Several hundred people marched in Tel Aviv on Friday, May 1, to mark International Workers Day – May Day. Other rallies were held in Jerusalem and Arrabeh (in the Galilee), to be followed the next day with yet another major demonstration in Nazareth.

In Tel-Aviv, marchers carried red flags and banners from Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel, the Young Communist League of Israel; other delegations included Koach LaOvdim (Power to the Workers) union movement, Meretz youth, The Socialist Struggle movement, “Hapoel” (sports league) fans and other smaller groups. The demonstrators marched from Rabin Square to the Cinematheque Square shouting slogans against “Shilton HaHon,” (“the regime of capital”) and against the new neo-liberal and chauvinist Israeli government.

MKs Dov Khenin and Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash – Joint List), leading the May Day March in Tel-Aviv on Friday, May 1. On the banner is written, in Hebrew and Arabic: “Workers of All Lands Unite!” (Photo: Communist Party of Israel)

MKs Dov Khenin and Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash – Joint List), who led the march, said that in 2015, marking May Day all over the world, including in Israel and the Middle East, is as relevant as ever.

MK Khenin listed the many goals of the march: “We want the people who live here to really be able to live here; for working people to have a roof over his their heads; for the elderly not to have to choose between food and medicine; for women to receive equal pay; for workers to be gainfully employed and receive their full rights, salary plus benefits, directly from their workplace, and not through manpower agencies; for people not to be discriminated against because they’re Arabs or handicapped or gay or over 40; and for the government’s fiscal resources to be invested in raising the minimum wage and assisting poor neighborhoods, instead of in constructing bombs and settlements.” In his statement to journalists at Rabin Square, Khenin continued: “There is nothing old-fashioned or irrelevant about demanding that men and women living here now will have a future of equality and peace. We live in a country with huge gaps in economic equality and where most of the poor are working people, waking up in the morning and coming home at night after a long day’s work only to continue living beneath the poverty line – we say enough!”

MK Touma-Sliman told journalists that the minimum wage in Israel is the lowest among all Western capitalist countries, in particular for Arab-Palestinian women. “The future is not in the settlements and occupation of the Palestinian territories, but in social justice,” she said. “We need to replace this new extreme right-wing government and together provide a different response for the working class in our society.”