Jewish, Arab workers and youth protest against social conditions in Israel

By Patrick O’Connor

1 August 2011, World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org (Australia)

An estimated 150,000 mostly young people in Israel, both Jewish and Arab, protested Saturday over spiralling living costs and the economic and social policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The demonstrations—held in eleven cities, with the largest in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa—mark a significant development in the “tent city” movement against high housing costs launched by students nearly three weeks ago. With a total population of about 7 million, 150,000 people represents a large percentage of the country.

While still in its early stages, a movement within the Israeli working class is being driven by worsening social inequality, economic hardship, and enormous anger with the Netanyahu government and the existing political setup in the country.

Yediot Aharonot columnist Nahum Barnea described the protests as unprecedented. “Whether the crowds numbered 100,000 or 200,000, never have such numbers descended into the streets over social issues,” he wrote. “Who would have believed that 150,000 Israelis would take the trouble to go out into the street in the name of social change… the alienation and cynicism that typified the public in the past number of years has now been replaced by involvement and protest.”

The largest protest was in Tel Aviv, where up to 100,000 people marched through the city centre. According to media reports, another 10,000 rallied in Jerusalem outside the prime minister’s residence and 8,000 marched in Haifa. A smaller demonstration in central Nazareth involved both Jews and Arabs, the first such joint rally since the housing protests began.

Slogans included: “The people demand social justice”, “We want justice, not charity”, and “When the government is against the people, the people are against the government”. Protestors also made banners pointing to the influence of the recent uprisings in Egypt and other Arab countries. One read: “This is the Israeli spring”, and another, “Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu!”

One young person was asked by the RT news network whether the protests had been inspired by events in Arab countries. He replied, “There is a lot of influence of what happened in Tahrir Square… There’s a lot of influence of course. That’s when people understand that they have the power, that they can organise by themselves, they don’t need any more the government to tell them what to do, they can start telling the government what they want.”

These developments presage a major shift within the Zionist state. Amid a worsening global economic breakdown, the social crisis in Israel is laying bare the objective potential for unifying Jewish workers with their Arab brothers and sisters both within Israel and throughout the Middle East. Opening up is a new path of political and social struggle, in opposition to the Zionist ruling elite, the Arab bourgeoisie and their imperialist backers—on the basis of common class interest, not nationality, race or religious identity.

Wider layers of the Israeli population are being drawn into the protest movement. Prominent musicians and writers have joined the demonstrations. Yesterday about 1,000 parents and their young children participated in a “strollers’ march” in Jerusalem and Haifa to protest against excessive day care centre costs and inadequate parental leave provisions.

A strike of public hospital medical professionals is in its fifth month. On Sunday, hundreds of doctors, medical residents and hospital interns protested near the Knesset (parliament) demanding adequate funding for the public health system.
Today, local authority workers are set to strike in support of the antigovernment protests, shutting down public offices and leaving rubbish uncollected.

The Netanyahu government has been plunged into crisis. A comment published by Ynet News columnist Attila Somfalvi noted: “Some 150,000 people who left their homes yesterday directed their fury at the man who they view as the culprit behind the State’s privatisation and burial of concern for the regular folk. These are not a bunch of ‘spoiled brats’ who can be dismissed with a disparaging hand gesture or by rolling one’s eyes; these are working people; angry people facing collapse... This protest is making its way to the top of the government, shakes up Likud, rocks the leather chairs in the Knesset and makes the prime minister and finance minister sweat and seek an escape route from the fury pouring into the street.”

The Shas party, which represents ultra-orthodox Jews and has 11 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, has warned it may withdraw from Netanyahu’s coalition government, potentially triggering new elections.

The prime minister has rushed to try to defuse the protest movement. Immediately after Saturday’s demonstrations Netanyahu called a cabinet meeting and announced that a “special team” of ministers and experts would listen to the protest leaders and submit a plan to “alleviate Israelis’ economic burden”. He declared: “We are all aware of the genuine hardship of the cost of living in Israel… we must deal with the genuine distress, seriously and responsibly. This, without a doubt, compels us to change our list of priorities.”

This hollow rhetoric has been accompanied by various sops in response to the protestors’ demands. Last Tuesday, Netanyahu promised to build 50,000 units of housing within 18 months. The government yesterday announced that the excise tax on petrol is to be lowered for one month, during August, and that some elderly people will have their home heating grant doubled. The prime minister has also suggested that he hopes to cut taxes and water charges.

At the same time, Netanyahu has made clear that there will be no serious concessions to the social demands of the protesting workers and youth. “We must avoid irresponsible, hasty and populist steps that are liable to cause the country to deteriorate into the situation of certain European countries, which are on the verge of bankruptcy and large-scale unemployment,” he declared.

Finance minister and senior Likud member Yuval Steinitz raised the spectre of state bankruptcy even more sharply. “We see the talk about the debt crisis in Europe,” he said. “We are even hearing talk of a possible default in the United States. My supreme duty is to ensure we do not reach this situation in the State of Israel... we will not turn the rich and the business people and the investors and the industrialists into the enemies of the people, because they are part of a healthy economy.”

The financial markets are clearly bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Netanyahu government, urging a continuation of pro-business policies irrespective of mass opposition. The value of Israeli government bonds declined after the weekend’s rallies. “Growing protests over rising prices increase pressure on the government to act,” Tel Aviv bond trader Ehud Itzhakov told Bloomberg. “There is concern in the market the government may need to raise more debt, which is creating uncertainty about the deficit.”

The Israeli Treasury Department is reportedly outraged over the government’s limited spending announcements in response to the protests. The director general of Israel’s finance ministry, Haim Shani, resigned yesterday. He cited “differences of opinion in fundamental issues” with the finance minister, adding that “events of the past few days have exacerbated the problems.”

It remains to be seen how the Netanyahu government responds to the crisis in the next days and weeks, but there is a real danger that a provocation will be launched against the Palestinian people or neighbouring Arab states as a diversion. Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar reportedly advised his Likud faction colleagues last week that every election in Israel that has “revolved around a socio-economic issue, Likud lost”, whereas when the main issues were “security related, Likud won.”

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The Israeli protests and the unity of Arab and Jewish workers [30 July 2011]

Most Israeli municipalities declare general strike in solidarity with housing protests

PM scrambles to quell nationwide protests as he faces a setback in the resignation of Finance Ministry Director General Haim Shani; Moshe Terry, former chairman of Israel Securities Authority, likely to take over treasury.

1 August 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

By Rotem Starkman

Gili Cohen contributed to this report

Most municipal authorities have declared a one-day strike scheduled for Monday, in sympathy with popular protests spreading throughout Israel.

Municipalities will not be giving services to government offices or holding public office hours today, streets will not be cleaned and garbage will not be collected.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu redoubled efforts to douse growing protests spreading throughout the country Sunday, even as he faced a setback in the resignation of Finance Ministry Director General Haim Shani.

Shani reportedly quit over the lack of organization in proffering solutions to the crisis, and over the work of Netanyahu and his direct superior, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.

Discussion began of a replacement for Shani, with Moshe Terry, the former chairman of the Israel Securities Authority, seen as likely to take over the treasury.

Netanyahu called an informal meeting of the committee on economic concentration yesterday to discuss solution for the protests, but no decisions were made.

Netanyahu urged its members to make recommendations by the end of the month, and showed the press a presentation of the issues on the agenda.

Terry is close to Delek Group head Yitzhak Tshuva and reportedly assisted him on a number of matters. Tshuva's conglomerate is one of the businesses being examined by the committee on economic concentration.

Netanyahu has also decided to establish a team of ministers and economists, whose makeup is still not final, to speak with the protesters. The panel is to invite various groups, hear them out and make recommendations.

The government also decided yesterday to reduce the tax on gas by 30 agorot per liter for a period of one month, thereby avoiding the price hike of the same amount planned for this morning dictated by the global price rise. The move will cost the government NIS 80 million.

At the end of the month, the cabinet will hear the recommendation of a committee formed to study gas prices and decide how to proceed. The government hopes that oil prices will drop by that time, which will make it unnecessary to continue the reduction in the gas tax.

The government also decided to double the home heating grant for senior citizens who are welfare recipients. However, the grant will be given only to seniors living in areas defined as cold by the National Insurance Institute.

Despite the moves, mutual recriminations have persisted between the Prime Minister's Office and the treasury. The treasury continues to oppose Netanyahu's steps from last week on housing, among them incentives to contractors to build in the center of the country based on the cheapest price to the end user and incentives to convert offices in apartment houses back into residences.

The treasury says such measures merely fan the flames of protest, while the Prime Minister's Office says the treasury has not studied the issue properly.

THE CHARGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES or - Baksheesh for the Doorkeeper

23 July 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי

A Riddle: Which fleet did not reach its destination but fulfilled its mission?
Well, it’s this year’s Gaza solidarity flotilla.

It could be said, of course, that last year’s “little fleet” – that’s what the word means in Spanish, much as “guerrilla” means “little war” – is also a reasonable candidate . It never reached Gaza, but the commander of the Israeli navy could well repeat the words of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whose victory over the Romans was so costly that he is said to have exclaimed: “Another such victory, and I am lost!”
Flotilla 1 did not reach Gaza. But the naval commando attack on it, which cost the lives of nine Turkish activists, aroused such an outcry that our government saw itself compelled to loosen its land blockade of the Gaza Strip significantly.

The repercussions of this action have not yet died down. The very important relations between the Israeli and Turkish militaries are still ruptured, with Turkey demanding an apology and indemnities. The victims’ families are pursuing criminal and civil proceedings in several countries. An ongoing headache.

Flotilla 2 reached its end this week, when a huge naval action led to the capture of 1 (one!) little French yacht and the detention of its sailors, journalists and activists –all 16 (sixteen) of them. Even our tame broadcasters could not help themselves from sneering: “Why didn’t they send an aircraft carrier?”

The 14 boats that were prevented from sailing, and the one that did sail, not only kept our entire navy on alert for weeks, but also helped to keep the Gaza blockade in the news. And that, after all, was the whole point of the exercise.
WHAT HAPPENED to the 14 boats which did not sail?

Incredible as it sounds, the Greek navy and Coast Guard forcibly prevented them from leaving Greek ports. There existed no lawful grounds for this, nor was there any pretense of legality.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the Greek navy was acting under orders from the Israeli Chief of Staff. A proud sea-faring nation with a nautical history of thousands of years (“nautical” even happens to be a Greek word) degraded itself to perform illegal actions to please Israel.

It also ignored acts of sabotage carried out by naval commandos – guess whose - against the boats in Greek harbors.

At the same time, the Turkish government, the defiant sponsor of the Mavi Marmara, the ship on which the Turkish activists were killed last year, prevented the same ship from sailing this year.

Also at the same time, groups of pro-Palestinian activists who tried to reach the West Bank by air were stopped on their way. Since there is no direct access to the West Bank by land, sea or air except through Israeli territory or Israeli checkpoints, they had to travel via Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israel’s gateway to the world. Most did not make it: under instructions from our government, all international airlines blocked these passengers at check-in, using “blacklists” provided by our government.

It seems that the long arm of our diligent security service reaches everywhere, and that its orders are obeyed by countries large and small.

A HUNDRED years ago, the secret police of the Russian Czar, the dreaded “Okhrana”, forged a document called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.

(In those times, the secret police everywhere was still called Secret Police, before being dignified as “Security Services”.)

The document reported a secret meeting of rabbis in the old Jewish cemetery of Prague, to decide upon strategy to secure Jewish rule over the world. It was a crude falsification, which lifted entire passages verbatim from a novel written decades earlier.

In its pages, the real situation of the Jews was grotesquely distorted – they actually had no power at all. In fact, when Adolf Hitler – who used the Protocols for his propaganda – set in motion the Final Solution, almost nobody in the whole world lifted a finger to help the Jews. Even US Jews were afraid to raise their voices.

But if the authors of the falsification were to return to the scene of their crime today, they would rub their eyes in disbelief: this figment of their sick imagination looks like coming true. The Jewish State – as Zionists like to call us – can order around Greek naval authorities, get Turkey to climb down, instruct half a dozen European states to stop passengers at their airports.

How do we do it? There is a simple answer, consisting of three letters: USA.
ISRAEL HAS become a kind of Kafkaesque doorkeeper to the world’s sole remaining superpower.

Through its immense influence on the American political system, and especially on the Congress, Israel can levy a political tax on anyone who needs something from the US. Greece is bankrupt and desperately needs American and European help. Turkey is a partner of the US in NATO. No European country wants to quarrel with the US. Ergo: they all need to give us a little political baksheesh.

To cement this relationship, Glenn Beck, the obnoxious protégé of Rupert Murdoch, visited us and was enthusiastically received in the Knesset, where he told us “not to be afraid”, because he (and, by implication, Fox and all of America) was supporting us to the hilt.

IT IS because of this that a few lines, which appeared this week in the New York Times, caused near panic in Jerusalem.

The NYT is, perhaps, the most “pro-Israel” paper in the whole world, including Israel itself. Anti-Semites call it the Jew York Times. Many of its editorial writers are ardent Zionists. A news story critical of Israeli policies has almost no chance of appearing there. No mention of the Israeli peace movement. No mention of the dozens of demonstrations in Israel against Lebanon War II and the Cast Lead operation. Self-censorship is supreme.

But this week, the NYT published a blistering editorial criticizing Israel. The reason: the “Boycott Law”, passed by the right-wing Knesset majority, which forbids Israelis to call for a boycott of the settlements. The editorial practically repeats what I said in last week’s article: that the law is blatantly anti-democratic and violates basic human rights. The more so, since it comes on top of a whole series of anti-democratic laws that were enacted in the last few months. Israel is in danger of losing its title as the “Only Democracy in the Middle East”.

Suddenly, all the red lights in Jerusalem started to blink furiously. Help! We are going to lose our only political asset in the world, the pillar of our strength, the basis of our national security, the rock of our existence.

THE RESULT was immediate. On Wednesday, the right-wing clique that now controls the Knesset, under the leadership of Avigdor Lieberman, brought to final vote a resolution that would appoint two Committees of Inquiry into the financial resources of human-rights NGOs. Not all NGOs, only “leftist” ones. This was another item on the long list of McCarthyist measures, many of which have already been adopted and many more of which are waiting for their turn.

The day before, Binyamin Netanyahu appeared specially in the Knesset to assure his followers that he fully approved, and indeed had sponsored, the Boycott Law. But after the NYT editorial, when the Commission of Inquiry resolution came up, Netanyahu and almost all his cabinet ministers voted against it. The religious factions disappeared from the Knesset. The resolution was voted down by a 2 to 1 majority.

But one ominous fact emerged: Apart from Netanyahu and his captive ministers, all the Likud members present voted for the resolution. This included all the young leaders of the party – the coming generation of Likud bosses.

If the Likud remains in power – this group of ultra-rightists,[] will be the government of Israel within ten years. And to hell with the New York Times.
FORTUNATELY, THERE are signs that a new phenomenon is in the making.

It started innocently with a successful consumer strike on cottage cheese, in order to compel a cartel of fat cats to reduce prices. This has been followed by a mass action by young couples, mostly university students, against the impossibly high prices of apartments.

A group of protesters put up tents in the center of Tel Aviv and have now been living there for over a week. Soon after, such encampments sprang up all over the country, from Kiryat Shmona on the Lebanese border to Beer Sheva in the Negev.

It is much too early to tell whether this is a short-term protest or the beginning of an Israeli Tahrir Square phenomenon. But it clearly shows that the takeover of Israel by a neo-fascist grouping is not a foregone conclusion. The fight is on.
Perhaps - just perhaps! - even the New York Times could be starting to report on the reality of our country.