3 August 2011, Communist Party of Israel המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית http://maki.org.il
After setting up joint protest headquarters on Tuesday, representatives of the 40 tent encampments scattered across Israel, students and youth groups released an agreement they had reached and guidelines for negotiating with the government. Also: protests continue across the country with activists blocking roads.
The demands include lowering indirect taxes, canceling the national housing committees bill, free education starting at the age of three months and increasing the Housing Ministry's assistance budget to mortgages and rent.
The activists also demand steps be taken in the health care system, such as more positions for medical staff, more beds, medical equipment that upholds the standards for OECD countries, an end to the privatization of welfare institutions and mental health centers and a commitment to a gradual cancellation of contractual work in the public center.
Following is a list of partial demands included in the "Guidelines for a new social-economical order" document:
• Reducing indirect taxes
• Investing tax collection surpluses in citizens via state budget
• Canceling the national housing committees bill
• Increasing the Construction and Housing Ministry's budget on mortgages and rent, and increasing government aid
• Applying the Free Compulsory Education law to kids from age of three months
• Adding job posts, beds, medical equipment and infrastructures nationwide to match the OECD standard
• Halting privatization of welfare and mental health institutes
• Gradual cancellation of contractual work in the public sector
The National Union of Israeli Students stressed that the list constitutes an agenda for the negotiations, therefore there is no mention of numbers and costs. However, during the meeting in Tel Aviv the organizers said that a final document is being drafted, one that will include clauses and numbers.
Meanwhile, approximately 150 people gathered on Tuesday evening at Bilu Junction near Rehovot to protest the high costs of raising a family in Israel, occasionally blocking the junctions. In Hod Hasharon about a hundred fathers, mothers and children took part in a "stroller march." Around 200 demonstrators marched yesterday night in Tel Aviv's southern neighborhoods as a token of support with the housing crisis protest. Among them: representatives from Israel's many basketball and soccer teams. The demonstrators held signs with slogans calling for social justice and against the government.
Hundreds demonstrated outside of the Knesset on Tuesday evening against the discussion Wednesday of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's new housing law, which they claim does not have enough provisions for public housing and ensuring that the new housing will be affordable instead of luxury housing. Chanting "The people wants social justice!" hundreds from the Jerusalem tent city in Gan Hasus (Horse Park) marched to the Wohl Rose Park, where they were joined by buses of protesters from as far away as Kiryat Shmona, on the Lebanese border.
Today (Wednesday) morning, hundreds of affordable housing protest activists rallied outside the Knesset Wednesday ahead of a planned vote on Prime Minister national housing committees' bill. The affordable housing movement has vowed to escalate its protest measures should the bill, which they have slammed as manipulative mature into a law. Protesters block all of the entrances to the Knesset building in an attempt to stop the Parliament from voting on the bill, saying they will siege the Knesset if they have to.
The Histadrut (Federattion of Labor in Israel) on Tuesday announced that it will convene tomorrow a mass assembly in Tel-Aviv to support people protesting against the high cost of living in the country. Dozens of unions and twenty thousands of people are expected to gather in front of the Histadrut building in Arlozoroff Street where a rally expressing solidarity with the protesters will be held. Histradrut Chairman Ofer Eini on Sunday met with organizers of the protests in efforts to further consolidate their demands.
In an interview with Israel Army Radio, Secretary General Eini, acknowledged that the union does not lead this social struggle, but stated outright that if the purpose of protesters is to overthrow the Netanyahu government, "the Histradut would not participate". Hadash fraction in the Histadrut demand for general strike in solidarity with the working-class and popular protest an against the neo-liberal government.
At the same time of the Histadrut assembly, they will be three large demonstrations in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva by junior staff lecturers in the universities and school teachers, for public education and against privatization.
Mostrando postagens com marcador OECD. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador OECD. Mostrar todas as postagens
domingo, 7 de agosto de 2011
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.
quarta-feira, 3 de agosto de 2011
Israel Economic Protests: What Game is Being Changed?
1 August 2011, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
by Rabbi Brant Rosen
This past April, the Forward reported:
(The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) has reported that poverty is almost twice as widespread in Israel, 19.9% of the population, compared to the OECD average, 10.9%. The gap between the overall standard of living in Israel and that of the lowest tenth of the population was three times higher than the OECD average. In its latest release of data, made public April 12, the OECD reported that 39% of Israelis find it “difficult” or “very difficult” to live on their current incomes, well above the OECD average of 24%.
Those stats might explain this more recent news out of Israel:
More than 150,000 protesters took to the streets in 12 Israeli cities, calling for a change in the division of wealth and the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Tel Aviv, an estimated 100,000 protesters marched from Habima Square to the Tel Aviv Museum. “We are happy to see the people of Israel taking to the streets, each in their own city, each with their own troubles, but many troubles that are common to all of us,” said one of the organizers, Yonatan Levy.
This one is a game changer, no question, but the jury is still out on how much it might eventually change, or what the game even is. Indeed, as Dahlia Scheindlin and Joseph Dana have just reported in +972:
Every grievance is coming out: there are slogans against the huge concentration of the country’s wealth into the hands of a very few, slogans raging against enormous economic gaps between rich and poor in Israel, lists of demands for just resource distribution and for various elements of a welfare state, salary hikes and lower costs, better education conditions and health care; against the national housing committees law, against the government, for Tahrir. At 10pm on Friday night, when a song group spontaneously burst into chants of “The people! Want! Social Justice!” one young woman sang out beatifically, “The people! Want! All Sorts of Things!”
It’s also notable that one critical cause of this economic disparity is glaringly absent from the protesters’ concern, as Aziz Abu Sarah noted last week:
What amazes me is many Israelis’ inability to make the connection between the continuation of the occupation and the domestic problems Israel faces today; Israel is building constantly in the West Bank but it is failing to provide housing to its citizens within Israel proper. The current Israeli government’s focus on improving living standards in settlements while failing to do the same for the rest of the country is a moral failure.
According to a Peace Now report published on July 20, settlers in the West Bank receive 69 percent discount on the value of the land (so that buyers have to pay only 31 percent of the price of the land) and 50 percent funding of the development costs of the building project. In 2009 Israel investment of settlements public building (excluding East Jerusalem) was 431 million shekels, which was 15.36 percent of all public investment in construction for housing that year, despite the fact that they compose only 4 percent of the residents of Israel.
Scheindlin/Dana drive this critical point home in their article as well:
On Friday, some protesters hassled other Palestinian protesters, citizens suffering from housing crises. It came to scuffles. The diminutive Palestinian flags they hung were removed. Joseph recalls the struggles against apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow south. Can we imagine the ruling classes there demanding “social justice” without addressing their gravest internal injustices? What does the term “social justice” mean if so many who don’t have it are left out? Sure, let’s protest exorbitant housing costs – but why call it “social justice” if the very crux of social justice, namely equality, is not addressed? Can Israelis have a social justice revolution without speaking about the rights of people they control and occupy?
The remarkable power of these grassroots protests is undeniable – but just how far it goes in shifting power still remains to be seen.
(While we wait, however, at least we can enjoy this great mix by Israeli viral video satirist Noy Alooshe – see above…)
(Shalom 1492: To see the video: http://rabbibrant.com)
by Rabbi Brant Rosen
This past April, the Forward reported:
(The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) has reported that poverty is almost twice as widespread in Israel, 19.9% of the population, compared to the OECD average, 10.9%. The gap between the overall standard of living in Israel and that of the lowest tenth of the population was three times higher than the OECD average. In its latest release of data, made public April 12, the OECD reported that 39% of Israelis find it “difficult” or “very difficult” to live on their current incomes, well above the OECD average of 24%.
Those stats might explain this more recent news out of Israel:
More than 150,000 protesters took to the streets in 12 Israeli cities, calling for a change in the division of wealth and the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Tel Aviv, an estimated 100,000 protesters marched from Habima Square to the Tel Aviv Museum. “We are happy to see the people of Israel taking to the streets, each in their own city, each with their own troubles, but many troubles that are common to all of us,” said one of the organizers, Yonatan Levy.
This one is a game changer, no question, but the jury is still out on how much it might eventually change, or what the game even is. Indeed, as Dahlia Scheindlin and Joseph Dana have just reported in +972:
Every grievance is coming out: there are slogans against the huge concentration of the country’s wealth into the hands of a very few, slogans raging against enormous economic gaps between rich and poor in Israel, lists of demands for just resource distribution and for various elements of a welfare state, salary hikes and lower costs, better education conditions and health care; against the national housing committees law, against the government, for Tahrir. At 10pm on Friday night, when a song group spontaneously burst into chants of “The people! Want! Social Justice!” one young woman sang out beatifically, “The people! Want! All Sorts of Things!”
It’s also notable that one critical cause of this economic disparity is glaringly absent from the protesters’ concern, as Aziz Abu Sarah noted last week:
What amazes me is many Israelis’ inability to make the connection between the continuation of the occupation and the domestic problems Israel faces today; Israel is building constantly in the West Bank but it is failing to provide housing to its citizens within Israel proper. The current Israeli government’s focus on improving living standards in settlements while failing to do the same for the rest of the country is a moral failure.
According to a Peace Now report published on July 20, settlers in the West Bank receive 69 percent discount on the value of the land (so that buyers have to pay only 31 percent of the price of the land) and 50 percent funding of the development costs of the building project. In 2009 Israel investment of settlements public building (excluding East Jerusalem) was 431 million shekels, which was 15.36 percent of all public investment in construction for housing that year, despite the fact that they compose only 4 percent of the residents of Israel.
Scheindlin/Dana drive this critical point home in their article as well:
On Friday, some protesters hassled other Palestinian protesters, citizens suffering from housing crises. It came to scuffles. The diminutive Palestinian flags they hung were removed. Joseph recalls the struggles against apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow south. Can we imagine the ruling classes there demanding “social justice” without addressing their gravest internal injustices? What does the term “social justice” mean if so many who don’t have it are left out? Sure, let’s protest exorbitant housing costs – but why call it “social justice” if the very crux of social justice, namely equality, is not addressed? Can Israelis have a social justice revolution without speaking about the rights of people they control and occupy?
The remarkable power of these grassroots protests is undeniable – but just how far it goes in shifting power still remains to be seen.
(While we wait, however, at least we can enjoy this great mix by Israeli viral video satirist Noy Alooshe – see above…)
(Shalom 1492: To see the video: http://rabbibrant.com)
ISRAELI PROTEST MOVEMENT SPARKS MASS STRIKES
3 August 2011, World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org (Australia)
By Jean Shaoul
More than 100,000 Israeli municipal workers took action on Monday in a show of solidarity with the nationwide tent city protests against the exorbitant cost of housing. Local government offices were closed, streets were not cleaned and garbage was not collected.
The Union of Local Authorities in Israel and Histadrut, the general federation of trade unions, called off strikes earlier this year. This time they backed the protest in order to take control and stifle it. The Tel Aviv Municipality implemented a partial strike, opening its offices after 10 a.m., while Jerusalem did not join the strike to “avoid hurting the residents”.
In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, teachers and supporters demonstrated, calling for better public education and a halt to a privatisation drive that has led to soaring costs and huge inequalities in access to decent schooling. They carried placards saying, “There’s private education, no social justice”.
Another protest over education costs is planned for Thursday.
Doctors have set up a tent camp outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem and called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene to resolve the months-long dispute between the doctors and the government.
The Nurses’ Union has announced that it will join the doctors’ struggle and is planning joint protests. Nurses walked out of four wards in the Sheba Medical Centre, Israel’s largest and richest hospital, for two hours in protest against management’s failure to employ sufficient nurses in the overflowing internal wards. “Why should tourists who come for medical treatment receive better treatment than the elderly Israeli patients on respirators”? asked Ilana Cohen, the Nurses’ Union chair. “Not hiring sufficient nurses is criminal negligence”.
In Tel Aviv, dozens of students took part in a march from the tent city on Rothschild Boulevard to government buildings, carrying bundles of hay on their backs. They cried out, “Bibi [Netanyahu] it’s over, my back is broken”.
The strikes follow the 150,000-strong demonstrations, the largest in years, last Saturday to protest the soaring cost of living. The largest rally was in Tel Aviv, but others took place in Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Haifa and seven other cities, including Nazareth, where Arab and Jewish workers marched together.
What started as a protest of the cost of housing has spread to undisguised anger at the dozen-or-so billionaire families that control much of Israel’s economy—including real estate, communications, journalism, retail, manufacturing, construction, banking, pension savings and energy. There were calls to halt the programme of “free market” reforms and the cuts to social budgets in health and education.
While the social budgets have been cut in Israel, this is not the case in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, where residential construction is more than double that of Israel. As Globes, Israel’s business magazine points out, the higher construction and higher government spending on civilian public services was used to encourage Israelis to move to the Occupied Territories. It cited an OECD report that said that the number of Israelis living in the territories nearly doubled between 1997 and 2009.
As the protests have grown in size and support, they have created a major political crisis for the Netanyahu coalition government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu tried to defuse the protests with an announcement that a “special team” of ministers and experts would listen to the protest leaders and submit a plan to “alleviate Israelis’ economic burden”. He announced some minor policy changes and made vague promises of “reform”. These included the promise to build 50,000 housing units within 18 months, lower the excise tax on petrol for one month, double the home heating grant for some elderly people, and review taxes and water charges.
Netanyahu made clear that there will be no serious concessions to the social demands of the protesting workers and youth. Speaking at a special Knesset session to commemorate 71 years since the death of Zionist right-wing leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, he insisted that there was no going back on Israel’s free-market economy.
Even his limited concessions have sparked fierce divisions within the government and the treasury. The director general of Israel’s finance ministry, Haim Shani, resigned citing “differences of opinion in fundamental issues” with the finance minister, adding that “events of the past few days have exacerbated the problems”.
Netanyahu is to replace Shani with Moshe Terry, the former chairman of the Israel Securities Authority. Terry has close links with Yitzhak Tshuva, the head of the Delek Group, one of the monopolies that are the focus of public anger.
Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, expressed his surprise that Israelis had been protesting, as he believed “the economy is doing well”. He claimed that there were no magic wands to solve the high cost of living.
Protest leaders are demanding lower housing costs, lower taxes, an increase in the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage, free education and smaller class sizes, improved medical care, enforcement of labour laws, and similar measures. But Netanyahu has refused to meet the leaders of the tent protests. Instead he plans to pass them on to the team of ministers. While earlier, they had demanded that all discussions with Netanyahu and government representatives should be public in front of TV cameras, this has been abandoned under pressure from Ofer Eini, the Histadrut secretary general.
Eini, who made clear that the union bureaucracy opposes the protests, declared, “I will not support a movement which aims to humiliate a democratically elected prime minister and bring about his downfall. We are not in Egypt or Syria”.
Two years ago, Eini formed a political alliance with the former army chief of staff, Gaby Ashkenazi, to defend the military budget at the expense of social spending. As recent cables published by WikiLeaks show, he considers himself a key prop of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition and supports its policies.
According to a May 6, 2009 cable, Eini met with US diplomats to assure them that his approval of the Israeli budget was a “kosher seal” that would guarantee Netanyahu the support of the Labor Party. He also demanded that Netanyahu personally negotiate with him over the budget, refusing to speak to Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.
US diplomats concluded: “Eini, whose efforts were pivotal in bringing Labor into the government, views himself as a key power broker.”
The Histadrut trade union federation is under enormous pressure from the working class. But its aim in calling strikes remains the same: to dissipate anger while opposing a decisive political and social challenge to the government.
For its part, there is a growing danger that the Netanyahu government will resort to its usual tactic of launching a provocation against the Palestinian people or neighbouring Arab states as a diversion from the growing social unrest.
Early on Monday morning, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in Kalandia refugee camp in the West Bank, after raiding several houses after a minor scuffle with stone-throwing Palestinians. Kalandia is policed by Palestinian Authority forces, but the Israeli military claims the right to enter it at night. A military commander complained that the Palestinian Authority forces were arresting fewer suspects because of the unity agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
This follows a raid last week on a well-known theatre in Jenin, when Israeli forces arrested two people. Two weeks ago, they killed a 21-year-old Palestinian man in a raid on a refugee camp near the city of Nablus.
On Monday there was a brief exchange of fire between Lebanese and Israeli forces, when Lebanese soldiers opened fire after an Israeli patrol crossed the border.
Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Defence Force chief and legislator from the Kadima party, said that it was highly likely the military would mobilize reservists in September, in anticipation of Palestinian unrest ahead of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood in the United Nations General Assembly. He told Army Radio, “September can potentially turn into a violent, painful event, with unclear results”.
By Jean Shaoul
More than 100,000 Israeli municipal workers took action on Monday in a show of solidarity with the nationwide tent city protests against the exorbitant cost of housing. Local government offices were closed, streets were not cleaned and garbage was not collected.
The Union of Local Authorities in Israel and Histadrut, the general federation of trade unions, called off strikes earlier this year. This time they backed the protest in order to take control and stifle it. The Tel Aviv Municipality implemented a partial strike, opening its offices after 10 a.m., while Jerusalem did not join the strike to “avoid hurting the residents”.
In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, teachers and supporters demonstrated, calling for better public education and a halt to a privatisation drive that has led to soaring costs and huge inequalities in access to decent schooling. They carried placards saying, “There’s private education, no social justice”.
Another protest over education costs is planned for Thursday.
Doctors have set up a tent camp outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem and called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene to resolve the months-long dispute between the doctors and the government.
The Nurses’ Union has announced that it will join the doctors’ struggle and is planning joint protests. Nurses walked out of four wards in the Sheba Medical Centre, Israel’s largest and richest hospital, for two hours in protest against management’s failure to employ sufficient nurses in the overflowing internal wards. “Why should tourists who come for medical treatment receive better treatment than the elderly Israeli patients on respirators”? asked Ilana Cohen, the Nurses’ Union chair. “Not hiring sufficient nurses is criminal negligence”.
In Tel Aviv, dozens of students took part in a march from the tent city on Rothschild Boulevard to government buildings, carrying bundles of hay on their backs. They cried out, “Bibi [Netanyahu] it’s over, my back is broken”.
The strikes follow the 150,000-strong demonstrations, the largest in years, last Saturday to protest the soaring cost of living. The largest rally was in Tel Aviv, but others took place in Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Haifa and seven other cities, including Nazareth, where Arab and Jewish workers marched together.
What started as a protest of the cost of housing has spread to undisguised anger at the dozen-or-so billionaire families that control much of Israel’s economy—including real estate, communications, journalism, retail, manufacturing, construction, banking, pension savings and energy. There were calls to halt the programme of “free market” reforms and the cuts to social budgets in health and education.
While the social budgets have been cut in Israel, this is not the case in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, where residential construction is more than double that of Israel. As Globes, Israel’s business magazine points out, the higher construction and higher government spending on civilian public services was used to encourage Israelis to move to the Occupied Territories. It cited an OECD report that said that the number of Israelis living in the territories nearly doubled between 1997 and 2009.
As the protests have grown in size and support, they have created a major political crisis for the Netanyahu coalition government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu tried to defuse the protests with an announcement that a “special team” of ministers and experts would listen to the protest leaders and submit a plan to “alleviate Israelis’ economic burden”. He announced some minor policy changes and made vague promises of “reform”. These included the promise to build 50,000 housing units within 18 months, lower the excise tax on petrol for one month, double the home heating grant for some elderly people, and review taxes and water charges.
Netanyahu made clear that there will be no serious concessions to the social demands of the protesting workers and youth. Speaking at a special Knesset session to commemorate 71 years since the death of Zionist right-wing leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, he insisted that there was no going back on Israel’s free-market economy.
Even his limited concessions have sparked fierce divisions within the government and the treasury. The director general of Israel’s finance ministry, Haim Shani, resigned citing “differences of opinion in fundamental issues” with the finance minister, adding that “events of the past few days have exacerbated the problems”.
Netanyahu is to replace Shani with Moshe Terry, the former chairman of the Israel Securities Authority. Terry has close links with Yitzhak Tshuva, the head of the Delek Group, one of the monopolies that are the focus of public anger.
Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, expressed his surprise that Israelis had been protesting, as he believed “the economy is doing well”. He claimed that there were no magic wands to solve the high cost of living.
Protest leaders are demanding lower housing costs, lower taxes, an increase in the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage, free education and smaller class sizes, improved medical care, enforcement of labour laws, and similar measures. But Netanyahu has refused to meet the leaders of the tent protests. Instead he plans to pass them on to the team of ministers. While earlier, they had demanded that all discussions with Netanyahu and government representatives should be public in front of TV cameras, this has been abandoned under pressure from Ofer Eini, the Histadrut secretary general.
Eini, who made clear that the union bureaucracy opposes the protests, declared, “I will not support a movement which aims to humiliate a democratically elected prime minister and bring about his downfall. We are not in Egypt or Syria”.
Two years ago, Eini formed a political alliance with the former army chief of staff, Gaby Ashkenazi, to defend the military budget at the expense of social spending. As recent cables published by WikiLeaks show, he considers himself a key prop of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition and supports its policies.
According to a May 6, 2009 cable, Eini met with US diplomats to assure them that his approval of the Israeli budget was a “kosher seal” that would guarantee Netanyahu the support of the Labor Party. He also demanded that Netanyahu personally negotiate with him over the budget, refusing to speak to Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.
US diplomats concluded: “Eini, whose efforts were pivotal in bringing Labor into the government, views himself as a key power broker.”
The Histadrut trade union federation is under enormous pressure from the working class. But its aim in calling strikes remains the same: to dissipate anger while opposing a decisive political and social challenge to the government.
For its part, there is a growing danger that the Netanyahu government will resort to its usual tactic of launching a provocation against the Palestinian people or neighbouring Arab states as a diversion from the growing social unrest.
Early on Monday morning, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in Kalandia refugee camp in the West Bank, after raiding several houses after a minor scuffle with stone-throwing Palestinians. Kalandia is policed by Palestinian Authority forces, but the Israeli military claims the right to enter it at night. A military commander complained that the Palestinian Authority forces were arresting fewer suspects because of the unity agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
This follows a raid last week on a well-known theatre in Jenin, when Israeli forces arrested two people. Two weeks ago, they killed a 21-year-old Palestinian man in a raid on a refugee camp near the city of Nablus.
On Monday there was a brief exchange of fire between Lebanese and Israeli forces, when Lebanese soldiers opened fire after an Israeli patrol crossed the border.
Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Defence Force chief and legislator from the Kadima party, said that it was highly likely the military would mobilize reservists in September, in anticipation of Palestinian unrest ahead of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood in the United Nations General Assembly. He told Army Radio, “September can potentially turn into a violent, painful event, with unclear results”.
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