Thursday, September 1, 2011

Chronology of the Israeli protest – August 27

On Saturday, August 27, there was a main demonstration in Tel Aviv but also big manifestations in several other cities. We headed to the city were I spent most of my adolescence years - Rishon Letzion. The event was divided into a march and a central concentration with singers and speeches.

There were only a few hundred marchers, so it was a bit disappointing. They were a mix of social-democrat youth movements lads and ordinary people. I was soooo proud of this youth, my youth - finally, during this whole protest, seeing the ideological secular-liberal youth taking the streets.

When we arrived to the main park of the city, I was surprised and cheered to find that there was there a huge public of several thousand people awaiting the marchers. They were all family people, and if I know enough the city, you can count that they weren't leftist. Most of them were the common electorate of the right wing parties. They protested, they chanted, they promised to rebuild the tents over and over again and even if the tents will disappear they promised to keep meeting in 'popular gatherings' to discuss their right and planning their next steps.

They were standing and singing shoulder to shoulder with the socialist youth movements. It was a moment to remember. Let's hope both sides will know how to maintain this cooperation.

I momentarily had a dream that the left movements in Israel will stop talking on high profile on the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict and instead embrace this public which joined them and raised the humanist-liberal-socialist banner above all else, and take care of the needs of this public. I hope I'm wrong, but I feel this is nothing but a dream.

All in all only 25K people protested this weekend. The optimists say people are gaining force for next week's :"1 million' protest.

Rightist and religious extremist groups all over the world do the fundamental work of teaching people their ideas from childhood, while liberals just try to convince adults on the rationality of their ideas - this is a lost war, or even better a battle who's results are clear to everyone beforehand. We should finally change the script according which we see and analyze our world. Consumerism isn't an ideology!

What's up this week:

  • The young physicians insist in resigning regardless of the agreement between the government and their trade union

  • The government is raising the taxes on gasoline

  • The students declared boycott on a major supermarkets firm, which responded by lowering its prices by 20%

  • The whole protest movement is making an effort to bring to the street '1 million' people on next Saturday's (Sept-3) evening.

  • There are rumors that this is going to be the gran-finale of the tents camps and that the protest will start reshaping

  • As we are getting closer  to the Palestinian's 'state recognition' in the UN, the social movement is in a greater risk of being 'forgotten' by the media and the political system.

  • Regardless of everything, people keep talking about having a better life, about not being poor when you work and get a salary, about the commitment of the state to its citizens and not only to its fiscal policy. Something has changed.





































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