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Million march Israel

Israel social revolution can remain apolitical ? © dpa

Million march Israel

The new social revolution

It all began with a protest against the shortage of housing. But from the demand for social housing was a revolt against all social ills of Israel to education and high food costs, high taxes, high tuition fees, low wages, an ailing education system, exploitation and slum landlords.

"It's outrageous," says Eva Illouz, sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Actually, we sociologists should all be fired and unemployed. We never anticipated anything: not the Tahrir Square in Cairo, not the fall of the Berlin Wall, and now this. Before there was an atmosphere of total apathy. The Israeli citizen was as good as dead."

Israel demands for social justice

Now, the revolution seems to have found a voice: an impromptu Internet radio stations on the Rothschild Boulevard, in the tent city in the heart of Tel Aviv. "We are" The Voice of Point FM ', the internet radio of the people, "says the radio host" The Voice "." We are broadcasting live to the end of the demonstration. "The young writer Assaf Gavron is one of hundreds of thousands who discover this voice, a voice calls from the politicians a socially equitable Israel "Suddenly, within a few days -. the protest is just broken out a month ago - we have the feeling that we finally call this country home again, that we can break new ground," says Assaf Gavron.

They campaign against abuses in the country. © dpa

"The rent is too damn high" - "The rents cry to heaven" is one of the many battle cries of the movement. And the title of a commentary of two bloggers, whom even reprinted the "New York Times." But one theme, so the Israeli Dimi Reider and the Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah was missing, conspicuously in the outcry of the masses: "And that's the crew," said Aziz Abu Sarah. "When I saw how the movement was for social justice more and more, I noticed that the issues of West Bank, settlements, military costs do not occur easily. The first 40 years of occupation cost Israel $ 28 billion. Quite a chunk of money!"

The subject "crew" left out

One could the Israeli economy simply can not be separated from the costs of occupation and settlements, "is Dimi Reider convinced. "This protest movement, however, has from the beginning decided to let the crew out before, because it is the hottest iron in Israeli society is. The opponents of the movement they would not otherwise immediately branded as a left government opponents." Reider and Abu Sarah understand it can not mean that the movement insists so stubborn fact of being apolitical. When a group of Israel's most notorious right-wing settlers surprising in the tent city of Tel Aviv appears, the apolitical facade shatters in a flash. "Tel Aviv is Jewish," cry the settlers, and the reaction of the tent dwellers can not wait to himself: "Go home, fascists! We want you here!", They shout. "Nazis! Fascists! and "Burn you today no olive trees from the Palestinians? What's going on? Have your vacation?" But now comes one of the leaders of the movement to settle the dispute. Grave struggles prohibited.

"That was their political decision," says Dimi Reider, "a movement that is such a ubiquitous and unifying as possible. But slowly begins to change that." Israel's occupation and Israel's economy, Israel's social dilemma, many say, is one and the same problem. Then there are the settlements. 15 percent of Israel's budget for housing to be invested in the settlements. There are also Israels ultra-Orthodox, about ten percent of the population, who for the most part not work and be subsidized by the state. But it does not talk, the protest movement.

Why was no money for social projects?

"The pragmatic part of me they are right, but the ideological part of me would be happier if the motion would be much more militant, more clear about what exactly they change in the current distribution of wealth," said Eva Illouz, social scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . For Assaf Gavron it is "as if the subject is not always in the air The people constantly ask: Why was no money for social projects? And others say: Well, because of the settlements is likely that this will eventually be discussed openly, later than when the movement should be a political party. "

It is paradoxical that in a country where politics is so pervasive, only a movement into a mass movement will, if it excludes the policy. Pop stars such as Rita, one of which would never hear a word about Israel's occupation, policy making was, suddenly the spokesmen of the social revolution. "A dignified life here seemed to be nothing but a dream," she says. "We have never believed that we could change something here, but something amazing happens: a desire to grow out of ourselves." The Social Revolution wins the hearts of Israelis in the storm. But really win, so some believe it is only when it called for the government to huge sums, the costs of the occupation, for the country and the people.

17.08.2011 / Uri Schneider - Translation Eva

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