Joe Biden said an unequivocal “no.” Bibi Netanyahu is not invited to the White House until further notice. In other words, until his constitutional coup d’état disappears. Netanyahu’s answer, “don’t interfere in Israel’s internal affairs,” was not long in coming. In response, media commentators tried to interpret this American “no”. Haaretz’s lead editorial defended Biden, explaining that his motives are pure and he speaks “as a supporter and lover of Israel.” Some explain the “no” due to the president’s Irish temperament or his advanced age, and some even attributed it to an unfortunate slip of the tongue. On the other hand, Bibi’s son Yair had accused the CIA of being behind the protests, a statement that must have angered the president. Everyone anticipated a quick fix from the White House that would lower the flames. A statement was indeed made, but the flames did not subside.

Right wing commentators mentioned the long-standing friendship between the two old friends. It was claimed that Biden is a Zionist, that even in the days of Clinton and Obama there were crises, but that strategic relations are stronger than any dispute because Israel is a strategic asset that the US cannot give up. In short, the US needs us more than we need it. So, we can raze the Palestinian village of Hawara, establish a private militia for Minister of National Security Ben Gvir, annul the disengagement law and fire the defense minister without breaking the bank, because Bibi knows the Americans better than they know themselves. As you may recall, on March 3, 2015, Netanyahu addressed Congress in a defiant speech aimed at thwarting Obama’s attempt to reach an agreement with Iran. It was Netanyahu back then who crudely interfered in internal American politics and contributed his part to Trump’s electoral victory. Since then, Bibi and Trump became identical twins, with Trump starring in Likud’s election posters and Bibi starring in countless White House ceremonies.

Precisely here lies the explanation for Biden’s resounding “no”. The American president may love Israel, but he loves America more. Biden is leading a historic crusade to save the soul of America from the clutches of American fascism as represented by Trump. Something momentous occurred on January 6, 2021, the day Trump’s supporters broke into the Capitol, and Biden’s struggle is primarily aimed at saving American democracy which, it turned out, is not a given. The Israeli right-wing did not take the event seriously and continues to admire Trump, seeing him as Israel’s best friend ever.

Not only Israel underestimated Biden. Also, Russia did when it invaded Ukraine without any hesitation. And where did Israel stand? On the side of democracy or on the side of autocracy? A Putin victory in Ukraine, as well as a victory of Bibi’s constitutional coup, will affect American politics itself as Trumpism continues to threaten America’s democratic regime. This is why US policy has changed. In Israel, they refuse to understand that today’s America is not the America of Clinton, Bush and even Obama. While Biden is moving at a dizzying pace for radical social change based on the Build Back Better program, Israel is moving in the opposite direction, towards neo-liberal conservatism and extreme theocracy. Biden’s “no” accurately reflects the chasm that has opened between the two countries.

The American political language underwent a radical change: the language of the conservatives, who censor movies and books, prohibit abortions, hate the LGBTQ community and are hostile to blacks, compared to the liberal language, which calls for ethnic inclusion and a social safety net for all. It is not difficult to guess which language is spoken by the Israeli government of Smotrich, Ben Gvir, Levin, and Bibi himself.

In a brilliant article published by the New York Times on March 27, Aron Heller compared the American right to the Israeli right. The equivalent of Republican red is Netanyahu’s coalition, which defines itself along identity lines and includes the ultra-orthodox, religious Zionism and low-income Mizrachis . In contrast, the democratic blue is represented in Israel by the upper middle class, educated Ashkenazim living in the big cities and in the center of the country. Heller shows how the American right-wing platform took over Israeli society through extremist emissaries with American citizenship, starting with Rabbi Meir Kahane in the 1980s and ending with founder of the Kohelet Forum and its chairman Moshe Kopel in the last decade. These representatives live in the settlements and take advantage of the growing rift in Israeli society to impose their libertarian views straight from the Federalist Society, which through Trump forced the most conservative Supreme Court to overturn the right to abortion. It’s no secret that Kohelet has been managing the entire ideological array of the Knesset right for years through position papers and laws it writes for Knesset members. Now they want to jump to the next level and take over the Supreme Court as well.

Like Trump and the conservatives in America, Netanyahu adopted piggish capitalist policies, creating one of the biggest social gaps in the Western world. “The Second Israel” was built within the 40 years of Likud rule. The false claim of Likud spokespersons is that even when in power Likud does not actually rule because the centers of control are in fact in the hands of the elites. This matches the perception of Trump who sees the army, police, prosecutor’s office and the media as part of the “deep state” and fights against all signs of the democratic regime. As in the US, the lower class in Israel also flocks to the charismatic leader, despite his belonging to the same “elites.”

Biden is confronting fascism through a social program designed to correct history and win back the workers who supported Trump through a social budget that is one of the largest in history, reminiscent of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in infrastructure, factories and social programs to build “from the bottom up,” instead of the “trickle down” theory folly that allows the rich to get richer while the poor wait for some of this wealth to trickle down to them. We paradoxically witness how “Bibi-ism”, which is rooted in poverty and social gaps, continues to foster elitist capitalism while insulting the outstanding “hi-tech nation” against whose perpetrators it conducts a campaign of violent incitement from every possible megaphone.

Yet Israeli fascism is not fed by social gaps alone. It is deeply rooted in racism and hatred of Arabs, who serve as ideological fuel that drives the deep right. The Kohelet Policy Forum, which represents pure capitalism, also represents a messianic ideology that views annexation of the occupied territories as realization of their desires. They long to see Israel in the form of a Jewish kingdom whose constitution is Jewish religious law, and which represents the supremacy of the Jews over other nations. Unlike the US, in Israel the right-wing ideology has infiltrated the public discourse. Liberals stopped talking about the occupation, put up with ignoring the voice of the Arabs in the Knesset (see our former article “only the Jewish vote counts”), normalized apartheid, gave up on solving the Palestinian problem, and contented themselves with managing the conflict and “economic peace” until they reached the current abyss and said “enough is enough”.

Like American liberalism, Israeli liberalism is also facing a historical test today. Biden’s “no” is decisive, and includes all types of racism, misogyny, and violation of human rights. One might say that Biden issued a red card not only to Bibi Netanyahu and his Messianic ultra-orthodox coalition, but also lit a warning light to the protest movement.

The future of Israeli democracy will not be guaranteed until it ceases to be a privilege granted only to Jews. It must also include the Palestinians, meaning all people living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, regardless of religion, nationality, race or gender. It is true that democracy needs to be anchored in a constitution, but it must be comprehensive and not incomplete. Democracy cannot ignore five million Palestinians living in its backyard. It will have to be inclusive, uniting the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, within the framework of one egalitarian and democratic state.

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The first to take to the streets against the rising tide of anti-democratic legislation was the LGBT community on July 22, 2018. They protested the government’s surrogacy law that discriminates against gay men, raising the banner of equality and drawing support from both the private sector and liberal circles. This was undoubtedly an opening shot that ignited new protests, this time against the nation-state law, which prioritizes Israel’s Jewish sector. On August 4, the Druze, waving their five-colored flags, filled Rabin Square. They received a warm embrace from the security establishment, led by former Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin, who delivered a scathing speech against the law. This Saturday, the Israeli Arab Monitoring Committee will try to fill the square to protest what they see as an emerging apartheid regime. However, there is a split within the opposition camps: the LGBT, Druze, and Palestinians will always march separately.

While sectoral flags are being raised, one flag is absent – the flag of democracy. Fifty-five Knesset members (MKs) voted against the nation-state law – 14 were from the largely Arab Joint List. The remaining 41 failed to organize a rally that would unite all forces opposing the national law, in order to demonstrate their power against the right wing, fractious government that is tearing Israeli society apart.

MKs and activists from the Left attend various demonstrations: they support the LGBT community on Saturday night, return a week later to show solidarity with the Druze, and some will also appear on August 11 as a sign of solidarity with the Arab sector. They hide behind the downtrodden but refuse to stand in the forefront of the struggle against a racist law that tramples the principle of equality.

Why? What prevents the heads of the opposition, the Labor Party, aka Zionist Camp, and Yesh Atid from calling for mass protests against the nation-state law that they opposed in parliament? Both parties are in lockstep with key sections of Israeli society that are fed up with the behavior of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ministers. This group attempts to secure its electoral future by inciting against the Supreme Court, the New Israel Fund, Ashkenazi elites, the press, writers, and artists, and especially against the Arabs. Why are the opposition MKs hiding behind the LGBT and Druze instead of storming the barricades themselves? After all, the nation-state law was not intended to harm the Arab or Druze population. The real target is the Supreme Court and the liberal character of Israeli society as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Signed and proclaimed in 1948, the Declaration of Independence reflected a broad consensus that included Communists and Revisionists, the National Religious and Herut. It promised “full and equal citizenship” for all of Israel’s citizens, “irrespective of religion, race or gender.” This statement did not prevent the enactment of discriminatory laws against the Arab population that favored the Jewish majority: the Law of Return, the Absentees’ Law, zoning and building laws, and tax and budgetary policies that have discriminated against the Arab population for 70 years.

What led to the enactment of the nation-state law are the rulings of the Supreme Court of Israel, such as decisions that prevented the expulsion of asylum seekers from Africa, that allowed Arabs to purchase land in Jewish towns, that evacuated illegal outposts in occupied territory, and other decisions that impeded the Right’s attempt to change the face of Israeli society. In the wings is the “Basic Law on Legislation,” which will define the limits of judicial review for years to come. In other words, the Arabs are the excuse, but the goal is to change the liberal lifestyle and the fruits of democracy enjoyed by the Jewish majority. It was not necessary to pass a nation-state law. Discrimination thrives without it.

The government openly admits that the Left is the target; the Left is the internal enemy and it must be defeated. “If we look at the hysteria that has gripped the Left in the face of this law, I think it is excellent,” Minister Yariv Levin said in an interview with Haaretz on August 6. What is of great importance to Levin is the hysteria of the Left and not the panic gripping the Arabs. The factor that threatens the peace and security of the coalition is undoubtedly the Zionist leftist opposition, not the Arab-dominated Joint List.

The purpose of the nation-state law is to ensure that the right-wing government continues to rule for as long as possible. When Standard & Poor’s upgrades Israel’s credit rating, and Trump continues, with Putin’s help, to drive the US and the world crazy, the nation-state law is just a sideshow, a global footnote that helps Netanyahu mobilize his base and neutralize the opposition.

How can the Zionist Left dare oppose a law that says that the State of Israel belongs only to the Jewish people? How can Avi Gabbay, head of the Labor Party (a.k.a. the Zionist Camp) support the protesters in the square when he himself has declared that the Left “has forgotten what it means to be Jews,” adding, “We are Jews, living in a Jewish state. I think one of the Labor Party’s problems is that it has distanced itself from that”? After all, it is clear that Netanyahu has the upper hand in the ‘who is more Jewish’ competition. The nation-state law aims to pull the rug out from under Labor’s Gabbay, and it gives Netanyahu the competitive edge over Yesh Atid’s strongman, Yair Lapid, who is trying to out-bibi Bibi.

Nevertheless, the Left is content to see the LGBT and the Druze rallying at Rabin Square, since they aren’t necessarily leftists. Both groups represent a broader spread: MKs Itzik Shmuli (Labor) and Amir Ohana (Likud) are gay, while Ayoub Kara is a Druze Likud minister, and Salah Saad is of Labor. If they were leftists, Netanyahu would have no trouble dismissing them. But because they represent a wider circle in public opinion and enjoy public support, he is in danger of having to pay a political price.

Despite the above, Tzipi Livni (recently appointed as leader of the opposition) is still trying to spearhead the struggle, and promises, if elected, to override the nation-state law with the Declaration of Independence. However,the Declaration of Independence does not have the power to build a truly democratic and egalitarian society. Moreover, it even prepared the ground upon which the nation-state law is built. Discrimination against the Arab population and the division between Jews and Arabs are the fertile soil from which the Israeli Right arose. Since 1948, and despite the Declaration of Independence, Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza and established an occupation that has lasted 50 out of its 70 years of existence.The marriage between the revisionist and messianic Right, together with the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi ultraorthodox, forms a stable coalition that can lead a counter-constitutional revolution and set up a benighted nationalist-religious regime.

In order to block the right-wing revolution, the Left must adopt a comprehensive program that will be a clear and unambiguous answer to the Right. Confronting the Jewish State, we must advocate for a truly democratic state, a state of all its citizens. Confronting the Occupation and the separate laws for settlers and Palestinians, we must present a far-reaching solution based on a single democratic state with equality and majority rule. Ironically, the Declaration of Independence states that Israel will “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender. It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education,and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions, and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations…and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.”

Economic unity already exists. It is based on the single Customs Envelope for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, one currency, and almost complete economic integration, but without equality or political rights. The Left has lost its vision; it has no political path and no socioeconomic alternative, and therefore it remains weak and doomed. The vision of a single state, a shared economy,and one constitution can defeat the Israeli Right and ensure peace and democracy. This is conditioned, of course, on Israelis and Palestinians finding a way of joining forces for the creation of a new reality.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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At the mass rally held by the gay movement LGBT at Rabin Square on July 22, 2018, protesters not only demanded to be accepted as different, but also called for full equality. They cried out against the injustice caused by a government that excludes homosexual men from having children through a surrogate mother.

LGBT’s demands target the hearts and minds of Israeli society. They demand an egalitarian and democratic society when, in fact, their country favors the Jewish nation over the Arab nation, religious over secular. However, like the massive social protest of 2011, the protest opposes a discriminatory society while omitting to oppose the discriminatory state. The omission seems contrived, especially considering that the Surrogacy Law excluding gay men passed in the Knesset on the same night as two strongly nationalistic laws, one against “Breaking the Silence” and the other, called the Nation-State Law, prioritizing Jewishness over democracy. On one fateful night, the fundamentalist Right realized its darkest desires.

Not very long ago, I need hardly point out, those who murdered Jews because they were Jewish also murdered homosexuals, Gypsies, and the mentally challenged. Today, those who hate Arabs and expel refugees because of their skin color discriminate against homosexuals, even if they are Jews. The fact that the Surrogacy Law and the Nation-State Law were passed by the same number of votes is not coincidental. It conjures up a reality that endangers the future of Israeli society.

Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu had earlier promised to support surrogacy for homosexual men. Those who believe that in changing his mind he caved in before the pressure of the ultra-Orthodox, and that he prefers the governing coalition over his previous commitment, do not understand the world we live in. The people who stand behind these laws – as well as laws changing the face of the High Court, religionizing the army and the schools, applying Israeli law to the West Bank settlements, and preferring “Zionist” culture – are not the ultra-Orthodox. They are the Jewish Home and the Likud: Israeli fundamentalist parties that are closely connected to the populist Right in Europe and the United States.

It is no coincidence that Putin and Trump’s “attention” to Netanyahu was evident in their Helsinki summit. Putin hates homosexuals, and Trump hates them even more. Both men lean toward dark nationalism mixed with xenophobia. They denigrate women and love adore brute force, and that is what they love about Bibi. He is the darling of the world’s nationalist villains. He serves as a model for them, and they are the rising power. So why should Bibi consider the rights of homosexuals, Arabs, or immigrants?

An ethno-nationalist tsunami is sweeping the world – from India to Russia, from Europe to the United States. Nations are busy rewriting their histories. They prefer a “glorious” past to an uncertain future. Trump wants to make America great again. Putin emulates Ivan the Terrible. Austria, Hungary, and Poland are reinventing the past, and Netanyahu is laboring to redefine Israel. He wants to weaken the legal system, take over the treasonous media, destroy the old elites, and erase any chance of reconciliation with the Palestinians. The new Poland, on whose land three million Jews were killed, is updating its biography. With the exception of a few rotten apples, Poland “did not cooperate with the Nazis.” Its ruling Nationalist Party passed its own version of a “Nation-State Law”, which at first criminalized anyone accusing the Polish people of collaboration with the Nazis—and later, with Netanyahu’s concurrence, softened this “offense” to a civil one.

Holocaust survivors and their descendants promised not to forget or forgive, but Netanyahu forgave Poland. Its new government deplores the independence of the Polish Supreme Court; it views the free press as a source of fake news, and it sees Netanyahu as an ally in its struggle against the common enemy – liberal Europe. In addition, Bibi and the Polish leaders are in lockstep with Putin and Trump, who have declared Germany a foe.

The Surrogacy Law, as well as the Nation-State Law, are not a result of coalition constraints or the competition between politicians about who is more right-wing. They reflect the strategic choice of the Israeli Right as a whole, which stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the international fascist camp. The European Union and German PM Angela Merkel are facing a broad and threatening coalition that includes the Putin-Trump axis, the British Brexits such as Boris Johnson, Matteo Salvini of Italy, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Sebastian Kurz of Austria, and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland.

The world as we have known it has changed beyond recognition. Globalization based on neoliberal economics has gone bust. The economic crisis of 2008 created a political vacuum that has ushered in ethno-nationalism, patriotism, exclusion, and white supremacy.

LGBT is not big enough to withstand the fascist onslaught that is sweeping the world. In order for LGBT to prevail, social movements excluded from the threatening new world order must join the struggle. One hundred thousand protesters would not have filled Rabin Square if the fight were just about gay men demanding the right to have children through surrogates. The square was filled with a general feeling that this government is leading Israel to a place whose agenda is dictated by national religious messianism, and that populism based on hatred of Arabs, immigrants, homosexuals, and women is making Israel an unbearable place.

Just as no one can fathom what Trump wants to achieve for the US and the world, few can understand where Netanyahu is going. When Minister Yuval Steinitz was asked about the fate of Gaza, he replied honestly, “Nobody knows.” Netanyahu knows how to swim in murky political waters, he knows how to overcome coalition crises, he has proved his ability to win elections, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what Israel will look like a decade from now.

The Nation-State Law proves that the Israeli Right has no vision. It builds walls of hatred and discrimination while trying to prevent the inevitable: the creation of a bi-national, diverse society in which Israelis and Palestinians live together, a society based on a shared economy, renewable energy, common infrastructure, and a regime that safeguards equality for all citizens regardless of religion, gender, race, or sexual orientation.

The importance of the LGBT demonstration in Tel Aviv stems from its political nature. The demand of gay men for equality raises the issue of equality for all. Those opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation cannot ignore discrimination based on religion and ethnicity. The struggle for LGBT rights is part of the fierce struggle between ethno-nationalism and global partnership, between dictatorship and democracy, between liberalism and fascism, between democracy and occupation. It is, therefore, crucial to support the LGBT movement at a time when the world has lost its ethical compass.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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In memory of Felicia Langer (1930-2018) – lawyer, person of conscience, fighter for human rights and a true friend, who passed away in Tübingen, Germany on June 21, 2018.

It has been many years since we last saw Fula, as we chose to call our lawyer, Felicia Langer. But those years have not dampened our appreciation and gratitude as well as the deep friendship that developed between us when she took it upon herself to lead the legal team defending the detainees in the case of “Derekh Hanitzotz”.

Those were the formative years of the First Intifada, 1988-1989, when the entire Israeli establishment mobilized to crush the popular revolt of the Palestinians, and, along the way, trample on anyone who dared to stand with the insurgents. Along with the strategy of “breaking and crushing the bones of Arab militants,” there was a campaign to de-legitimize the opposition within Israel. The Derech Hanitzotz newspaper fell into this category. It was closed and its 4 editors were dragged one after the other into the interrogation cellars. The press then, quoting sources in the Shin Bet security service, declared that a dangerous terrorist network had been busted, and its members were likely to be imprisoned for at least forty years.

When we turned to Fula to defend us, she did not hesitate for a moment. She took up the post with a reputation as the most prominent lawyer defending Palestinian prisoners. She had extensive experience with, and a deep understanding of, the ways in which the Israeli military and security services operated. In the first meeting with us in prison awaiting our trial, she stated unequivocally that this was a case of  political persecution by a regime trying to forcefully impose the status quo of the Occupation. She stood at our side with all her strength and fortitude, promising: “It will not be forty years and, most likely, not even four years.”

She later persuaded the judges of the Jerusalem District Court to release two of the detainees, who were mothers, until the trial. However, an outrageous ruling by Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak prevented their release to house arrest, pumping even more air into the balloon that the security services had inflated.

Fula’s support on the human and legal level was absolute. She was there for us every day, all day – the detainees, the comrades who remained active outside, the children and the families.  She gave everyone confidence in the justice of the way we had taken, and the possibility of undermining the so-called truths presented by the security services. She was sure she could convince the judges, and public opinion, that ours was a legitimate political movement. And indeed, the compromise that Fula eventually achieved led to the admission of minor offenses and relatively short prison terms – a compromise defined in the press as “the mouse that the mountain gave birth to!”

After the trial, and even before the release of the last remaining Hanitzotz detainee, Yacov Ben Efrat, Felicia Langer and her partner, Moshe, decided to leave Israel and live near their son Michael in Tübingen, Germany. Fula’s frustration at the arbitrariness of Israeli military courts, along with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Communist movement (to which she had been committed for her entire life), was undoubtedly a contributing factor in her decision.

Our case was possibly her final big one. Perhaps she felt that after the quick release of the Hanitzotz activists, she could leave Israel knowing that there were others here to continue her path.

Despite the distance, Fula continued to work in Germany as well, devoting herself to writing and public appearances. Until her last day, she was part of the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace and Palestinian rights. The connection between us on the human level remained profound. Fula’s unswerving and staunch support in those critical days of the Hanitzotz trial will remain our strongest memory of her.

May she rest in peace.

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Roni Ben Efrat (left) in Messina

A lecture by Roni Ben Efrat in SABIRMaydan, in Messina, September 28th.

Topic: The difference is between those who have rights and those who don’t: United against the system of inequalities, is there any chance to win?

Part 1: The difference is between those who have rights and those who don’t: United against the system of inequalities…

In the summer of 2011 in a series of mass demonstrations, over a million people marched in the streets of Tel Aviv. Thousands of youngsters camped on Rothschild Boulevard occupying “the” city center for three months.

Although Israel is often painted as a monolithic fortress of sweeping national consensus, that summer a new face of Israel appeared on the scene demanding “social justice”. This slogan was no doubt been influenced by the squares of Madrid and Egypt, demanding: “Eish, Hurrira, Adala Ijtima’ia!” (Bread, Freedom and Social Justice!). Yet, a fundamental difference exists between the squares of Egypt and Tel Aviv:  while the Egyptian and Tunisian youngsters called for “Isqat al Nizam” (down with the regime), the Israeli leaders of the social movement demanded that the Israeli government – right wing as it was – should bend to their demands. Their logic was: we elected you and you have to “work” for us! (instead of working for the tycoons).

The background for the huge protest movement was the major inequalities which developed in Israel in the past 25 years, as a result of its economy turning from a welfare economy, with collective responsibility (at least to its Jewish citizens) to an extreme privatized enterprise, geared to benefit a tiny elite of tycoons. This process affected of course the low classes, who reached pauperization, but affected the middle classes too, who saw themselves pushed down the social ladder with no prospects for affordable housing, or job security, now or in old age.

Yet, two issues were absent from the movement: 1. The question of inequality and poverty of the Arab citizens of Israel (over 53% are below the poverty line). 2. The question of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In the Israeli context, a social movement that does not integrate these two questions will be very limited politically. It sends a clear message to the regime that it does not intend to go all the way to change it. This is in stark contrast to Egypt and Tunisia where the revolutionary forces succeeded in toppling the regimes and opening a new page in the history of the Middle East – for good or for bad. All the upheavals we are witnessing today, in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, are a result of that “big bang” of the Arab spring.

The rationalization of the young protest leaders for NOT putting upfront the issue of the occupation, not adopting the slogan “One Justice for All”, not calling Bibi to “Go Home”,  was that this direction might divide the movement. They said that Social Justice is not divided into “Right” and “Left” – everyone is suffering – and that the political debate should be pushed aside. This position was being advocated by the Labor party behind the scenes, but was adopted by all the leadership, even the more leftist parts.

The movement had a deep impact on the Israeli discourse and psyche. It was an incredible learning process. A deep distrust of the “elite” and the “power” has been scorched into the consciousness of people and is apparent until today in numerous ways. But, the avoidance of challenging the ruling power resulted in a diverted course. The elections that followed that protest in 2013 resulted in the most right wing government ever. Because the movement failed to make the connection between Social Justice and the Occupation, the extreme right-wing settler party “The Jewish Home” headed by Naftali Bennet (12 seats) could adopt the protest discourse and tag it on to its anti-Arab, and pro-settlement agenda. The protest discourse was also hijacked by Yair Lapid, of the “Yesh Atid” party, representing the politically conservative middle classes (19 seats).  The Labor party, which adopted the agenda of social justice with no political agenda, won only 15 seats. Some of the leaders of the Protest movement joined Labor and became members of Knesset. Except for very small social gains, mainly free kindergarten from age 3, the basic demands have been ignored: poverty, insecurity, and lack of housing remain prevalent.

The collapse of the peace talks, and the third war on Gaza, clearly showed that Bibi Netanyahu’s right wing agenda has to be tackled socially and politically.

Part 2: …is there any chance to win?

If the Protest movement enjoyed an over 85% consensus among Jewish Israelis the July war on Gaza, too, enjoyed an overwhelming consensus, including those parties who are supposedly for the peace process.  It was as if Israelis ignored the fact that Netanyahu had de facto killed the talks with Abu Mazen and created a deep political vacuum. It was as if all the wise pundits forgot that they themselves had forecast a new round of violence as a result of the void in the political venue.

We can conclude the discussion after the war between Right and Left in Israel like this: The Right says that the war proved that Israel has to continue the blockade on Gaza, hence also prevent the West Bank from falling] into the hands of Hamas or even more extreme forces. That’s not new of course. The new part is in the argumentation of the Left: Labor and Merez say that after the war “a window of opportunity” has opened (partly as reaction to the Arab spring) which includes Sisi and his generals in Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Jordan and Abu Mazen. So, the same Left that talked about social justice and was reluctant to stand up to the Right wing and to racism, today welcomes all those forces of darkness, which are trying to defeat the forces of democracy in their own countries.

Today the Arab world is divided between two reactionary forces: Saudia Arabia, supporting Sisi, and other Salafist radical forces in Syria and Iraq, while the Qataris support the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas as a more moderate version of Islam. The argument between these two axes is how better to crush any democratic process in the Arab world. The same division of action appears between Fatah and Hamas, the first working with Saudi Arabia and Sisi’s Egypt, the second with Qatar.

The progressive forces in Israel are completely alienated from this discussion. The lack of a strong Arab Spring today – which could and should be an alternative to regimes such as Sisi, Assad and the other kingdoms and princedoms makes it more difficult for us to point toward a potential alternative.

Unfortunately the Arab Spring skipped over Palestine, and the most progressive demand was a call to unite Fatah and Hamas. But, what we see today is that as the war revealed the weakness of the Israeli left, it also revealed the weakness of the Palestinian side. It remains to see what remains of the current conciliation between Hamas and the PA, negotiated in Cairo.

For us, as a political force in Israel, the major obstacle to peace is the settlers and the settlements. Their existence prevents any political solution and the focus of any struggle should put that in the center.

Going back to the Arab Spring, for us it was an opening of hope because it presented a third alternative, other than the secular dictatorships (Egypt, Syria) or the fundamentalist forces of political Islam. The call for Freedom, Democracy and Social Change could be a common bridge between Arabs, Israelis and international progressive forces united by a vision of a new society, where everyone has the same rights and opportunities to live a meaningful life. This alternative is still open and waiting for forces to pick up the glove.

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Shany Littman

From Haaretz Weekend Supplement (Hebrew), January 5, 2013

2645. That’s the number of votes the Daam Party received in the previous elections. But since the outbreak of social unrest, the socialist Daam party has become a hot trend in Tel Aviv. Party leader Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka explains why poverty is no less an evil than the Occupation, why she wouldn’t have sailed on the Marmara, and why there is still hope in the Middle East.

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka is ecstatic. For the first time she sees clearly that the way to the Knesset in Jerusalem is shorter than ever. She is convinced that this time the Daam Workers Party, which she chairs, will cross the threshold, despite the fact that tens of thousands of votes stand between success and the 2645 votes received by the party in the 2009 elections. In an interview I conducted with her before the last elections four years ago, she seemed more introverted, more serious, working diligently yet without hope. But something has changed in four years, something that even she never envisioned would happen so quickly, although she had been waiting impatiently.

This change has filled her sails with a wind that she herself defines as “wild”. Today it’s hard to actually stop the flow of her words and enthusiasm, regardless of agreement or disagreement with her positions. It is impossible not to be impressed by her conviction. “In 2009,” she says, “we talked about social justice. It was our vision, but it wasn’t relevant to the public’s consciousness at the time, and this was also reflected at the polls. Yet the protest of Summer 2011 brought a change. As long as people here were not really suffering, they were not looking for solutions. But when the shock waves started in Europe and the Arab world, they arrived in Israel too. A lot of people got courage to speak out; each one’s private problem became a collective issue of social justice.

“When social ills became a political question, Daam became relevant, and for the first time we were there as a political party because we knew this was the place to build strength. Fundamental social, economic and political change requires a movement that wants it. As long as there was no movement, Daam was a fish out of water. But now it’s harvest time. In the summer of 2011 we narrowed the gap between reality and the prevailing political consciousness.”

You didn’t expect this?

“I didn’t know it would happen so fast. It’s very exciting. I’m glad to be part of it. I’m part of this and happy that I made the right investment in social justice. The role of the party that wants to lead this is to look ahead. I have a vision and it wasn’t clear to people—to talk about Jews and Arabs, about socialism, social justice. They thought I was dreaming, that all Arabs hate Jews and all Jews hate Arabs. And I know that’s not true. At a certain point, because reality is crushing you, because it empties your pockets and kills your children, you start to think. When Muhammad Boazizi set fire to himself, the flame burnt down all the barriers and walls after 40 years of deadly silence in the Arab world.

“40 years of Gaddafi, 40 years of the Assad family. For too many decades people were silent. Arabic poetry and literature deal with how this people amounts to zero. Nizar Qabbani has a poem that says, ‘We created the zero and remained zeros.’ We grew up on disappointment, on ‘Naksa’ [the ‘setback’ of the 1967 War], on defeat, on impotence. And suddenly a resurrected people demands to live. They do not want to die in violent resistance. They do not want to go to paradise. A new historical era has opened. It was natural that it would open on Rothschild as well.”

The Marmara was a mistake

There were moments when it seemed like things were going to turn into a catastrophe. On the one hand, Agbarieh-Zahalka describes feelings of elation as she walked through a crowd of demonstrators who marched in unison for a social cause. On the other hand, there were moments when bitter reality slapped her in the face. In June 2012 at Tel Aviv Museum Square, during a demonstration commemorating the first anniversary of the social protest, the rally organizers refused to allow Wafah Tayara, No. 4 on the Daam list, to mount the stage to speak, although this had been agreed upon in advance. Agbarieh-Zahalka experienced the refusal as a racist act that came from a completely unexpected place. Her outcry appears in a video clip circulated on the internet; it is a kind of spontaneous speech delivered not on stage but among the demonstrators. She recalls, “On the one hand, we have created a new group of people here, the people of the protest. That’s where I felt most at home. I felt I was in Tahrir Square. But when Wafah was prevented from speaking at the demonstration, I felt it was the end. All the time we’d been saying that Jews and Arabs could work together, and now she wasn’t allowed to speak. Then, when the video clip was shown, we were flooded with views and comments. Many people came as a result of the clip. It was the first time people had heard of us. That was the day that Daam was born in the eyes of the public, precisely because of the rejection.”

Agbarieh-Zahalka was born in Jaffa 39 years ago, the scion on her father’s side of a large family from Umm al-Fahm. During adolescence her religious faith grew and she joined the Islamic Movement. In 1995, while she was studying at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Humanities, the Daam party offered her a job as editor of the Arabic newspaper, “Al-Sabar.” When she got to meet the party activists, she was surprised to hear Jews speaking fluent Arabic; gradually she underwent a change, joining the party and eventually becoming its leader. In 2006 she was the only woman who headed a party for the Knesset. In 2009, she was joined in this respect by Tzipi Livni; in 2013, she stands beside Livni, Shelly Yachimovich and Zahava Galon, four women leading political parties. For Asma, however, this fact does not create solidarity or identification, just as she rejects any attempt to find similarities between herself and Hanin Zoabi, Balad MK.

“The Arab party Balad is nationalistic and bourgeois; it’s not a political party that espouses social justice. I do not compete with Hanin Zoabi. Hers is not the public I seek. I appeal to the 50% of the Arab population that is tired by the political options the Arab parties offer. Arab parties advocate a nationalist discourse, dealing only with the national question, neglecting the socioeconomic questions and the hardships suffered by the Arab public. Gaza and Tel Aviv amount to one issue. The political has to go along with the social. There is 50% poverty in the Arab street; 80% of women in the Arab sector don’t work. That is a catastrophe. Is this a people that can think about freeing Palestine? This is a people that must first free itself. And the point is not expressed by anyone.

“No political party does real work in the field, organizing the public and fighting against contracted jobs. I go to Knesset committee meetings and don’t see any Arab representatives there, even when the issues dealt with are of great concern to the Arab public, such as on-the-job safety. What is this concern for the Nakba [the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948] all day long? They forget that today in every house there is a Nakba. When a woman doesn’t have work; that’s a Nakba. A young man who works through a contractor and doesn’t get his rights is a Nakba. And without denying the importance of the Nakba, what about today’s Nakba? You have to change the reality of today; you can’t change past history.”

The fact that you and Zoabi are Arab women going against the current doesn’t seem to you like a thing that can bring your agendas closer together?

“It’s not enough to be a woman. Shelly Yachimovich is a woman too. So is Tzipi Livni. Being a woman is good, but it’s not enough. It is also not enough to be an Arab. Bashar al-Assad is an Arab too. I want to turn cultural diversity into a force, and Zoabi makes it into a wall separating people. I do not want people to vote for me because I am an Arab. That’s not the ticket I want. The question is, ‘what kind of Arab are you?’ I stand for class identity. I think that class identity is much more correct in places like Israel, which are saturated with different sectors and with an ingathering of exiles, including Arabs. What could connect and advance people, I think, is the daring to get out of sectarianism, to get out of the ghetto. And Zoabi is stuck in the ghetto, isolated and differentiating.

“Today, the issue that connects everyone is the issue of socioeconomic justice. It is the natural right of all people whoever they are. We are equal; together we can build a third way; the third way that the Arab Spring offered. Do not give in to the United States and Israel’s decrees against the Palestinians, but do not succumb either to the verbiage of the nationalist, fundamentalist opposition of which Zoabi is a part. I cannot call for death. The way of violent resistance, which Hamas walked in and which Hezbollah walks in, we see what that has led to today—to the massacre of the Syrian people. I can’t be part of it. I’ve never been a part of it, and for this reason I wasn’t relevant to the Arab public, because of this unpopular position. An Arab has to be democratic, to give people freedom of speech and the chance to work with dignity; if you do not do this, the fact that you’re an Arab doesn’t interest me.”

What do you think about Zoabi’s boarding the Marmara?

“I would not have boarded the Marmara. I do not think she’ll board the Marmara again. Beyond the issue of isolation and differentiation and representing yourself as ‘against’ and ‘anti,’ I think that to board the Marmara was to give Hamas power against Abu Mazen. I am not for Abu Mazen and not for Hamas; what I am for is that the Palestinian left should build a third way. Once you support one side against the other, the Palestinian rift deepens. And I do not think it’s in the interest of the Palestinian people to deepen the schism while it stands against Israel and against the Occupation. This strategy was wrong for Palestinians.”

Hanin Zoabi’s response: “I do not want to address these things. They are no different from the things said against me by the right and by the Zionist left. The only significant contribution of Ms. Asma Agbarieh is burning about 3000 votes in each election and it certainly does not help the Arab public and does not benefit the poor in general.”

Reality will win

You say that there is readiness to accept your ideas in relation to class consciousness, but what about racism on both sides? Do you think that today Jews or Arabs are ready to vote for an Arab-Jewish party?

“I probably will not be Prime Minister. Not all of the public will vote for me. As for the public that insists on racism—I’ll wait for them. I will continue to believe, just as I believed that the time of social justice would arrive, that understanding would ripen, so I believe that the time will come when people will outgrow racism. I also believe that some will follow racism to the end, to fascism. I’m not naive. But racism is a form of false consciousness in which you think you have privileges as a Jew in Israel, but actually you don’t. Today this country is a state of the rich, not a Jewish state. To whoever understands this and experiences it in his their pockets, in his their refrigerator, in the cost of living, in the their ability to make ends meet, to whoever has experienced it in everyday life, I suggest that they stop blaming his the situation on the Arab, but rather blame the policy that is made in their name as a Jew, and that they should simply change the diskette.

“I know that the whole country will not vote Daam. It also presents a challenge to the Jewish public to vote for an Arab woman, although we are an Arab-Jewish party, not just Arab, and it is a challenge to Arab society to vote for a party headed by a woman. Every day we have discussion groups all over the country. I’ve met with Russians and Mizrahis. In all these meetings I’ve found that our message is received like water on dry ground. People can’t get enough. It’s a golden opportunity, and I’m going with it to the Arab street, which has not budged, which did not take part in the protests. I tell them, look at how the Jewish community accepts us. Look how they accept an Arab woman who tells them to their face how to deal with the Occupation, with racism and the economics of privatization. They are shocked, because Arabs have long since stopped talking with Jews and Jews with Arabs.”

You really think you can make them think otherwise?

“It’s not me that will succeed. Reality will.”

At least wouldn’t it be better to change the name to something that didn’t sound like an Arab political party?

“Balad is Hebrew – the National Democratic Alliance. Hadash is a word in Hebrew. Did it help anyone? Most of their voters are Arabs. Daam started out in the Arab sector with the position that the Occupation must end. That was in the years when we did not experience the power of privatization and globalization. Two decades have passed since then and the reality in Israel has changed dramatically. Daam found that it also meets the needs of a growing segment of the Jewish public. We changed from a party on the nationalist side of the political map to a party on the socialist, class side. We have not changed the name and I think it is right because the Arab name is a type of connection, a link; it is a uniting factor. It connects with leftist movements in Arab countries, and it also reminds Israelis that there are Arabs who face a political issue and that there is an existential problem. The name is like a litmus test to the Jewish people who come and say, ‘I want to connect with the Arabs, to leave the ghetto, to connect with the Palestinians.’ The word is an acronym for the original name in Arabic, which means support and solidarity. Originally the name was ‘Organization for Democratic Action.’ The name is a challenge we do not want to conceal. We live in the Middle East.”

It seems that you have no separation between politics and your personal life.

Agbarieh-Zahalka laughs. “Yes, someone pays a price, my son Adam and my spouse Musa. But there’s nothing I can do about it. At the age of 22, I decided that I would not live well while people around me were sinking. I could have, but I chose not to. One cannot survive without the people around one. So I am drawn to this matter. My child will not grow up in a society that exploits its workers and destroys the people within it. That’s not why I brought him into the world. I accept the fact that I brought him into a world where I would prepare a normal environment for him to live in. I’m not doing it for me, but for him.

“There’s no political career here. Of course I am a mother who hugs her child. I do not feed him Marxism. I play with him in the playground. We even ate at McDonald’s. Right now it does not happen a lot, because of the elections, but Musa makes up for it. I see him three hours a day at best, and I tell him that Mom is going to talk to people who care about giving toys to all the children. He said he wants some too, and I promised him he would get them.”

– Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Rosenstein

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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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Moshe Silman inviting truck drivers to join the social protest, July 2012

The late Moshe Silman’s act of self-immolation rattled the entire country. Both the media and social protest activists have put out heartfelt pleas to try to dissuade others from following suit. But it seems that these calls have gone unheeded. Akiva Mafa’I’s attempted suicide by fire [He has since died – Ed.] joined dozens of other suicide threats that have been repeated in the last few days. It is reasonable to assume that we will see more attempts.

What happened to people in Israel that suddenly made them choose to follow the path laid out by Tunisian Tarek Bouazizi? Is the situation in Israel as ghastly as it is in Tunisia? After all, we do have a system of income support and disability benefits. People here do not die of hunger – and we do have a democratic government which permits less drastic forms of protest. Why, despite all that, did Silman choose to act in such an extreme way that brought forth such a wave of widespread public empathy?

The answer is that Silman understood what Bouazizi had understood. The state shows no respect for its citizens; its insensitive, impersonal and inhuman bureaucracy is indifferent to their problems. The result is a sense of humiliation, which at one point gets translated into a terrible act of desperation. Degradation and despair are universal feelings, which bear no relation to nationality, religion, color or gender. Nor are they related to the income level and political and economic situation of this country or another. In this way Israel has become comparable to Tunisia – it too makes many of its citizens feel humiliated. The combination of degradation and despair together with a troubled mental frame of mind can quickly lead to the extreme act of suicide.

Silman’s death and his suicide-note provide a serious indictment of the state. The indictment’s title ought to be: You failed! The State of the Jews is no longer a safe place for Jews, as was promised to them, for it has been sold out to the rich, and its citizens have been abandoned. It has abandoned those who served it, and even those who have become disabled in wars that were fought for its safety.

What is a new discovery for Jews has been a permanent reality for many of the country’s Arab citizens. Silman’s story is similar to many of the Arab population who have opted to become self-employed, in order to escape the drudgery of contract work for the minimum wage at a remote location, or risking their lives in the building trade. They soon fall victim to the authorities – the National Insurance Institute, the Tax Office, the banks etc. Procedures such as confiscation of property, suspension of driving licenses, and restrictions on financial conduct are used against them as a matter of course. They are forced to exist on the grey market’s loans, in a desperate attempt to maintain a minimal standard of living for their families.

We have not had any “Silmans” in the Arab community. Unlike their Jewish counterparts, Arab citizens have no expectations from the state, which by its self-definition tells them that it is not theirs. If we take the economic hardship and throw in racial incitement, adding national service, then it’s a reasonable assumption that we shall have an explosive mixture on our hands which could blow up any time soon.

An even more explosive situation is lurking just beyond the separation wall. The Palestinians will not continue to sit much longer on the fence, or more to the point behind it. The Occupation and discrimination impose an enormous social and economic price. Unemployment within the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA) has crossed the 50 per cent mark. Poverty prevails even among those who work. Recently the PA has shown the signs of the financial strain that it is under, paying only 60 per cent of employees’ salaries. Donor countries will cease to finance the Authority: the Arab states have already failed to fulfill their financial commitments to the PA, and Europe is in deep crisis. All parties also acknowledge that there is no point in continuing to invest in the PA without a horizon for peace.

The Palestinian Spring is beginning to heat up, and there are clear signs that can be seen in the refugee camps in Syria. The time has expired for the Palestinian leadership in its myriad factions. Young people who want to participate in shaping their lives and future have already begun to take up their role within the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

Israel cannot continue on its merry way. The ruling by Judge Edmund Levy’s commission that there is no Occupation and that the settlement enterprise can continue; Ehud Barak’s decision to demolish 20 Arab villages; the decision to spend 30 million shekels on the Migron settlement – these merry days are well and truly over.

If the PA collapses, Israel will have to resume direct rule, once again assuming responsibility for financing the Occupation out of its own budget, all while struggling with a third Intifada, which many believe is inevitable – it’s only a matter of time and a suitable spark.

Just as Silman revealed the economic failure, a Palestinian uprising will expose the failure of the political system. To prevent major catastrophes, the social protest may need to offer an alternative economic, social and political program to Binyamin Netanyahu’s rule. At the very least the movement needs to demand the removal of the failed Netanyahu government, which is leading Israeli society into oblivion. After Silman, everyone understands that we are not only dealing with the prices of apartments and cottage cheese, but with human lives as well.

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