Several thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel-Aviv on Saturday night to protest against austerity measures presented past week as part of the state’s new neo-liberal budget. Rallies take place in other cities across the country, bringing back the social protest that took Israel by storm two years ago.
Some 12,000 people marched in Tel Aviv. The protesters marched from Habima Square, via Ibn Gabirol, King George in front of the Likud headquarters (Metzudat Ze’ev) and Allenby streets and onto Rothschild Boulevard. The demonstrators jeered Lapid, calling him a puppet of the capitalists, and accusing him of betraying the Israelis who voted him into power. In addition to the chants from the social justice protests of the summer of 2011, the crowd repeatedly chanted “There’s no future with Lapid and Bibi,” in a play on the name of Lapid’s Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) party.
“We are the 99%” the big demonstration in Tel Aviv (photo: Eli Gozansky)
Among the activists were many of the leaders of the 2011 social protest, as well as Hadash and Communist Party members who carried red flags and banners, and members of Koah La’Ovdim workers’ organization. The signs wielded by the communist and other marchers cast blame on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid.
In Ramat Gan, at the same hour, some 300 people marched toward the home of Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom to protest a plan to export gas from Israel. They blocked roads and clashed with police. At least one protester was detained. The marchers were later set to join the central demonstration in Tel Aviv. MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), who took part in both Tel-Aviv and Ramat-Gan demonstrations said if “Netanyahu and Lapid thought the social protest to be a thing of the past,” they are in for a surprise. “Anyone who declares war on the people, will find himself facing the people,” he said.
Some 400 rallied in Jerusalem near the Prime Minister house. More than 300 people took to the streets in Haifa and blocked an intersection. “Workers not slaves” and “Lapid, I’m on fire” were some of the slogans written on the protesters’ signs. In Haifa, dozens marched toward the Yesh Atid headquarters, blocking sections of the road on Sderot Moriya Street. Similar events take place in other towns, including Ashdod, Kyriat Gat and Modi’in.
Alon-Lee Green, the organizer of the Tel-Aviv rally said, “Students, young families, people who can’t make ends meet found nothing new with this budget, no reason for hope. (Two years ago) we protested to save our country and now we learn that the new finance minister is a slightly more photogenic rerun of the previous prime minister and his policy.”
“The time to resume the struggle has come. We all know it,” the movement’s organizers wrote on its Facebook page. “Instead of a murderous budget that raises the value-added and income taxes and deprives workers, independents, housewives and the elderly, the people demand [the state] to stop giving gifts to the tycoons, to reclaim the natural resources and to stop pouring funds on isolated settlements,” the statement continued. “The money should be invested in kids and the elderly, on our welfare and on housing in Israel.”
“Bibi and Lapid had all the options on the table,” said Green on Saturday. “They made their choice… So we say here tonight: The tycoons should pay, and not us. The awakening is palpable.” In recent days a lively public debate over the social protest’s nature has resurged. If in the summer of 2011 the movement tried to appeal to a wide cross section of Israeli society, this time the political tone is much more conspicuous, it’s a protest for social justice and against capitalism and occupation.
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