On Saturday, January 31, an unusual and significant demonstration took place in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square. Tens of thousands of Arabs and Jews marched together in a rare display of joint civic protest, united in opposition to a governments’ neglect to protect Arab citizens from violence. There was total agreement among the demonstrators that the current Government must be replaced as it is increasingly identified with racism and authoritarian tendencies.  

The demonstration was called by the Higher Committee of the Arab citizens, in response to the spiraling violence and murder within Arab communities in Israel and to the continued failure of the Netanyahu–Ben Gvir government to address it. But its significance extended far beyond a protest against crime. The gathering sent a powerful message: a large and growing public of both Arab and Jewish citizens in Israel is seeking a shared future based on equality, democracy, and mutual responsibility.

For anyone present in the square, it was clear that this was not a routine protest. Conversations with demonstrators revealed an unusual openness and emotional intensity. People were eager to speak, to explain why they had come, and to listen to one another. What brought them out in such numbers was not a political or ideological conviction, but existential anxiety—a sense that the ground beneath their feet is shifting, and that silence is no longer an option.

Not a routine demonstration

Participants arrived from Arab towns and villages across the Galilee, the Triangle region, and the Negev. There were old and young women and men, families who had never demonstrated in Tel Aviv and teenagers who are afraid to be the next target. It was clear to me that most of them never participated in a demonstrated at all. Marching shoulder to shoulder with Jewish protesters was, for many, a first. They carried photographs of victims of violence in Arab society and signs bearing a single word: “enough” (كفي).

The immediate catalyst for the protest was the horrific level of violence that has engulfed Arab communities in Israel. Organized crime, sweeping protectionism curtailing hundreds of businesses, widespread availability of illegal weapons, and years of police neglect have turned everyday life into a source of constant fear

In recent years, Arab society has lived with a pervasive sense of insecurity: Will the child who leaves for school return safely? Will a woman going shopping be hit by a stray bullet? Will a family outing end in tragedy simply because their car was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

The numbers are stark. In 2025 alone, 252 Arab citizens of Israel were killed by this kind of internal violence (in comparison the number of people killed in 2010 was only 73, less than 30% of the number last year). Since the beginning of 2026, already 34 lives were lost. These are not abstract statistics; they are a daily reminder that any Arab citizen could be next.

The protest movement opened the gates of Habima square to the Arabs

Yet the demonstration was about more than violence itself. It reflected a deeper shift: the collapse of a long-held illusion that Arab citizens of Israel can insulate themselves from the state and its institutions, living parallel lives while disengaging from Israeli politics. As veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea wrote after the demonstration, “The threat to life is so great, the government’s responsibility so clear and glaring, that it is impossible to continue with the politics of the past. Eyes that were once fixed on Ramallah are now fixed on Jerusalem. Everything is focused on one issue, one crisis.” (Yediot Ahronot, Feb.2^nd).

In my estimation, Arabs and Jews participated in roughly equal numbers. The strong turnout of Jewish demonstrators mattered deeply. For years, Arab citizens have protested this violence largely alone, often met with indifference or suspicion. This time, thousands of Jewish Israelis chose to stand with them. The atmosphere was respectful and supportive. It was clear that each side was seeking not only justice, but connection.

Several Arab and Jewish speakers gave voice to the emotional and political weight of the moment. Khitam Abu Fana (known as Umm Firas), whose eldest son was murdered while working in the family garage, addressed the crowd with heartbreaking clarity. She described the devastation of losing a son who had recently become a father himself and urged the public not to surrender to fear. She said “I didn’t come here to cry – I came here to scream!”

Prof. Barak Medina, a former Rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called on Jewish and Arab opposition parties to unite against what he described as a racist and failed government. Ali Zbeidat, a resident of Sakhnin whose personal protest helped ignite the mobilization, spoke alongside Jamal Zahalka, head of the Arab Follow-Up Committee, 3 mayors from Arab municipalities, and veteran actress and activist Rivka Michaeli.

New trends made the demonstration possible

Two important trends enabled this unprecedented demonstration: The first is unfolding within Arab society itself. For years, many Arab citizens avoided engagement with Israeli political life, fearing that cooperation, speaking Hebrew, or participation in state institutions would be labeled “Israelization” and seen as a betrayal of Palestinian national identity. This tendency, which intensified after the October 2000 events and even more so after October 7, has increasingly come under question. The realization is spreading that isolation does not protect lives—and that disengagement from Israeli society and politics had come at a terrible cost.

Two important trends enabled this unprecedented demonstration: The first relates to the feeling of many Arab citizens that avoiding engagement with Israeli political life, is a dead end that had come at a terrible cost. The second is visible within liberal Jewish activists who realize that to confront the Netanyahu government they need to join hands with Arab society

The second trend is visible within liberal Jewish society. Confronted with the Netanyahu government’s assault on democratic institutions, judicial independence, and minority rights, many Jewish Israelis now feel that the country is approaching a breaking point. There is growing recognition that the struggle against authoritarianism and racism cannot be won without genuine partnership with Arab citizens. There is also a plain fact: Israeli Jewish opposition alone does not reach the 61-parliament threshold to topple the Right wing in elections.

Habima Square itself symbolized this shift. For the past three years, it has been a central site of protests against Netanyahu’s government and its proposed “Judicial coup d’etat”. On January 31, this same square opened its gates to Arab citizens in a way not seen before. Long-standing criticism that the protest movement marginalizes Arab voices was addressed directly: more than half the speakers addressed the crowd in Arabic. The bilingual nature of the event felt natural, even obvious—an embodiment of a different vision of Israel as a shared civic space.

The need to translate the demonstration into Political force

The demonstration’s power raises an urgent question: how can this moral and civic energy be translated into political change? Protest alone, however massive, will not bring down a government entrenched in power. That requires a political alternative capable of winning elections. Here, the limits of the moment become apparent.

Among Arab political leaders, MK Mansour Abbas has been unusually explicit in calling for concrete political cooperation between Arab parties and Zionist opposition forces. For months, he has urged leaders such as Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, and Gadi Eizenkot to form a joint Jewish–Arab front to replace Netanyahu’s coalition. Abbas argues that the choice now is not between protest and politics, but between paralysis and responsibility.

Yet his call has been met with resistance on multiple fronts. Opposition leaders claim that Israeli society, especially after the trauma of October 7, is “not ready” for a government that relies on Arab parties. There is a grind of truth in the hesitancy to cooperate with Arab parties. In the last 25 month since Oct. 2023, the Communist Party led “Hadash Front” and the National Democratic Bloc “Tajamu’” did not convey a sense of solidarity with Israel when it faced an existential threat from Iran and its proxies i.e. Hamas and Hizballah. Yet, MK Abbas represents a sharply different approach and when Lapid and other opposition leader reject him they are actually rejecting the Arab society as whole and thus give Netanyahu and the racist right wing a huge concession.

 At the same time, Abbas faces fierce criticism within Arab society, where some view partnership with Zionist parties as capitulation or betrayal. The day after the demonstration, one Arab media outlet reported that “100,000 Arabs marched in Tel Aviv,” erasing Jewish participants entirely in order to preserve a nationalist narrative. That outlet also did not mention the Israeli-Jewish speakers.

This mutual rejection is deeply troubling. Refusing Abbas’s outstretched hand is not merely a tactical choice—it is a rejection of the tens of thousands of Arab citizens who filled Habima Square in the hope of partnership. It is also a rejection of the Jewish demonstrators who stood beside them, recognizing Arab society as a legitimate and essential ally.

The January 31 demonstration should therefore be understood as both a breakthrough and a test. It revealed a public readiness for shared struggle that political leadership has yet to match. It showed that fear can give way to solidarity—and that despair can be transformed into collective action.

For international observers, the message is clear: beneath the headlines of polarization and violence, new civic dynamics are emerging in Israel. They are fragile, contested, and far from guaranteed. But they point toward a future in which Jews and Arabs do not merely coexist, but act together to defend democracy, equality, and life itself.

Habima Square offered a glimpse of that future.  Whether it remains a moment—or becomes a movement—now depends on political courage.

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The Iranian missile attack on Israel on October 1, ended with one fatality—a worker from Gaza who was in a Palestinian police base near Jericho. According to reports, he was hit by shrapnel from interceptors and missile fragments that fell in the area of the village of Nu’aymah, where workers from Gaza were staying after being stranded following the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel’s south. The worker killed, Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali (38), was struck in the head and died on the spot. According to his ID, published on Palestinian social media, he was a resident of the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and had three sons—Adi, Amro, and Yazan.

The Iranian regime, claiming to lead what it calls the “axis of resistance” against the Israeli occupation, launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to express its commitment to the Palestinian liberation struggle and revenge the deaths of Ismail Haniye and Hassan Nassralah. Ironically, the only practical outcome of this grandiose act was yet another Palestinian victim. Not just any victim, but a Gazan worker. Along with several hundred of his peers, he was forced to seek refuge in the West Bank for a whole year after his path back to his family in Gaza was blocked since October 2023.

According to news agency reports, missile and interceptor fragments fell in several locations in Israel as well as in some Palestinian towns in the West Bank. By the end of this tense evening, there were a few light injuries and minor property damage in Israel and the territories.

The Iranian regime, as mentioned, has aspirations of leading the Arab region. To advance this goal, it has established a network of proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, funded and armed by Tehran. Iran was behind the Hamas terror attack on October 7. It also determined that Hezbollah would conduct a year-long war of attrition on Israel’s northern border, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese becoming refugees in their own countries.

The missile attack (second to the one launched in April) was intended to be the ultimate response to the severe blow Israel dealt to the prestige of the Tehran regime and its strategic standing. Instead of producing an image of victory that would demonstrate its strength to the entire world and reinforce the trust of the region’s residents in it, this attack became an embarrassing failure for a regime incapable of addressing the basic needs of its own 90 million inhabitants.

As usual, the failure was concealed.  Supreme Leader Khamenei mobilized thousands for victory parades in the streets of Tehran; media channels and social networks were filled with images of the “severe hits” supposedly dealt to strategic targets in Israel. The Israeli report that the attack was thwarted with American, British, and Jordanian assistance was dismissed as false propaganda of the “Zionist entity” and the corrupt West. The credibility of the Iranian version of this missile attack is no higher than that of Nasrallah’s previous boasts about striking Unit 8200’s base in Tel Aviv.

The communication channels of the “axis of resistance” do not mention, even in passing, the Gazan worker killed in Jericho. Hamas, which sold its soul for Iranian money and weapons, ignores Palestinian workers employed in Israel and the settlements. It views them as traitors for their willingness to work for Israeli employers.

Against the backdrop of the resounding military blows dealt to Hezbollah in recent weeks and the Iranian failing missile attack, a recognition is beginning to form in the region that Iran is a fragile reed.

More than 200,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank, whose employment in Israel served as a lifeline for the ailing Palestinian economy before October 2023, have since been barred from entering Israel. These workers, along with many others, are direct victims of the war. Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah also refuses to support them. Instead of standing up clearly against the false rhetoric of the “Axis of Resistance”, shunning Hamas, and presenting themselves as a worthy alternative, the PA leaders appear as an excess of Hamas. The Palestinian workers are not a factor in the equation – neither for Hamas nor for Abu Mazen’s PA.

Against the backdrop of the resounding military blows dealt to Hezbollah in recent weeks and the Iranian failing missile attack, a recognition is beginning to form in the region that Iran is a fragile reed. The false war waged by the Tehran clerical regime against Israel aims to create a scapegoat to divert public attention from its clerical authoritarian hold and corrupt nature and ensure its stability.

The Iranian people have understood the big lie for a long time. Since the Green Movement in 2009 against the rigged election in favor of Ahmadinejad, we have witnessed brave waves of protests and popular uprisings, culminating in the women’s uprising that began in September 2022 after Mahsa Amini’s murder for not putting her hair dress properly. This public protest faced murderous repression, executions of dissidents, and silencing of activists and artists. In October 2023, we saw the crowd at a football stadium in Tehran booing regime representatives who demanded a moment of silence in solidarity with Palestine. The Iranian people understand that the talk of the “Zionist enemy” and solidarity with Palestine is sheer hypocrisy and simply do not believe it. The results of the presidential elections held in June 2024 also reflect the deep criticism and distrust citizens feel toward the supreme leader’s rule.

It is important to mention that Israel under Netanyahu is not free of responsibility for the region’s descent into a destructive war. The notion that the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians can be indefinitely postponed, thus leaving five million Palestinians without basic political, human and civil rights (a view also shared by the previous Left/Right Bennett-Lapid government), was the loop hole through which Tehran, Hamas, and Hezbollah managed to penetrate the Palestinian arena and exploit it for their own sectarian purposes.

As dangerous and difficult as the current crisis is, it also represents an opportunity to address the problem at its root. The blow suffered by the Iranian axis could strengthen the struggle for democracy in the region. This struggle threatens not only the religious leaders and Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, not only their front organizations, but also Netanyahu and his racist partners, who viewed Hamas as a strategic asset that exempted them from the need to advance a political settlement.

The democratic forces in Israel and Palestine, seeking a solution of peace and coexistence, must clearly and resolutely align themselves with the forces fighting for democracy and freedom throughout the Middle East, including Iran.

The key to democratic change in Israel lies primarily in recognizing the Palestinians’ right to live in security, dignity, and equality. Let us turn the memory of Sameh Al-Asali—the victim of the Iranian missile attack—into a symbol of a shared struggle against war, for workers’ rights, human rights, and freedom throughout the region, including Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The post The Sole Fatality in Iran’s Missile Attack Was a Worker from Gaza first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Free Alaa Abd el-Fattah from Egyptian prison: symbol of the 2011 youth revolution, he has been on a hunger strike for 200 days.

COP27 climate change conference: The struggle against climate change cannot be separated from the struggle for human rights.

Protest vigil at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv | Thursday November 10, 5:00 p.m

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COP27, the global climate summit, opened on November 6 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where Egyptian President el-Sisi is hosting over 100 heads of state. While world leaders are coming to Egypt to discuss the planet’s future, tens of thousands of political activists are languishing in Egyptian prisons.

The most prominent of them, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, expanded his hunger strike on COP27’s opening day and is now also refraining from water. There is a danger that within a few days this will lead to his death, since for more than 200 days he has been on a partial hunger strike (consuming only 100 calories a day), which has greatly weakened his body.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah was one of the most prominent activists in the 2011 Arab Spring. Since then he has been imprisoned repeatedly, continuing his activism in the intervals and publishing a book of articles in English. In 2019 he was released after serving five years for participating in a non-violent demonstration in Cairo. Within a few months he was again arrested and tried a second time in a military court, this time together with his lawyer, Muhammad Albaker, and activist Mohamed (Oxygen) Ibrahim. Alaa was sentenced to 5 years in prison and his two friends to 4 years. The charge: publishing false information on the Internet.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah has British as well as Egyptian citizenship. Despite this, Wadi Natrun prison authorities prevent him from receiving a visit from British Embassy representatives. In addition, and contrary to Egyptian law, the authorities deny him access to newspapers, books and radio.

A large-scale international public campaign has been going on for the past few months, in parallel to the hunger strike started by Alaa in April. Alaa’s mother and sisters, who are also central activists in Egypt’s democratic movement, are leading the call to release him from prison. Pressure is also being directed at the British government.

Public pressure has intensified ahead of the climate summit. Prominent personalities, including dozens of Nobel laureates for literature and science, as well as environmental and human rights organizations, called on the Egyptian regime to release Alaa and his friends ahead of the conference. These calls emphasize the fact that the struggles against climate change and for human rights cannot be separated, and that it is unfitting for the climate conference to be held on Egyptian soil while the country’s authorities are brutalizing a freedom fighter like Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

Khalid Abdalla, an Egyptian-British film actor who is active in the campaign to free Alaa, explained in an interview with the Sky News on November 5: “We are very concerned about the future of the earth and humanity in light of the climate crisis, but if all the heads of state cannot guarantee justice for Alaa Abd el-Fattah and the Egyptian prisoners of conscience, how will they manage to save  humanity?”

For more details and media interviews, contact Yoav Gal Tamir, spokesperson of the Daam Party: +972-50-7859475

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After more than 100 days of hunger strike in Egyptian prison, Alaa Abd al-Fattah is determined to continue struggling until his rights, and those of tens of thousands of political prisoners falsely imprisoned by al-Sisi’s regime, are recognized.  Israel maintains close cooperation with the dictatorial regime in Cairo, ignoring its shocking human rights record. Lapid and Bennett, like Netanyahu, are interested in cooperating with al-Sisi so that he will help them control the region and silence the Palestinians.

On Sunday, July 10, the new Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, had a phone conversation with Egyptian President Abd al Fattah al-Sisi. According to the report, the conversation dealt with the expected visit of US President Biden to the area, the Palestinian issue, and an investigation into the unknown fate of dozens of Egyptian commandos buried in Latrun in 1948.

Not on the agenda was the condition of Alaa Abd al-Fattah in Wadi a-Natrun prison, although the leaders were conversing on the 99th day of his hunger strike. The fate of Egypt’s prisoners of conscience is not an issue that interests anyone in the Israeli political system. In the eyes of the Israeli public, including the circles of Labor and Meretz, the Arab world is divided into lovers and haters of Israel. Accordingly, al-Sisi is considered a positive factor with whom one should maintain good relations. What dictators do at home vis-à-vis their political opponents, many of whom have no connection to terrorist and violent activity, is a matter of indifference here.

Although al-Sisi’s regime now appears to be stable, it is Alaa Abd al-Fattah and his comrades who represent the future of Egypt and indeed, the future of the entire region.

Alaa (41) is a leader of the young revolutionaries, a symbol of the generation that led the January 2011 revolution. Since then he has been in and out of prison for a decade. In 2013 he was arrested by the military government and imprisoned for 5 years for participating in an illegal demonstration. After being released in early 2019, he remained in his home for several months, until he was imprisoned again and sentenced to an additional five years on a fabricated charge of “spreading false information.”

For years he was held in the notorious Tora Prison south of Cairo, where he was denied access to books and newspapers. Contrary to Egyptian law and human rights conventions, the authorities also deny him the possibility to leave his cell for walking and sports, and visits of one person were allowed only every few weeks. Although he holds both British and Egyptian citizenship, Egyptian authorities prevent British embassy representatives from visiting him.

In response Alaa decided to commence an open hunger strike, demanding improved conditions.  The strike is carried out according to the method of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and includes consumption of 100 calories per day (the average daily consumption of an adult in a state of inactivity is 2,400 calories). Begun in early April this year, it has been going on for more than 100 days.

About a month after the start of the strike, because of public pressure from within Egypt and the international arena, Alaa was transferred out of Tora Prison to Wadi a-Natrun Prison northwest of Cairo. Here the conditions are slightly improved. For example, he was allowed a mattress after being forced to sleep on exposed concrete for years. Yet Egyptian authorities still refuse his main demands, and do not allow him to receive visits from family, lawyers, or members of the British embassy.

Alaa Abd al-Fattah belongs to a revolutionary family. His sister Sanaa was imprisoned for 18 months and only recently released. His mother, Dr. Laila Soueif , is a lecturer in chemistry at Cairo University. She has accompanied him for ten years, visiting him regularly and speaking bravely for the freedom of the Egyptian people. His father, the lawyer Ahmad Saif al-Islam Abd al-Fattah died in 2014, while Alaa was in prison. During the Mubarak regime he was known as a leading jurist and human rights fighter; in 1999 he cofounded the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, a human rights group which he headed for years.

In 2021 Alaa published a book of articles in English entitled You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, in which he reviews years of struggle by the youth of Egypt’s Al-Shabab revolution.

Egyptian prisons – Torture and neglect resulted in the deaths of many

The call for the release of Alaa Abd al-Fattah has become a banner of the struggle against the al-Sisi, who is estimated to hold some 60,000 people in his prisons because of their views.

In anticipation of Biden’s visit to the Middle East and his meeting with al-Sisi in Saudi Arabia, the New York Times published a comprehensive investigation into arbitrary arrests in Egypt. The article was published on July 16 under the headline “Egypt’s Revolving Jailhouse Door: One Pretrial Detention After Another.”

This is a comprehensive investigation that relies on the testimonies of volunteer lawyers who come daily to the courts in Cairo and elsewhere to locate detainees whose families have lost contact with them. These lawyers, together with the family members, prepare endless lists of detainees about whom the Egyptian authorities withhold information.

The investigation shows a Kafkaesque reality of pre-trial detention that lasts two years, after which new charges are often filed against the detainee. According to the report, the despair and difficult conditions have caused the deaths of hundreds of detainees since al-Sisi came to power.

Amnesty International also recently published a report on the extent of human rights violations in Egypt under the heading Egypt: Flawed investigation into death in custody missed opportunity for justice. The report focuses on the deaths of inmates held without trial (at least 52 deaths in 2021), citing credible reports that their deaths resulted from torture, abuse and denial of health services.

Torture and abuse are used especially during the interrogation phase and the first period of detention, as part of an attempt to extract confessions and punish dissidents. Human Rights Watch, as well as a public inquiry conducted by UN Committee Against Torture, found in separate investigations that torture in Egypt is systematic and widespread.

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In Michal Weitz’s film “Blue Box,” her great grandfather, the JNF leader, Joseph Weitz, is demythologized. Through her readiness to discuss the sins of the past including those of her great grandfather, helped by his candid diaries, the director of the documentary opens a path to dialogue with the Palestinians.

Michal Weitz’s film Blue Box (named after the little tin box once used by Zionists for collecting coins to buy land in Palestine) is a brave and touching movie that unabashedly presents the process of deporting Palestinian Arabs in the 1930s, during the 1948 war and through to establishment of the State of Israel.

The film’s power stems from the fact that its creator, screenwriter and director, Michal Weitz, challenges her great-grandfather Yosef Weitz, a Jewish National Fund (JNF) leader who played a key role in the transfer of Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands and the takeover of their property and homes.

With documentary precision, Michal Weitz presents diary excerpts written by Yosef Weitz in real time, along with rare photographs, which illustrate the terrible disaster that befell the Palestinians during those years and has been perpetuated since by Israel, especially during the 1948 war (which Palestinians call the Naqba, the catastrophe.

The film does not go easy on its viewers. It presents reality in all its sharpness. The director confronts the facts together with her family members, who all grew up in the myth of Joseph Weitz, considered by Israel’s official historiography as the one who led the land acquisition and massive afforestation efforts.

Weitz takes stock of her family’s history. She interviews her 3 uncles, among them the   historian Yehiam Weitz, plus her father, TV broadcaster Rami Weitz. All four of them – who belong to a generation born in the 1940s and 1950s – have similar reactions, embracing the notion that there was no choice. It is a generation that refuses to critically examine its fathers and grandfathers. In what might be defined as the film’s climax, the director defies her father, telling him that what happened was a tragedy and that the questions she raises must be asked. Rami Weitz replies that he would have preferred that she not deal with these issues. For Joseph Weitz’s grandson, it’s inappropriate that a relative dub his mythic grandfather as “the father of transfer.”

It is not a historical film, but the diaries of Joseph Weitz, who wrote honestly and directly, allow us to understand that the idea of a Jewish and democratic state is a fiction, with no chance of coming about. The transfer promoted by Weitz aimed to create an area free of Arabs. Yet the refugees deported in 1948 did not disappear. In the 1950’s, Weitz turned to Israel’s leaders, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett, warning them that the refugees constituted a timebomb that must be dealt with. He proposed to compensate tthem and find various solutions to relocate them. He was answered with shrugs, apparently in the hope that the Palestinian refugees would be forgotten.

The 1967 occupation reshuffled the deck. While Israel was immersed in the euphoria of victory, Weitz was appalled by the fact that the refugees deported only yesterday were now under Israeli rule in the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Only a year earlier, Weitz had resigned from all his state positions, frustrated by the political leadership’s disregard of his warnings about the refugee problem. In his diary, he writes that the idea of separation had failed with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The purely Jewish Israel he had dreamed of had disappeared, and in its place another land had been created, in which Israel had millions of Palestinians under its control, deprived of their rights.

Michal Weitz describes her great grandfather’s dilemmas, but remains focused on discussion within her family. She is not angry. Or bitter. She asks questions. She fails to persuade her father and uncles to understand the injustice done by her great grandfather to the Palestinians. The film presents scenes from the intifada of 1988 and then from the demonstrations in Gaza in 2018, showing that the sins of 1948 cannot be swept beneath the rug. But her interviewees from the older generation refuse to acknowledge this.

On the other hand, we also hear another perspective: that of the director’s younger relatives, who share her position. The fact that her three cousins stand by her, including Gidi Weitz (the investigative journalist with Haaretz). is a significant fact. Michal Weitz is not a voice crying in the wilderness. She is part of a generation of Israelis who think differently. Even if this group is still a minority, it is clear from the discussion in the film that we face a generational conflict inside Israeli society between young and old.

Michal Weitz devoted 14 years to research and collect materials from her great grandfather’s period. During this research she read 5000 diary pages written by him, which enabled her to decipher the codes guiding his activity. Her film fits the world’s developing confrontation with the sins of previous generations. The US has declared a national day to mark the fight against slavery, and in Canada there is a sharp reckoning around the horrific treatment of the indigenous nations.

Blue Box does not give expression to what happened and is happening on the Palestinian side, neither then nor today. As a Palestinian writer, Odeh Basharat noted in his Ha’aretz column (July 30, 2021), that the children who fled from the destroyed villages in 1948 were left without a voice. Yet the young Arab generation of Michal Weitz’s age, in Cairo, Tunis, Beirut, Damascus, Khartoom and many other cities have taken to the streets in the last decade, starting with the Arab Spring, to challenge the older generation. While hopes for rapid democratic change have been brutally trampled by dictatorial regimes, the ideas of freedom and justice continue to thrive. Many activists are still in jail and others, including thousands of writers, musicians, journalists, artists and film directors, continue to reflect on this amazing revolutionary experience through their artistic work in exile.

Presumably the director of Blue Box does not know her colleagues across the border. The film gives the impression that this is the first time she has faced the realities of Palestinian life and history. The Arab younger generation, including Palestinians in Ramallah and Bethlehem, is likewise removed from the Hebrew language and Israeli culture.  It is as if they say, if the Israeli side denies our existence, what is the point of opening ourselves to a dialogue with it? After all, the principle that guided Yosef Weitz in all his actions, within the framework of the JNF and the Zionist movement in general, is that there exists no possibility that Jews and Arabs will live together in this country.

Yet through this film, the Blue Box, we discover that there exists another option. The great granddaughter, director Michal Weitz, offers another side of Israel. A side that is open to humane discourse inviting true dialogue. Her film inspires hope that young people on both sides will know how to break down boundaries and prejudices, and that they will find a way to create a life of equality and partnership.

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An exhibition by artist Noam Toran at Tel Aviv’s RawArt Gallery takes us back to Arab and Jewish rail workers in 1930s Haifa and imagines an alternative to the bloody conflict between the two peoples. Instead of death and hatred, Toran offers a fantasy of partnership based on solidarity among workers.

The multi-media artist Noam Toran is currently showing an extraordinary exhibition at the RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv.[i] The exhibition, accompanied by a theatrical performance written by the artist, is ambitiously titled “A shining meteor will light the path of the worker.”[ii] In this work, Toran takes us back to the 1930s, and to the

, focusing on their attempt to work together on the basis of class unity and solidarity that transcend nation and language barriers.

Despite the temptation to paint the past in rosy hues, Toran’s fascinating project avoids nostalgia, directing a critical and unprejudiced eye at the past. The Jewish and Arab workers are presented in identical clothes and with identical work bags. Their legs and heads, which might have enabled viewers to identify the national group they belong to, have been replaced with poisonous snakes, symbol of the nationalism that went to the heads of the workers and led to the tragedy of bloody conflict that continues to this day.

The exhibition includes an installation of heavy work tools made of cardboard, fictitious Arab and Jewish workers, and a picture of Ethel Rosenberg, an American communist accused of passing nuclear secrets to the USSR who was executed in the 1950s together with her husband Julius.

In preparing for the exhibition, Toran delved into the history of workers’ struggles in the new industries in British Mandatory Palestine after WWI. Haifa’s huge railway workshop takes center stage. This workshop was a melting pot for unionizing throughout the Mandate period. Toran took inspiration from Bulus Farah, a Palestinian communist and unionist whose autobiography “From the Ottoman Regime to the Hebrew State” was translated into Hebrew a few years ago.[iii]

Noam Toran was born in 1975 in New Mexico, USA, to Israeli parents. His grandfather was among the founders of the Ohel Theatre, a Hebrew-language theatre active in Mandatory Palestine and during the first years of the State of Israel. His journey in his grandfather’s footsteps was central to the research which Toran undertook, even if it is absent from the final exhibition. Toran’s artistic work spans the US, England and the Netherlands, where he lives. His work, including pictures, installations, theatrical performances and films, is shown in museums and on stages around Europe and in the US.

The curator of his current exhibition, Leah Abir, met Toran during an exhibition he held in Bat Yam Museum about a decade ago. Since then, she says, they have sought ways of working together. When she joined the RawArt staff, she suggested Toran hold an exhibition there. Abir explains that Toran’s interest in the railworkers’ struggles reflects his desire to present political movements and forgotten theatrical forms from the beginning of the last century in a new light. His aim is to widen the cultural and political dialogue which, he thinks, has become very narrow in the last decade.

In the exhibition and performance, Toran attempts to imagine an alternative to the bloody conflict that reached its terrible peak in the war of 1948, in which Jews gained independence at the expense of the Palestinians whose existence was destroyed.

Toran thus leads us to imaginary spaces, in which it is possible for the Palestinian Bulus Farah to connect with the fictional Haim Heimlich, a young Jewish poet seeking inspiration and a link to reality in the harsh workshops of the railway. In Toran’s fantasy, Heimlich wanders along the roads of Mandatory Palestine on the back of a flying donkey, and is even granted protection as a guest in the house of Bulus Farah – the only one able to speak to his heart.

At the climax of the piece, Farah and Heimlich come to a meeting of Histadrut and Palestinian trade unionists in Haifa’s Cafe Central. The debate is on whether to declare a joint strike at the railway to improve working conditions. The ideal of Jewish-Arab partnership ends violently when British police enter the cafe. The historical failure of this attempt at solidarity is well known.

The conversations Heimlich has with Paul Robeson, Ethel Rosenberg, Natalia Sedova and Nicolai Gogol are like a dream come true for the artist, who hovers lightly over continents and eras, creating human connections possible only to those whose thinking has escaped the narrow mold of nationalism.

Noam Toran’s sources of inspiration are diverse. The exhibition at the RawArt Gallery joins a long line of avant-garde works in which Toran smashes boundaries and conventions. Among them are an exhibition and performance inspired by “The Jungle”, a monumental work by the American socialist writer Upton Sinclair. Another of his performances features Portuguese revolutionary anarchists who were exiled to Cape Verde prison during the Portuguese dictatorship. Like the poet riding his flying donkey, Toran challenges the way we are drawn to the daily depressing news by taking us back 80 years and demanding we think in a different way.

*Translation from Hebrew – Yonatan Preminger

[i]Noam Toran website: http://www.noamtoran.com/NT2009/

[ii]“A shining meteor will light the path of the worker”, exhibition and performance, Noam Toran, curated by Leah Abir, RawArt Gallery, 3 Shvil HaMeretz, Tel Aviv, 7 June to 7 July 2018.

[iii]From the Ottoman Regime to the Hebrew State, by Bulus Farah, translated by Ehud Adiv and Yosef Mansour, published privately.

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The heads of several workers committees organized in the Histadrut recently announced their support for Israel’s right-wing Likud party, arguing that they could form a counterforce within that party against privatization schemes. Rather than stepping up to head a social movement and lend the weight of organized labour to the struggle for peace and equality, and in favour of a new social agenda, as unions do in Britain and in several Western countries, these short-sighted leaders prefer to support Likud, thus giving a hand to a party that is right-wing, war-mongering and anti-labour.

The workers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently halted operations at all Israeli embassies in Israel and abroad, causing, amongst other things, the cancellation of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned visit to Latin America. The workers held a strike and displayed great civil courage in making it clear that their social needs come first, despite accusations of harming the national interest.

The Foreign Ministry workers’ struggle joins a long list of new struggles and unionization drives that the Histadrut (the National Federation of Labour) has been leading lately. The Ness Technologies workers and workers at the cellular phone and insurance companies are part of this wave of unionization. The effort of workers at Pelephone, a cell phone company, was a turning point, because the employer opposed the effort vehemently, threatening workers and trying to impair the leaders’ job conditions. The National Labour Court ruling in favour of the Pelephone workers, in January 2013, became a landmark for the right to organize, reaffirming the total ban on employers’ involvement in the process.

This is no doubt a healthy process, continuing the awakening of the 2011 social justice protests and expressing disgust at the takeover of Israel by tycoons. But when this new labour power is translated into the political arena, it turns out that some of the leaders continue to think in old terms. One of these is Pelephone Workers Committee Chairperson Barak Levi, who began last week to recruit the workers for Likud party membership. The putative logic is that if workers want to gain power, they should enter the ruling party, which is presently the Likud, vote in the primaries, and thus threaten those politicians who are anti-labour.

Levi claims to be building a power base within the Likud Central Committee in order to block policies that would foster competition in the cellular and telecom industry, for such policies might adversely affect their profits and hence the conditions of employment within them. Levi’s approach is also taken by Ashdod Port Workers Committee Chairman Alon Hassan. A person with dubious private monopolies in the port, Hassan fell out last year with then Labour Party leader Shelly Yachimovich; he influenced his mates in the port to shift their loyalty to Yitzhak “Buji” Herzog. Yachimovich did indeed lose her position. Now Hassan has announced that he is shifting his loyalty from Labour to Likud in order to unseat the Minister of Transportation, Likud’s Yisrael Katz. For Katz has been leading a ruthless attack on the workers committees at the Ashdod and Haifa Ports as part of his plan to build two privately owned ports, thus cutting the government’s monopoly over the ports.

It is wrong, corrupt, and destructive for union leaders to join the Likud in quest of political leverage in the trade-unionist struggle. They are copying the tactics of the extremist Moshe Feiglin group, which has entered the Likud in the past decade with great success. The comparison is absurd and hopeless. When a far-right group like Feiglin’s enters the Likud, it joins a party which is basically close to its views. On the other hand, when organized workers enter Likud they join a party that is hostile towards the very idea of organized labour, a party that is tied inextricably to capital. Their chance of gaining influence within the Likud is close to zero.

By seeking to join the Likud, these two important labour leaders are choosing a corrupt and unprincipled path. First, the new affiliation amounts to a declaration that issues like the occupation of Palestinian lands, the rights of the Palestinian people, and racism do not interest them. This is a clear negation of the principle of solidarity between workers, regardless of nation, religion, and race, which is the basis for the notion of a trade union. The two leaders share another motive as well: there is no risk that anyone in the Likud will criticize them for a number of questionable practices that they already follow: allowing contracted workers into their workplaces, rampant nepotism, benefits to family members, and personal use of their status as Workers Committee representatives.

The workers’ movement worldwide has been historically connected to the socialist and social democratic parties. It has opposed racism, religious or national discrimination, and military occupation. It has led the call for peace and disarmament. In many countries, when trade unions found that the traditional political parties were supporting the neoliberal capitalistic line, they launched the movement to create an independent leftist alternative. In 2005, for example, labour and socialist leaders in Germany, led by Oskar Lafontaine, broke with the German social democracy.

Another example is the pressure that British unions put on the Labour party to take a different path from the one adopted in the Blair years: they threatened to support more consistent leftist alternatives. In an article in the Independent of April 1, 2014, the leader of the biggest British union, Unite, warned Labour that he would start an alternative workers party. Despite the adoption of swinish neoliberal capitalism in Israel, we have not seen a similar movement within the Histadrut. Despite its unionization initiative (something new in the Histadrut, which used to work with employers only) this labour organization has remained conservative, intimately connected to the establishment. Ofer Eini, who has led the Histadrut in the past nine years, was responsible for forming Netanyahu’s ruling coalition in 2009 and has distanced the Histadrut from anything politically or socially progressive.

The Histadrut absented itself from the 2011 social protest movement, which challenged the government’s neoliberal agenda and demanded a change in priorities. Eini backed MK Shelly Yachimovich when she gained the Labour Party leadership. Rather than create a new leftist alternative, Yachimovich and the protest-movement leaders who joined her in the Knesset attempted to separate the struggle for social justice from the issue of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. This tactic disintegrated the protest movement and cost Yachimovich the party leadership. It also created an ideological vacuum, with the absurd result that we now see union members entering the Likud.

To assume that there is no alternative to the Likud in the political arena is to forfeit in advance the battle over the form of Israeli society.

There is indeed a new trend to unionization in Israel. This is refreshing, and I have no intention here of detracting from its value. At the same time, it is a mistake to see a workers committee or trade union as the be-all, end-all. When organized workers take a narrow view of caring for a small interest group, joining racist right-wing elements, they become what are known as “yellow unions” in workers’ movement jargon – enemies of social change.

It would be fitting instead for unions to form a new social, economic, and political agenda, a central pillar of which would be equality between Arab and Jewish workers, the fight against corruption, opposition to occupation and wars, and a clear preference for social welfare. The mistrust felt in Israeli society toward the corrupt political leadership, especially given the coalition parties’ support for an anti-worker and anti-social line, can be fertile ground for a new political direction, protecting the working class and giving it a positive horizon.

Assaf Adiv in National Director of the Independent Trade Union Centre WAC MAAN

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The Prime Minister’s Conference on Minorities, held on Oct. 29, 2013, was entitled “Growth in Partnership.” PM Binyamin Netanyahu and senior ministers took part, including the “brothers in arms” Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, as well as Education Minister Shay Piron and Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug. The speakers gave stirring speeches full of promises to boost the political and economic integration of Israel’s Arab citizens, and to dismantle barriers to enable the full business potential of the Arab sector to be used. Higher education was emphasized along with employment, real estate, and fields in which government incentives could encourage economic growth in the Arab sector.

One step forward, two steps back

This conference is an expression of government efforts to demonstrate change in its policies towards the Arab population. The government has been holding such a conference each year since 2007, providing an opportunity for leaders to proclaim their commitment to the Arab sector and the need for positive discrimination. The initiative began during Ehud Olmert’s term as prime minister, and at that time senior representatives of the Arab population also participated (this year no Arab political leader attended).

Until a few years ago the government almost totally ignored the Arab population and swept its concerns under the rug. Now it has suddenly recognized that there is a problem and demonstrated its willingness – at least in words – to deal with it. An expression of this new approach can be seen in the critical report compiled by Prof. Eran Yashiv and Bank of Israel researcher Nitsa Kasir, which was published in May 2013. This report won official recognition, and Yashiv – who gave a speech at this year’s conference – commented that in a recent meeting with Economics Minister Bennett, the latter was ready to listen.

The new approach is reflected in other ways too: about half of the employment guidance centers opened in recent years have been located in Arab towns; the government has set itself the measurable target of increasing workforce participation of Arab women from the current 20% to 40% by 2015; a budget has been allocated for developing public transportation in large Arab towns which, till recently, had none at all; 400 million shekels (about $110 million) have been earmarked for developing industrial zones in the Arab sector; and for the first time in history, the Higher Education Council certified a university in the Arab city of Nazareth.

The conference’s panel on employment was opened by Minister Bennett. In his animated speech, he explained the need to overcome prejudice and take on Arabs holding academic degrees in industry, especially ICT (hi-tech). He also called on Arab youth, saying, “Don’t give up your chance to integrate into the State of Israel and create here a future for yourselves, and we, as the government, declare that we will not give up on you.” He went on to wonder how it is that only 2% of Arabs who have studied programming are taken on in the ICT sector. “After all,” he said, “the talents we’re after are not found only among members of one people or one religion. They are spread around everywhere! We must open our minds and take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.”

Encouraging words, but Bennett would have done well to direct them at himself and at the members of his government. As noted by Amnon Beeri Sulitzeanu, co-director of the Abraham Funds Initiative, Bennett’s declarations do not sit well with his own political party’s agenda. Bennett, chair of the rightwing Habayit Hayehudi party, is an old friend of prejudice. How does Bennett intend to take on Arab degree holders in the public and private sectors when he himself proposes legislation that would turn Israel’s Arabs into second-class citizens? Right now the government is promoting a law which will discriminate against all those who did not do military or national service, in getting work, in their studies, in buying property and in other areas of life – all this in the guise of benefits to those who served.

Between propaganda and reality

But the fine hall at Tel Aviv University where the conference was held, where all speakers – Jews and Arabs alike – belong to the spruce and orderly upper middle classes, is very different from what one sees in the Arab towns. Here visitors will find poverty and hardship, and the gap between Arabs and Jews is growing. The problem is not merely the hypocrisy of the rightwing, busy inciting against Arabs on a daily basis while calling for us to overcome prejudice at media-covered conferences. The problem is far deeper: it is connected to the basic mood in Israel today, a mood which empties the prime minister’s conference of content.

Fundamental and profound discrimination against the Arab population is the cornerstone of the State of Israel. Positive discrimination for Arab towns, designating land for industrial and commercial development, constructing public and residential buildings, increasing the educational and welfare budget, and investing in infrastructure – all this requires billions of shekels which the government has no intention of spending. It won’t even spend such sums on Jewish towns in the periphery – it will certainly not spend them on Arab towns. And without these sums, as Yashiv explained in his excellent lecture, small initiatives – important though they are – are liable to become barriers to the greater change that is so crucial.

Indeed, as long as the present government continues its blatantly racist policies, such as the decision to establish a Jewish town near Arad at the expense of an Arab village that has existed there for 50 years, all its words on equality for Arabs are a bad joke. (See this article from Haaretz.)

The government has failed miserably to increase the number of Arabs in the state service sector – an issue entirely in government hands, requiring no special resources. It didn’t even achieve its target of increasing the proportion of Arabs in this sector to 10% by 2012: the percentage today stands at 8.5%. This is particularly sobering when one remembers that the Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s citizens. Despite certain steps to integrate Israeli Arabs in the economy since 2010, the gaps between Jews and Arabs are still growing.

Another failure is linked to Israel’s economic structure and only indirectly affects the Arabs as part of the poverty-stricken periphery. The economy today does not create sustainable jobs in quantities that would enable thousands of new workers to be hired. On this issue we should listen to the words of Zeev Rotem, founder and CEO of Rotem Strategy, in an interview he gave to Tali Heruti-Sover (The Marker, Oct. 27, 2013). He said that the “excellent” statistics on the state of employment in Israel are nothing but deception; most jobs offered today are part-time or seasonal, with wages so low that they do not even meet the most basic needs of the worker. About a third of Israeli workers today are in part-time positions. In other words, approximately one million men and women are not in full-time employment. The fact that the poverty rate in Israel is the highest among OECD countries isn’t a coincidence, he says. This is not a case of laziness – it’s the economy, which is creating more and more destitute workers.

A policy for the elites

In light of the above, how should we understand the aims of the conference? There can be no doubt that the government’s change of approach towards Israel’s Arab citizens was due to its desire to join the OECD, which it did in 2010. An OECD report of that year said that Israeli Arabs suffer severe discrimination, and it conditioned Israel’s membership on fundamental changes in its policies toward this population. According to Raed Mualem, Vice President of the Nazareth Academic Institute, even the decision to allow the opening of a university in the Arab City of Nazareth was the result of a specific OECD demand (Al-Arab website).

On the one hand, the Israeli establishment is willing to make certain changes to keep the OECD leaders happy, since membership in the organization brings many clear strategic advantages in the global market. On the other hand, there is an understanding that the backwardness of the Arab sector in terms of employment, economy and education is pulling Israel’s economy backwards too, and there is a real danger that Israel will become a third-world country, as Israeli Arabs and the ultraorthodox Jews grow in numbers relative to the productive and educated population. According to research published in the days leading up to the Israel Democracy Institute’s Caesarea Conference in November, the Arabs and ultraorthodox will together make up half of Israel’s population by the year 2059 if current trends continue (source.)

In particular, there is a growing awareness in Israeli establishment circles that the Arab population is a powder keg, and as long as no resources are set aside for welfare and for dealing with unemployment and poverty, we are all approaching an explosion. This explosion will find expression in increasing crime rates and extreme trends towards separatism and isolationism, nationalist, religious and anti-Israeli sentiments.

But since the government has no intention of turning the present reality upside down, it focuses on the big promise of the Arab educated middle class, which constitutes a reservoir of wasted talent. It bases itself on the Arab economic elite, which is characterized by pragmatism and makes do with what Netanyahu calls “economic peace” with reference to the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories (meaning that while Israel refuses to accept a political solution and recognize Palestinian national rights, it is ready to give economic incentives to a certain social class, thus replacing the struggle for peace and equality with a narrow economic agenda). The Arab middle class in Israel is comprised of university graduates who are willing to work hard for a relatively low salary in order to get into the job market.

There is no vision of social mobility behind the declarations at the conference. Arab graduates who were taken on at Teva, Super-Pharm and Intel are not ambassadors of social change; rather, they are an example of the fact that one can succeed if one turns one’s back on the desolation of one’s people in the Arab towns. The government is under the illusion that the integration of these educated Arabs in the Israeli economy will create opposition to the Arab leaders, whose popularity is anyhow in decline. And indeed, one cannot but notice that, in contrast to the prominence of Israeli Jewish leaders at the conference, not a single prominent Arab public figure attended – even though hundreds of Arab businesspeople and NGO workers filled the hall.

We can conclude that the conference’s debates did not reflect a fundamental change of policy, but an attempt to skim the cream of the Arab elite – while accepting that the problems of the vast majority of the Arab population are too huge and too severe to be dealt with.

Assaf Adiv, WAC MAAN General Director, attended the panel on employment at the Prime Minister’s Conference on Minorities.

• Translated from the Hebrew by Yonatan Preminger

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On Asher Schechter’s – Rothschild – A Chronicle of Protest (Hebrew), Published by Kav Adom – HaKibbutz HaMeuhad, 2012, 309 p.

In the summer of 2011, Tel Aviv was boiling over. Anyone taking part in the events and demonstrations organized by the Rothschild tent protest movement couldn’t help but feel that a new force was coming into being. The immense energy that exploded on July 14, with the arrival of the first tents, was amplified exponentially by enthusiastic and sympathetic media coverage. The electrifying protest, with its many colorful characters, sparked the flame of the first internal revolt against the Israeli establishment. Under the surface of the protest, however, power struggles and intrigues were taking place.

Asher Schechter’s great achievement is that he manages to take this complex beast apart, thereby giving insight into its various factors. In his book, Rothschild – A Chronicle of Protest (so far in Hebrew only), Schechter puts forth a high-resolution, detailed description of events, one that at times creates the sensation of invading the privacy of the main participants. The danger of such writing, penetrating the intestines of the protest movement, is the loss of the overall picture. One runs the risk of missing the vision, the thought, and the soul in exchange for the large number of photographs depicting scar tissue.

Nevertheless, the book constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of this unique and vital movement, which is doubtless but a forerunner of things to come. Schechter writes with great emotional fervor, out of a profound sympathy with the protest and its leaders. His choice of Daphni Leef as the figure symbolizing the protest, for all her strength and weakness (an in-depth interview with Leef is featured at the end of the book), reflects his deep understanding of and insight into the founders of this movement.

In the Afterword, Schechter writes rather pertinently about the protest’s critics, those who reproach it with not being unified, being too right-wing or left-wing, too militant or too “nice.” All of these, he claims, fail to understand the primary message that the protest sought to deliver: the protest is not “a definite set of demands to lower housing prices; it is an idea, a concept, a call to action. From its inception, the protest was a tidal wave rushing towards a target, not knowing what would happen when it reached its destination” (p. 209).

New energy and confusion

The first part of Schechter’s book describes a brave and creative bunch that hasn’t the slightest idea of the kind of momentum it’s destined to acquire. Not one of the ten Tel Aviv youths who, together with Leef, were discussing her proposal to set up a tent on Rothschild boulevard— in protest against an establishment that had sold Israel to the tycoons—had the expertise to lead a movement hundreds of thousands strong.

The public support and more importantly the friendly media coverage were the jet fuel that propelled the protest to the headlines in just a few days. Anyone who has ever taken part in an attempt to organize a public demonstration knows that media “buzz” can make or break such an initiative. In this instance, the “buzz” was more like media frenzy engulfing all media channels, including live TV coverage from the start. Within days, thousands were joining the movement. The first demonstration, expected to assemble only a small number of people, was attended by about 20 thousand. The second saw that number grow to 100 thousand, and the third and largest of them all saw almost 400 thousand people march the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities.

Through Schechter’s vivid and dramatic descriptions, one cannot help but feel the surge of energy that took place throughout these events. And yet, his narrative also describes a state of confusion and lack of direction from the very get-go. The sympathetic media coverage, in his view, was a honey trap (p. 299). The media’s portrayal of the protest as a matter of consensus, and the emphasis it placed on it’s being a new phenomenon that was neither left-wing nor right-wing, made it hard for the movement’s leadership to project a revolutionary path to match the spirit of the street. From his description of the discussions among the leaders, it is clear that these were talented and earnest people who stumbled into a situation that made it impossible for them to lead, because they lacked political vision, experience and inner resources.

At this stage of the game, tents were being set up all over the country, and the protest movement was clearly becoming the center of Israeli political life. This was a perfect natural environment for a wide coalition among various social organizations which joined the charismatic Rothschild “gang” in the attempt to share their spotlight. The two strongest and most significant factions in this coalition were the Student Union, under the leadership of Itzik Shmuli, and “Dror Israel” [“Israeli Freedom”], headed by Pesach Haupster. The book does not contain a description of the role played by Dror Isael – a movement that affiliated with the Israeli Labor Party. On the other hand, the dispute with Shmuli is given much weight, offering insight into the dynamic that came to typify the movement.

While the movement was undergoing this growth in scope and reach, after two weeks of intense activity, Daphni Leef found herself on the brink of utter exhaustion. Sleepless nights, constant demands from the media, unrelenting pressure from various factions and activists to take the stage during protests – all these led Daphni and her depleted colleagues to “willingly relinquish” themselves into the hands of more experienced activists who had joined the Rothschild leadership forum, assembling every evening at the Café Swing. These were three left-wing activists who had already gained a certain status in Tel Aviv after running for city council in 2008 as part of a campaign called “Ir LeKulanu” (“A City for All of Us”). Thus it came to pass that Sharon Shahaf, Alon Lee Green, and Noam Hopshtater became responsible for delineating the path that the protest would take from late July 2011 onwards.

The “Ir LeKulanu” group makes a retreat

The differences between the Rothschild “gang” and Shmuli were apparent from the beginning. The dispute reached its climax in anticipation of the largest and most significant demonstration that would take place in Tel Aviv on August 6. Shmuli insisted that this was not the protest of radical left-wingers and anarchists from Tel Aviv. This was the struggle of the salt of the earth, and therefore the demonstration had to end with the singing of Israel’s anthem, HaTikva. Daphni Leef, Stav Shafrir, and their colleagues opposed the suggestion. Shafrir argued that the anthem tells 20% of the Israeli citizens – the Arab population – that they are not welcome here.

The argument was finally settled by Sharon Shahaf, who took command over the Rothschild group. “You think you’re more left-wing than me just because you cry over these things?” she told Shafrir. “We want to make it official, it’s us again the government, and no one can say that we represent some esoteric group of extremists if we sing HaTikva at the end.” This discussion was just a small part of the debate which included questions like: What should the slogans be? Should we call to bring down the government? Who are the singers we want to bring? In the end the more central Zionist line of Shmuli prevailed, and the open-minded, democratic tendencies of the Rothchild gang were pushed aside.

With hindsight, one of the leftist “guides” – Alon Lee Green – expressed regret over the line taken in this demonstration. “We made our biggest mistake during this demonstration, whereas the street was far ahead of us in many respects. The protest signs on the street were far more radical than us. This was the most powerful moment of the entire protest and we needed to take advantage of it to say as loudly and clearly as we could: ‘Down with Prime Minister Bibi.’ The role of leadership is to be avant-garde, to lead the troops, not to follow a step behind – and in this case we were a step behind because we were afraid of people calling us left-wing” (p. 98).

However, this late insight does not change the fact that at that critical moment, Green’s group pulled the protest backwards. A year later, at the June 2, 2012 demonstration, it was once again Green’s coalition – this time with Haupster and “Dror Israel” – that pulled an Arab speaker off the stage for fear of being labeled left-wing. In light of all this, it is no wonder that today Stav Shafrir finds herself in the “Avoda” (“Labor”) party besides Shmuli, while the rest of her friends are scattered all over the political map. We cannot discount the possibility that under a different leadership we could have found the Rothschild gang still leading the protest outside the establishment and against it.

The Trachtenberg Committee breaks up the protest

The establishment of the Trachtenberg Committee is described in the book, and rightly so, as a critical test of the protest movement, and the Trachtenberg report receives a lot of weight. Schechter recognizes the establishment of the committee as what it was – a powerful political manipulation engineered by Netanyahu as a means of dissipating the force and influence of the protest. The fact that Itzik Shmuli chose to appear before the committee and cooperate with it, while the Rothschild group boycotted it, proves that Netanyahu’s manipulation succeeded in splitting the protest.

The Trachtenberg report, published in late September 2011, was an attempt to bribe the middle class and separate it from the poor. Professor Trachtenberg’s wiliness, in combination with the protest movement’s political weakness and the conservative nature of some of its leaders, finally led to its retreat and dissolution. The tents were the first to go – a development both expected and inevitable. Shortly after, the Rothschild gang broke up, and the important movement that it had mounted evaporated.

The missing Arab side

Among the factors most detrimental to the protest and its potential is the fact that the Arab population remained completely passive, even after the volcano on Rothschild. This absence of Arab activists from the protest that was supposed to be “everyone’s” prevented the formation of a new Jewish-Arab collaboration. Such an alliance could have allowed the Rothschild gang and the dynamic, non-institutional factions of the protest to develop their democratic agenda. The presence of authentic, on-the-ground activists from the Arab towns and villages would have made it very hard for right-wing and other agents to spread their racist propaganda, and the conservative influence of Shmuli and Dror Israel could have been successfully neutralized.

This fantasy of a radical Jewish-Arab social movement is missing from the book. Like the Rothschild gang, Schechter too is a product of the new Tel Aviv: very radical, revolutionary in many senses, but not attributing enough weight to the Arab side of the equation. Accordingly, his interviews with Arab activists take up a very marginal place in the book.

In the tradition of the revolutionary movement, the term “1905” serves as a codename for the attempt at a democratic revolution in Russia, which despite its failure was seen in hindsight as the dress rehearsal for the 1917 revolution, which brought down the Tzarist regime. In this respect, Rothschild was our 1905. It may not have been a real revolution, but this was an unprecedented effort by a popular movement that showed us what things would look like when the revolution did finally occur. Mainly, it showed us that there could be a revolution here, in Israel. Schechter helps us understand what happened and why. He purports to give us answers to the question – why did the protest disappear? He see himself, justly, as a chronicler of the different forces within the movement. When, in the future, more young people like Daphni Leef and her fellow activists decide to pick up the ball where it was left and run with it, Schechter’s book can serve as a fine foundation for learning the lessons of this first crack at revolution.

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 It was 25 January 2011. Although, Shaimaa Abdel Rahman was spending her summer vacation in the coastal city of Alexandria, she decided to join the protests that were planned in almost every Egyptian city that day.

She didn’t know it then but she would participate in Egypt’s most important event in decades: the 25 January Revolution.

The 31-year-old teacher is one of millions of Egyptian women who played an active role during the revolution and the events that followed.

“I had never been politically active before the revolution, but I was always in the forefront of all the movements demanding the improvement of our
working conditions in my work place,” she says.

According to Mona Ezzat, an activist and leading figure of the Socialist Alliance Party, Egyptian women had participated in the protests and events that led to the revolution.

Ezzat says: “From 2006 on, Egypt witnessed a massive wave of social protests”.

Women, along with men, actively participated in different protests demanding not only improved working conditions, but also putting an end to the process of privatisation and rampant corruption in state-owned companies and factories.

This rising labour movement was one of the factors that radicalised Egyptians ahead of the 25 January Revolution.

During the 18-day sit-in in Tahir Square, Abdel Rahman met with activists from the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions.

“I met with Kamal Abu Eita whom I knew before as a political and labour activist. It was the first time to meet him face-to-face. I also got to know a number of teachers who were active as trade unionists in the Independent Teachers’ Union.”

From that day on, Abdel Rahman started her career as a trade unionist, participating in all activities aimed at improving working conditions for teachers.

 

Influential role

According to Ezzat, the rise of the independent trade union movement is one of the revolution’s most significant achievements.

“Unfortunately women’s issues are not among the movement’s priorities,” she laments.

“Men and women join forces to meet general objectives, though they never address women-related problems. Although women constitute a large proportion of the independent unions’ membership, their representation in leading positions is limited,” she explains.

The board of directors of the Independent Federation of Trade Unions is made up of 21 elected members, five of which are women (as rules state that 30 per cent of the board should be female).

Unfortunately, women did not achieve such positive results in the first parliamentary elections after the revolution, held in June. “Only 10 females succeeded in obtaining seats in the parliament out of 508 members,”Abdel Rahman says.

The parliamentary election on 16 and 17 June was one of the first indicators that the influential role played by women during the revolution is not being reflected in Egypt’s political scene.

Feminist activist Zizi Kheir suggests that both what we might call Islamic and civil parties undermined the participation of women in the elections.

“The elections law stated that each electoral list should have a woman on it, but it didn’t specify in which position,” she remarks.

“So women were always at the bottom of the lists, meaning there was very little room for them to enter the parliament, since the number of successful candidates from each list is determined by the percentage of votes each list gets, and they are chosen from [the] top down.”

 

Obstacles

Participating in the events of the revolution and the demonstrations that followed was not easy for Abdel Rahman.

“Coming from a conservative family made it difficult for me to take part in political activities. Sometimes I had to hide what I am doing, especially from my father,”

Almost one month after the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, the armed forces brutally broke up a peaceful sit-in in Tahrir square.

A number of female protestors were detained and subjected to virginity tests. For Abdel Rahman this was an attempt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), to reinforce the traditionally-held idea (that a woman is little more than a body) to the revolutionaries.

“SCAF used humiliating virginity tests to intimidate revolutionaries. Sexual harassment during protests was also used for the same purpose,” she adds.

Fortunately, SCAF’s actions bore little fruit.

The protests continued – as did female participation in them.

Kheir considers this to be a clear indicator that the presence of women in the public sphere is strong enough to endure all attempts to end it, especially with the rise of conservative Islamist political parties.

“On 20 December 2011, Egypt witnessed what was described as ‘the biggest women’s demonstration’ since the 1919 revolution [against British occupation]. Thousands of women, joined by men, took to the streets condemning the assault and undressing of a female protester by military police. Women from different ages and social backgrounds participated in the demonstration under the slogan: ‘the military stole our revolution and women will restore it,’” Kheir says.

 

Waiting for change

“On 25 January, Egyptians took to the streets chanting ‘Bread, freedom, dignity’. And now, after the passage of a year and a half, they are still waiting for the fulfillment of their demands,” Ezzat says.

“Over the past few weeks in Egypt, several demonstrations were organised against the social and economic policies, along with a wave of workers strikes and sit-ins.  There is the potential to integrate womens issues in these social and political movements, provided a women’s movement is developed.”

For Abdel Rahman having a female strong presence in various organisations and trade unions is the first step towards integrating women’s issues into wider social and political movements.

“Our presence in different organisations is the best way to make us a real force on the ground, and enable us to stand in front of the government and fight for our demands.”

Ezzat proposes that NGOs working in the field of women’s rights should take the initiative for developing such movement, cooperating with political parties and movements.

“NGOs and [political] parties usually coordinate on specific issues, but they need to develop a comprehensive program addressing women’s issues in order to start building a women’s movement,”she says.

Abdel Rahman believes that women took a huge step forward during the revolution.

“It’s now very evident that we are equal partners in the revolutionary process. Egyptians could have not overthrown the old regime without the contribution of millions of women, and Egyptians won’t achieve the rest of their demands without them. It’s now time for us to acknowledge our power and to start pursuing our special demands,” she says.

 

The post A REVOLUTION DEFERRED: EGYPTIAN WOMEN DEMAND CHANGE first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.