Several number of social justice rallies were held across Israel on Saturday evening, with the largest taking place in Tel Aviv where thousands gathered in Rabin Square.  Some protestors attempted to block roads in the area. At least nine people were detained at the site by police.

Protest marches in Tel Aviv began in the Shapira, Levinsky, and Hatikva neighborhoods, before uniting and continuing on to Rabin Square. Demonstrators chanted “We want justice, not charity” and “Taking from the poor, giving to the rich, what a country of corruption”.

Police arresting protesters in Tel Aviv during a demonstration calling for social justice on May 12, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)

Simultaneously, rallies were being held in Haifa, Jerusalem, Naharya, Eilat, Kiryat Shmona and Pardes Hana. In Haifa, thousands of demonstrators marched while chanting “We, the majority, are returning to the street”. Uri Weltmann, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel, addressed the rally and condemned ties between the government and Israel’s industrialists and big bourgeoisie. In downtown Jerusalem Saturday night, over 1,000 people marched in solidarity with the May 12 protests.

Similar rallies were held throughout the world the same day in “Global May,” a international day of protest marking the anniversary of the protest in Puerta del Sol, Madrid, where a massive people’s assembly took control of the famous square in 2011.

The protest in Spain, itself an echo of the Arab Spring, was the first of many such protest movements in the West, including the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York and other metropolises and the Rothschild Boulevard cost of living tent protest in Tel Aviv and in other Israeli cities. Last summer, a social justice protest movement swept Israel, with tent encampments sprouting up in cities throughout the country and weekly demonstrations that grew to include hundreds of thousands of people.

Earlier this week, around 1,000 people held a protest in Tel-Aviv against the unity deal that was reached between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz.

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