How Radicals Infiltrated a New Protest Movement
By Jonathan Spyer, PAJAMAS MEDIA
Israeli politics since 1967 have largely revolved around foreign policy and security. But the gap between incomes and costs as well as the left’s attempt to find some winning issues and the deadlock in the “peace process” have produced a new protest movement complaining about high housing prices that is sweeping Israel.
What is the cause and meaning of this movement?
The protests’ key organizers have clearly political motives, despite the fact that the New York Times claims, “So far, the protesters have managed to remain apolitical.” In fact, the individuals and organizations animating this protest are committed to a left-wing political agenda intended to weaken, embarrass, and, if possible, topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Nevertheless, it is equally true that an authentic cross section of Israelis protest in response to genuinely urgent issues. The first fact should not become an excuse to ignore that reality.
That demonstration leaders and organizers indeed have a political agenda is easy to spot. Many have clear affiliations indicating their hostility both to the current government and to mainstream Israeli positions. Funding is coming from the New Israel Fund and its operational group, Shatil.
Yehudit Ilani, for example, a leader of the protests in Jaffa, is an Israeli-Jewish member of the hardline, Arab nationalist party Balad, which openly supports dismantling Jewish statehood and the ‘”right of return” of Palestinian refugees, that is, Israel’s destruction. The party’s original leader, Azmi Bishara, fled Israel after coming under suspicion of spying for Hizballah and is now openly backing that group from exile. One of its elected members, Haneen Zoabi, supports a nuclear Iran.
Dafni Leef, another protest leader, is an employee of the New Israel Fund. Alon Lee Green, another of the most prominent organizers, is a member of Hadash, the Israeli Communist Party. And so on.
Their motive in promoting social protest is highly political. The Israeli public long ago rejected their positions on the key national issues facing the country, thus consigning them to political irrelevance. They hope social issues will gain them re-admission to the debate. As Dimi Reider, a far-left activist and journalist, explained it:
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We have been protesting against the occupation for decades and the number of our support keeps dropping. If we want to reach out to a broad section of the population, we need, at least temporarily, to put the occupation aside.
And yet these manipulators are able to gain an audience only because a large section of Israel’s population, with much justification, feels the burden being placed on them is impossible. Skilled and educated professionals are expected to work for salaries a mere fraction of those earned by their contemporaries in other developed countries. At the same time, food and consumer goods prices in Israel are among the highest in the West. Apartment prices, too, have reached a point where purchasing a property has become a distant dream for many young couples.
This population is not a crowd of freeloaders. Rather, they are the patriotic and responsible young individuals and families on whose commitment the survival and flourishing of Israel depends.
They are the young medical resident who works unimaginable hours for a tiny salary, week after week, interspersed by long stretches of army reserve duty. They are the clinical psychologist, who spends her weekends volunteering at a special project to help children in the north still traumatized by missile attacks in the Second Lebanon War. These are two examples of people I know. And there are many thousands more like them.
There is no danger that this public will follow the likes of Ilani and Green for very long or accept their radical stances on other issues. But the need to address these subjects remains vital. Israel’s educated, socially responsible middle class is the country’s backbone. They must be able to raise families, pursue their professions with dignity, and have a decent standard of living.
Dismissing the issue, or ignoring it, is an option for which the country will pay dearly some way down the line. Israel’s past successes were ultimately based on the existence of a mobilized, committed public, with a feeling of belonging to a national community. This sense did not derive from sentiment alone, but also from socio-economic facts: a relatively narrow social gap, fair compensation, a sense of burdens shared with at least some modicum of fairness.
Many Israelis have concluded, based on experience, that these conditions have considerably weakened them. Israelis don’t like being taken for suckers and the country’s leaders should remember this.
Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and the author of The Transforming Fire: the rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict.
Hi Rick
MSNBC discussed this today, and the first step would be to make it widely known to the public. They also discussed all the loans the U.S. has forgiven for countries around the world. One said these countries should pay something, even a tiny bit, but U.S. banksters claim this could start a recession, how I don’t know.
I am too afraid of unintended consequences to suggest what to do.
Dan, the cartels and monopolies that were broken up have been replaced with new ones. The names change. The industrial focus changes. But the structure remains the same. The American population is being “milked” in much the same way by politicians whose clearly stated objectives include “redistribution of wealth.” What wealth exists is being eroded by inflation, the staggering national debt and indiscriminate printing of worthless paper dollars that has destroyed the value of our money. Meanwhile, as in Israel, prices rise on essential goods (e.g., food, shelter, clothing). Catarin, maybe “they” have good reasons for complaining, but what new social order and new priorities do “they” think should replace what you have? Be careful. Change is probably in order, but which changes? How should they be implemented? By whom? This rhetoric sounds a lot like the politicians who support our current cartels and rich monopolists or those scratching at the door with a vast desire to be the “new controllers” of both our futures. Beware of those who speak only in generalities.
My yesterday’s newspaper had a front page article about the young people in Tel Aviv who have erected a tent city on the median on Rothchild Blvd. It started as a housing protest about the high cost of housing but has become a broader protest about social justice and a fairer distribution of Israel’s resources. Some excerpts:
The housing crisis, some people said, was a symptom of how middle class and young Israelis are suffering despite the country’s economic boom. Many are clamoring for more government involvement in the economy and greater redistribution of income. They say the government’s sell-off of state-owned companies and services in recent decades went too far and left people defenseless against the whims of the free market. The media has dubbed the young people as “broadband beatniks” with as many laptops as guitars.
Some of the protesters’ demands have their root in Israel’s early days when “solidarity and socialism didn’t used to be dirty words.” Some say they juggle a few jobs but still can’t make ends meet. “We’re here because we want to live. We served in the army, we work hard and want to move on to the next stage of life, but it’s not happening because tycoons are taking our money.”
They say citizens aren’t living the life they deserve. The country has money but the social order and politicians keep most of it from the public. They say it’s time for a new social order and new priorities. They want to start a revolution that will shift Israeli politics away from security and diplomatic questions and toward a domestic social agenda.
Can it be that “milking the cow” by the political elite for their own ends, is coming to an end? Can it be that accountability by politicians is coming into view? Can it even be that direct election by the people is on the horizon? Can it be that Bibi will “in fact” do what was done in USA long ago, break up the cartels – of the 50 families that control so so much?