest on Rothschild boulevard, Tel Aviv. Photo: Yael Bodasher)
Meanwhile in Gaza, a different kind of housing crisis continues to unfold, off the radar of most Israelis, including those protesting for social justice and housing rights here in Israel.
The housing crisis in Gaza, like the one in Israel, is the result of several factors. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. The three-year, complete ban on entrance of construction materials from June 2007 – June 2010. It is estimated that each year around 13,000 new units are needed to meet the demand of natural growth
2. Compounded by the ban on entrance of materials, the consequent total or partial destruction of over 60,000 homes during Operation Cast Lead
3. Continued restrictions on the economy in Gaza which result in low purchasing power and which therefore translate to people not being able to afford the materials that do enter via illicit tunnels
The changes Israel announced in June 2010 to "ease" the closure policy (letting in otherwise banned construction materials for international projects approved by the Palestinian Authority) have not significantly helped alleviate Gaza's housing crisis, as international agencies (the only ones who can get materials transported through Israel) have mainly addressed other urgent needs for re-building (hospitals, schools, clinics, civilian infrastructure, etc).
The flourishing tunnel trade in Israeli-banned construction materials, which incidentally also turns the local government a handsome profit in taxes, has helped those who can afford the materials coming through the tunnels to re-build or repair their homes, as well as develop or renovate a few hotels and resorts. By virtue of the fact that the tunnel trade is illicit and risky, the materials brought through are more expensive than those bought from Israel or the West Bank.
(Construction process in Gaza, May 2011. Photo: Mohammed Azaiza)
According to data from the Shelter Cluster, of the homes that have been completely demolished in Gaza - 3,502 during Operation Cast Lead plus 953 in other military operations and in other circumstances - only 198 have been re-built (.04%!). Of those with major damage, approximately 43% have been repaired. Estimates for housing needs in Gaza run in the tens of thousands, for a population of 1.6 million.
We're not asking Israel to build new homes in Gaza or provide incentives to contractors to build affordable housing. We're just asking Israel to lift the closure of Gaza so that residents there can solve their own housing crisis.
FROM PROTEST TO POWER
The young demonstrators would do well to remember May 1968 in Europe; a protest that does not find immediate political expression is destined to disintegrate.
5 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
By Zeev Sternhell
In these times of hope and anticipation, it is difficult not to wonder what form the protest might have taken, and what results it might already have achieved, if there had been a large and authentic social-democratic party here with a labor union worthy of the name, at its side. Indeed a spontaneous uprising that does not find political expression very soon, and does not threaten those who are in power, will of necessity have very limited achievements.
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that when there is no opposition with an ideology of structural social change, and which is capable of garnering electoral support for a comprehensive national economic program, the danger facing him and his party is negligible. The truth is that the protesters themselves have already presented him with a way out. His representatives will anoint the protest leaders with pure oil, will set up teams and present ideas, will throw them a few bones and then will move to the area where there is no greater expert than Netanyahu: drawing out time and making promises that no one intends to keep.
The real problem, however, is not the government but rather the political elite. Except for a small number of politicians on the center-left, like Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich (Labor ), most of the political leadership is partner to the blind belief in the unique qualities of a free market. There were indeed people outside the political arena who for decades contended that a free market creates no less poverty and misery than wealth and welfare; there were those who believed that poverty is not some kind of natural phenomenon but rather something created by man. But all of them were considered "populist." There were people who saw in the state a tool for correcting distortions and supplying cheap and good-quality services to the entire population, but they were denounced as wanting to return to the 1950s.
Therefore the young demonstrators would do well to remember May 1968 in Europe. Beyond the obvious differences, there is a common denominator: a protest that does not find immediate political expression is destined to disintegrate.
New forces that were not involved in politics until now could play a key role. They could break the neoliberal consensus and to be the motivating force behind the creation of a broad opposition front that brings together all those who recognize the need to address the chronic ills of Israeli society - and not just deal with the milk cartels.
A front of that kind would have place for all those who shy away from the neoconservative "economy of compassion" which is the basis of the impure alliance between the government, the Histadrut labor federation and the people with big money.
Indeed a protest against the obstructed social horizon of the middle class is not out of touch with numerous other problems. In order to create a society that is more egalitarian and just a change is needed in the political balance of power. The protesters will be able to achieve substantive results only by linking up with all the forces that are opposed to the present government, but not to the settlers who are its pillars of support. It will not be enough to demonstrate and march, especially since the marchers will tire a long time before the politicians and before the Yesha Council of settlements.
Therefore, after their preliminary success, they will have to begin the process of dull political work and building up a force that can compete in the next elections. The tent dwellers may be able to provide part of the leadership and to refresh the lines. The hope that was born in the Rothschild tent city must not be allowed to expire in the argument over VAT accounts. Unless an ideological and moral force arises that can be an alternative to the destructiveness of neo-liberalism, the life expectancy of this welcome protest will be as long as the length of the Israeli summer.
5 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
By Zeev Sternhell
In these times of hope and anticipation, it is difficult not to wonder what form the protest might have taken, and what results it might already have achieved, if there had been a large and authentic social-democratic party here with a labor union worthy of the name, at its side. Indeed a spontaneous uprising that does not find political expression very soon, and does not threaten those who are in power, will of necessity have very limited achievements.
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that when there is no opposition with an ideology of structural social change, and which is capable of garnering electoral support for a comprehensive national economic program, the danger facing him and his party is negligible. The truth is that the protesters themselves have already presented him with a way out. His representatives will anoint the protest leaders with pure oil, will set up teams and present ideas, will throw them a few bones and then will move to the area where there is no greater expert than Netanyahu: drawing out time and making promises that no one intends to keep.
The real problem, however, is not the government but rather the political elite. Except for a small number of politicians on the center-left, like Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich (Labor ), most of the political leadership is partner to the blind belief in the unique qualities of a free market. There were indeed people outside the political arena who for decades contended that a free market creates no less poverty and misery than wealth and welfare; there were those who believed that poverty is not some kind of natural phenomenon but rather something created by man. But all of them were considered "populist." There were people who saw in the state a tool for correcting distortions and supplying cheap and good-quality services to the entire population, but they were denounced as wanting to return to the 1950s.
Therefore the young demonstrators would do well to remember May 1968 in Europe. Beyond the obvious differences, there is a common denominator: a protest that does not find immediate political expression is destined to disintegrate.
New forces that were not involved in politics until now could play a key role. They could break the neoliberal consensus and to be the motivating force behind the creation of a broad opposition front that brings together all those who recognize the need to address the chronic ills of Israeli society - and not just deal with the milk cartels.
A front of that kind would have place for all those who shy away from the neoconservative "economy of compassion" which is the basis of the impure alliance between the government, the Histadrut labor federation and the people with big money.
Indeed a protest against the obstructed social horizon of the middle class is not out of touch with numerous other problems. In order to create a society that is more egalitarian and just a change is needed in the political balance of power. The protesters will be able to achieve substantive results only by linking up with all the forces that are opposed to the present government, but not to the settlers who are its pillars of support. It will not be enough to demonstrate and march, especially since the marchers will tire a long time before the politicians and before the Yesha Council of settlements.
Therefore, after their preliminary success, they will have to begin the process of dull political work and building up a force that can compete in the next elections. The tent dwellers may be able to provide part of the leadership and to refresh the lines. The hope that was born in the Rothschild tent city must not be allowed to expire in the argument over VAT accounts. Unless an ideological and moral force arises that can be an alternative to the destructiveness of neo-liberalism, the life expectancy of this welcome protest will be as long as the length of the Israeli summer.
PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN A BESIEGED MINORITY OF THE MINORITY
By Elizabeth Whitman
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2, 2011 (IPS) - Israeli policies are destroying the livelihoods of Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and the Negev in southern Israel, activists and aid workers warn.
They have done so for years, threatening to erase the traditional ways of these indigenous people, precipitating an acute and worrisome humanitarian situation, and, some experts believe, undermining the possibility of a future Palestinian state.
Though the difficulties facing Palestinian Bedouin vary by location, many agree that Israel's policies have marginalised them, making them a slowly disappearing minority of the minority with little or no political voice to challenge their fate.
A report released Monday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that the most effective solutions to this problem would not be the provision of short term relief but instead "substantive changes to policies and practices applied by the Israeli authorities" - in short, addressing the fundamental issues forcing the Bedouin to relocate and relinquish their traditional ways of life.
All the Palestinian Bedouin reached by IPS suggested that that the United Nations is doing some, but too little, to help, despite its knowledge and understanding of their plight, and acknowledged as well the critical absence of a unified voice representing the Bedouin community. The Palestinian Authority's authority in Area C is also extremely limited, controlling only health and educational services.
The OCHA report, based on visits to 13 Bedouin villages in Area C of the West Bank, noted that "clear patterns of displacement are occurring in the Area C communities visited, with residents being forced to move in order to meet their basic needs", and concluded that "the restrictive planning regime applied by the Israeli authorities in Area C" was the primary cause of relocation.
Bedouin are usually unable to obtain Israeli Land Administration (ILA) permits necessary to build houses and schools, and frequently face demolition orders for pre-existing structures. They also have difficulty accessing resources and services such as water, land crucial for livestock, and education, because Israeli settlements and other structures take up 70 percent of Area C.
Maxwell Gaylard, who is based in Jerusalem as U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, told IPS that he had seen one school knocked down and rebuilt four times.
"Residents report living in a state of pervasive insecurity and instability due to administrative practices implemented by the Israeli authorities," the report found. It warned that ultimately, "some of these communities may disintegrate and disappear altogether over the course of the next generation".
Bedouin in the West Bank
After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided in 1995 into three parts - Areas A, B and C. With the exception of health and educational services, Israel retains full control over Area C, which comprises roughly 60 percent of the occupied territory and whose Palestinian population is a diminishing 150,000. Some 27,000 of those are Bedouin or members of herding communities.
The 300,000 Israeli settlers living in Area C particularly complicate the matter, as Israel seeks to clear out Area C to make room to construct more of the settlements that are illegal under international law.
Mohammad Al Korshan, a representative of the Area C Bedouin, told IPS that Israel wanted to relocate Bedouin from Area C into Palestinian cities mainly in Areas A and B. Without the help of NGOs or the U.N., in a few years, one will no longer find Bedouin living in the desert, he believed. Many have already been forced to sell their animals - herding is a traditional livelihood for Bedouin - because they no longer have land to graze them on.
He said the U.N. was helpful in some ways, such as by providing food or temporary work, but overall, the world body was not helping enough.
According to Gaylard, Area C is "critical to the viability of the future Palestinian state". Still, the report stated, Israel's "highly restrictive and discriminatory planning regime… completely excludes their [Palestinian] participation and contributes to poor living conditions" and stymies opportunities for the development necessary to build a future state.
Meanwhile, problems of more immediate concern include "poverty and nutrition levels" which have rendered "the humanitarian fallout… for the Bedouin and the herders… particularly acute," said Gaylard.
When asked who served as the voice of the Bedouin in the West Bank, Gaylard responded with a wry chuckle, "I think it's us." Some NGOs, both Arab and Israeli, are dedicated to defending Bedouin communities, he added.
Bedouin in the Negev
In the Negev, the desert region in southern Israel home to tens of thousands of Bedouin, many Bedouin villages go unrecognised by the Israeli government. Their residents face similar challenges to the Bedouin in the West Bank, but under different political circumstances. As Israeli citizens, they are not represented by the Palestinian Authority, yet they are not treated as equal citizens by the state of Israel.
Excluded from the state's regional development plan, Bedouin face "forced evictions, home demolitions, and other punitive measures disproportionately against Bedouin" compared to Jewish residents, said a 2008 Human Rights Watch report.
Khalil Alamour, a resident of the unrecognised village As-Sira in the Negev and activist for Bedouin rights, said, "We are now all under the threat of demolition, which can happen anytime… The situation is deteriorating."
No single entity represents Bedouin interests, he said in an interview with IPS, warning that Bedouins' unique culture and ways of life "are going disappear very soon".
Jihad el-Sana, a resident of the recognised town of Laqia who is fighting for Bedouin rights, pointed out the irony of living in the third world - the majority of Bedouin live below the poverty line, he said - in such a developed country as Israel.
He supported Alamour's claim that the Bedouin did not have one unified voice because the community was too divided by needs and circumstances - some members owned land, some didn't, while some Bedouin live in recognised villages and others in unrecognised ones. In addition to a lack of political cohesion among the Bedouin, the "United Nations is doing nothing," el-Sana added.
In a recent twist, the BBC reported last week that Israel is suing a Bedouin community in the Negev for over half a million dollars in demolition costs. Each time Israel demolishes the village, the Bedouin rebuild it. (END)
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2, 2011 (IPS) - Israeli policies are destroying the livelihoods of Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and the Negev in southern Israel, activists and aid workers warn.
They have done so for years, threatening to erase the traditional ways of these indigenous people, precipitating an acute and worrisome humanitarian situation, and, some experts believe, undermining the possibility of a future Palestinian state.
Though the difficulties facing Palestinian Bedouin vary by location, many agree that Israel's policies have marginalised them, making them a slowly disappearing minority of the minority with little or no political voice to challenge their fate.
A report released Monday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that the most effective solutions to this problem would not be the provision of short term relief but instead "substantive changes to policies and practices applied by the Israeli authorities" - in short, addressing the fundamental issues forcing the Bedouin to relocate and relinquish their traditional ways of life.
All the Palestinian Bedouin reached by IPS suggested that that the United Nations is doing some, but too little, to help, despite its knowledge and understanding of their plight, and acknowledged as well the critical absence of a unified voice representing the Bedouin community. The Palestinian Authority's authority in Area C is also extremely limited, controlling only health and educational services.
The OCHA report, based on visits to 13 Bedouin villages in Area C of the West Bank, noted that "clear patterns of displacement are occurring in the Area C communities visited, with residents being forced to move in order to meet their basic needs", and concluded that "the restrictive planning regime applied by the Israeli authorities in Area C" was the primary cause of relocation.
Bedouin are usually unable to obtain Israeli Land Administration (ILA) permits necessary to build houses and schools, and frequently face demolition orders for pre-existing structures. They also have difficulty accessing resources and services such as water, land crucial for livestock, and education, because Israeli settlements and other structures take up 70 percent of Area C.
Maxwell Gaylard, who is based in Jerusalem as U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, told IPS that he had seen one school knocked down and rebuilt four times.
"Residents report living in a state of pervasive insecurity and instability due to administrative practices implemented by the Israeli authorities," the report found. It warned that ultimately, "some of these communities may disintegrate and disappear altogether over the course of the next generation".
Bedouin in the West Bank
After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided in 1995 into three parts - Areas A, B and C. With the exception of health and educational services, Israel retains full control over Area C, which comprises roughly 60 percent of the occupied territory and whose Palestinian population is a diminishing 150,000. Some 27,000 of those are Bedouin or members of herding communities.
The 300,000 Israeli settlers living in Area C particularly complicate the matter, as Israel seeks to clear out Area C to make room to construct more of the settlements that are illegal under international law.
Mohammad Al Korshan, a representative of the Area C Bedouin, told IPS that Israel wanted to relocate Bedouin from Area C into Palestinian cities mainly in Areas A and B. Without the help of NGOs or the U.N., in a few years, one will no longer find Bedouin living in the desert, he believed. Many have already been forced to sell their animals - herding is a traditional livelihood for Bedouin - because they no longer have land to graze them on.
He said the U.N. was helpful in some ways, such as by providing food or temporary work, but overall, the world body was not helping enough.
According to Gaylard, Area C is "critical to the viability of the future Palestinian state". Still, the report stated, Israel's "highly restrictive and discriminatory planning regime… completely excludes their [Palestinian] participation and contributes to poor living conditions" and stymies opportunities for the development necessary to build a future state.
Meanwhile, problems of more immediate concern include "poverty and nutrition levels" which have rendered "the humanitarian fallout… for the Bedouin and the herders… particularly acute," said Gaylard.
When asked who served as the voice of the Bedouin in the West Bank, Gaylard responded with a wry chuckle, "I think it's us." Some NGOs, both Arab and Israeli, are dedicated to defending Bedouin communities, he added.
Bedouin in the Negev
In the Negev, the desert region in southern Israel home to tens of thousands of Bedouin, many Bedouin villages go unrecognised by the Israeli government. Their residents face similar challenges to the Bedouin in the West Bank, but under different political circumstances. As Israeli citizens, they are not represented by the Palestinian Authority, yet they are not treated as equal citizens by the state of Israel.
Excluded from the state's regional development plan, Bedouin face "forced evictions, home demolitions, and other punitive measures disproportionately against Bedouin" compared to Jewish residents, said a 2008 Human Rights Watch report.
Khalil Alamour, a resident of the unrecognised village As-Sira in the Negev and activist for Bedouin rights, said, "We are now all under the threat of demolition, which can happen anytime… The situation is deteriorating."
No single entity represents Bedouin interests, he said in an interview with IPS, warning that Bedouins' unique culture and ways of life "are going disappear very soon".
Jihad el-Sana, a resident of the recognised town of Laqia who is fighting for Bedouin rights, pointed out the irony of living in the third world - the majority of Bedouin live below the poverty line, he said - in such a developed country as Israel.
He supported Alamour's claim that the Bedouin did not have one unified voice because the community was too divided by needs and circumstances - some members owned land, some didn't, while some Bedouin live in recognised villages and others in unrecognised ones. In addition to a lack of political cohesion among the Bedouin, the "United Nations is doing nothing," el-Sana added.
In a recent twist, the BBC reported last week that Israel is suing a Bedouin community in the Negev for over half a million dollars in demolition costs. Each time Israel demolishes the village, the Bedouin rebuild it. (END)
WHERE ARE THE GEOPOLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES IN ISRAEL’S PROTESTS?
4 August 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
by David Harris-Gershon*
The massive tent protests currently sweeping Israel, originally triggered by the country’s young, urban middle class over unsustainable housing costs, have morphed into a movement representing a multitude of social justice issues. In fact, during rallies now, one of the most frequent chants is “האם דורש צדק חברתי” – “The People Demand Social Justice.”
On Tuesday, protest leaders officially championed a vast array of social justice causes when they presented Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an expansive list of demands – among them lower taxes, health care reforms and the broadening of free, public education.
However, noticeably absent from the demands were any geopolitical, human rights issues related to the conflict with the Palestinians, namely settlements and the occupation. This absence has been noted by particular segments, namely Palestinians, left-leaning Israelis and progressive American Jews (the group to which I belong).
In America, many look upon the protesters screaming for social justice and expect them to champion the geopolitical issues that were championed by the Israeli Left in Rabin’s day. I fully admit that, during the movement’s infancy, I did the same. However, to do so is to perhaps misinterpret what is occurring in Israel right now – to expect that Palestinian issues will soon be incorporated into the protests by organizers, such as they exist, is to misunderstand the movement.
The Israeli fiction writer Etgar Keret recently wrote in Tablet Magazine concerning the middle class body politic that has largely spurred these protests:
It’s funny to see how this group of people, in their cool, trendy clothes, feels so unrepresented: It contains artists, lawyers, academics, doctors – not the types you stereotypically find shouting about not having their voices heard. But in the Israel of 2011, these are precisely the people who can’t find themselves any genuine political representation. The people demonstrating here are exactly the same people who don’t feel quite comfortable with the flood of new laws, such as the recently passed boycott law, that limit basic freedoms. Many demonstrators see themselves as apolitical. Despite the fact that they came here supposedly to talk about housing issues, their concerns run much deeper. The suffocation they feel isn’t caused so much by a shortage of square meters as by their frustration about not being counted by those who hold the reins of the country and are steering it to some very unpleasant places.
These protests, which were initiated by progressive, left-leaning urbanites in Tel Aviv, have galvanized large swaths of Israel’s lower and middle classes. They have galvanized people who feel underrepresented, people who have watched politicians bend to the will of small interest groups while the divide between the rich and the poor has grown.
Israel’s middle class largely feels that the government has abandoned their social and economic interests as they carry the overwhelming tax burden in the country. And they have taken to the streets to reclaim sustainable lives for themselves, not to address divisive geopolitical issues that drew the Israeli Left into the streets in the 1990s.
These protests are supported by incredible numbers of Israelis – 88 percent according to a poll taken on Monday for Channel 10 – precisely because they have focused on domestic issues around which everyone has unified: housing costs, education costs, the availability of quality health care, the high tax burden.
However, if protest organizers were to willfully add geopolitical, human rights issues (such as the settlements and the occupation) to the movement’s official agenda too soon, some, including Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz, think it would mean the collapse of the movement’s popular approval in Israel. Why? Left-leaning Israelis have historically lost when it comes to discussions of security.
Noam Sheizaf, in a post on 972 Magazine entitled “The strange American obsession with the return of the Israeli left,” writes scathingly, and quite bluntly:
It’s time to face facts: Rabin’s second government was an historical accident, no more. This was the only time in 35 years that the left won a Knesset majority…Liberalism, in the American sense, never took real hold in Israel.The current social protest is a unique event with tremendous potential, but if it’s a return to the Jewish democracy dreamland that Americans hope for, [they] are up for a major disappointment. There won’t be a “return” – all we can and should hope for is something completely new.
On Wednesday, Israeli journalist Dimi Reider was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Goodman asked, just as many American journalists have asked recently, how these protests fit into the larger issues of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the settlements.
His answer was twofold. First, he said, there is no connection. Second, this lack of a connection may be strategic on the part of the organizers, who understand that geopolitical issues, such as the settlements and the occupation, would only serve as wedges capable of breaking apart the fragile but unmistakable momentum the protests have gained.
As we watch these protests unfold, it’s important to understand what they are. But it’s also legitimate to hope – as I do – that this movement will grow so strong, and that its gains will be so profound, that organizers will no longer fear to broach the larger human rights issues that remain in the background, regardless of how contentious such issues may be.
*David Harris-Gershon’s work has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Colorado Review and elsewhere. His memoir, Shrapnel, is currently making the rounds. He received his MFA from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and has worked extensively as an educator, teaching creative writing at the university level and Israeli History / Jewish Studies at the high school level.
by David Harris-Gershon*
The massive tent protests currently sweeping Israel, originally triggered by the country’s young, urban middle class over unsustainable housing costs, have morphed into a movement representing a multitude of social justice issues. In fact, during rallies now, one of the most frequent chants is “האם דורש צדק חברתי” – “The People Demand Social Justice.”
On Tuesday, protest leaders officially championed a vast array of social justice causes when they presented Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an expansive list of demands – among them lower taxes, health care reforms and the broadening of free, public education.
However, noticeably absent from the demands were any geopolitical, human rights issues related to the conflict with the Palestinians, namely settlements and the occupation. This absence has been noted by particular segments, namely Palestinians, left-leaning Israelis and progressive American Jews (the group to which I belong).
In America, many look upon the protesters screaming for social justice and expect them to champion the geopolitical issues that were championed by the Israeli Left in Rabin’s day. I fully admit that, during the movement’s infancy, I did the same. However, to do so is to perhaps misinterpret what is occurring in Israel right now – to expect that Palestinian issues will soon be incorporated into the protests by organizers, such as they exist, is to misunderstand the movement.
The Israeli fiction writer Etgar Keret recently wrote in Tablet Magazine concerning the middle class body politic that has largely spurred these protests:
It’s funny to see how this group of people, in their cool, trendy clothes, feels so unrepresented: It contains artists, lawyers, academics, doctors – not the types you stereotypically find shouting about not having their voices heard. But in the Israel of 2011, these are precisely the people who can’t find themselves any genuine political representation. The people demonstrating here are exactly the same people who don’t feel quite comfortable with the flood of new laws, such as the recently passed boycott law, that limit basic freedoms. Many demonstrators see themselves as apolitical. Despite the fact that they came here supposedly to talk about housing issues, their concerns run much deeper. The suffocation they feel isn’t caused so much by a shortage of square meters as by their frustration about not being counted by those who hold the reins of the country and are steering it to some very unpleasant places.
These protests, which were initiated by progressive, left-leaning urbanites in Tel Aviv, have galvanized large swaths of Israel’s lower and middle classes. They have galvanized people who feel underrepresented, people who have watched politicians bend to the will of small interest groups while the divide between the rich and the poor has grown.
Israel’s middle class largely feels that the government has abandoned their social and economic interests as they carry the overwhelming tax burden in the country. And they have taken to the streets to reclaim sustainable lives for themselves, not to address divisive geopolitical issues that drew the Israeli Left into the streets in the 1990s.
These protests are supported by incredible numbers of Israelis – 88 percent according to a poll taken on Monday for Channel 10 – precisely because they have focused on domestic issues around which everyone has unified: housing costs, education costs, the availability of quality health care, the high tax burden.
However, if protest organizers were to willfully add geopolitical, human rights issues (such as the settlements and the occupation) to the movement’s official agenda too soon, some, including Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz, think it would mean the collapse of the movement’s popular approval in Israel. Why? Left-leaning Israelis have historically lost when it comes to discussions of security.
Noam Sheizaf, in a post on 972 Magazine entitled “The strange American obsession with the return of the Israeli left,” writes scathingly, and quite bluntly:
It’s time to face facts: Rabin’s second government was an historical accident, no more. This was the only time in 35 years that the left won a Knesset majority…Liberalism, in the American sense, never took real hold in Israel.The current social protest is a unique event with tremendous potential, but if it’s a return to the Jewish democracy dreamland that Americans hope for, [they] are up for a major disappointment. There won’t be a “return” – all we can and should hope for is something completely new.
On Wednesday, Israeli journalist Dimi Reider was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Goodman asked, just as many American journalists have asked recently, how these protests fit into the larger issues of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the settlements.
His answer was twofold. First, he said, there is no connection. Second, this lack of a connection may be strategic on the part of the organizers, who understand that geopolitical issues, such as the settlements and the occupation, would only serve as wedges capable of breaking apart the fragile but unmistakable momentum the protests have gained.
As we watch these protests unfold, it’s important to understand what they are. But it’s also legitimate to hope – as I do – that this movement will grow so strong, and that its gains will be so profound, that organizers will no longer fear to broach the larger human rights issues that remain in the background, regardless of how contentious such issues may be.
*David Harris-Gershon’s work has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Colorado Review and elsewhere. His memoir, Shrapnel, is currently making the rounds. He received his MFA from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and has worked extensively as an educator, teaching creative writing at the university level and Israeli History / Jewish Studies at the high school level.
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