In the past few days organizers have called for a demonstration at Habima Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening. This demonstration is being organized by social activists Alon-Lee Green, Or Shai, Liat Biron and Shira Steinitz. The Facebook event page for the demonstration opens under the heading: “Yallah to the streets! Giant march: Take from the tycoons and not from us.” Within two hours the initiative raked in 20,000 people. The neo-liberal economic decrees slated to land with a resounding thud on many Israelis are beginning to stir a public ferment – and it’s being channeled toward demonstrations and protest.
On Thursday night the Ma’abara (Transit Camp) and the Lo Nehmadim (Not Nice) gathered for a demonstration in front of Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s home in Ramat Aviv, following the budget proposal for 2013-2014. Protesters carried signs reading “Netanyahu and Lapid, you’re stealing our money,” and “We want gas and not austerity measures.” On Saturday evening environmental organizations are planning to demonstrate about the export of natural gas, opposite Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom’s home at the Elite junction in Ramat Gan.
Leading social activist Alon-Lee Green (Photo: Al Ittihad)
“The government’s decrees are total insensitivity and it is with reason that Facebook has been a volcano of rage in recent days,” says Green, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI). “In contrast to the previous protest, this time we are coming with a series of solutions for the government: Instead of imposing taxes on us, impose them on the giant corporations. Instead of cutting child allowances – cut at the settlements. Why not raise the company tax even more? The public is feeling like it has been cheated. This will be a more mature and sober protest. I am calling upon everyone who feels a partner to the public frustration with the decrees to join us.”
Though Green is experienced in organizing demonstrations, he is planning a far more spontaneous event than the tent protest of two year ago. “We have chosen a time and a place, and anyone who is opposed to having to give to the settlers and the tycoons and to taking from the weaker strata is invited to come,” told Haaretz. Green told Maariv that the march was initially set to take place a week from Saturday night, but that anger among the protesters was so great that they moved it up by a week. “We are not simply saying that raising VAT is bad, or that raising taxes and cutting benefits to children and to the elderly is terrible,” said Green. “Over the past two years, we have come to realize that there are other options that can be implemented… rather than taking money from children, we can take it from tycoons.”
The Political Bureau of the CPI called on Friday to participate in all protest rallies and demonstrations and said the neo-liberal economic plan of the right wing government would destroy the working class and that it constituted a stark betrayal of Lapid’s promises to voters.”
