I wouldn’t define it as the largest protest in Israel’s history. That I would leave to the anti-Oslo protest in the Knesset’s Rose Garden that garnered some 500,000 protesters a little more than a decade and a half ago.
No, I would call this Tel Aviv’s biggest block party ever.
But now there are reports coming out that this block party wasn’t as spontaneous as it was meant to appear to be. Kalman Libeskind a Maariv blogger found that Stan Greenberg was involved months ago in helping lay the groundwork for this "spontaneous" protest alongside various radical left groups. And who know if some CANVAS associated training wasn’t too. Libeskind points out how much money is needed to run a "grassroots" protest like this.
Certainly this turned out to be one of the larger brainwashing attempts in Israeli history, where more people were repeatedly and unknowingly indoctrinated with concepts like communism, socialism, and anarchy all in one shot, and anyone who dares brings that up gets attacked (see the rabid comments that are soon sure to appear below).
And while there were organizers that wanted to also work on their other far-Left agendas at the same time, others felt that it was too much to push on the public simultaneously, and people would make the connection and be turned off.
Heck, some independent research uncovered that 80% of the leadership are professional left and far left-wing activists, though they are trying to hide that so as to not turn off the general public.
Even Dafni Lief was deterred from publicly admitting that she signed a letter saying she refused to be drafted into the IDF.
Lucky for us, Kadima realized that it was outside the inner circle on this event, and so Tzipi Livni did her best to try to ingratiate herself into the inner circle with her comments yesterday when she said that “Chareidim and Settlers won’t be at this protest, because they’ll be getting money from the government.”
Well thank you Tzipi for explaining to us once again why you shouldn’t be Prime Minister, and better defining for us who made up and organized this block party – the far left who you keep trying to court, but don’t want you.
Politically, except for Shas (though probably not), this political event will cause a shakeup of the Left only. Kadima will drop, and the more communist and socialist oriented parties will grow, perhaps even a new one. One can only hope that the damage they will be able to do to our overall economy will be minimal.
Now in the real world, there are issues that were raised that were legitimate (Every lie must have an ounce of truth to stand on). Just that the communist and socialist solutions (the legacy infrastructure that brought us here in the first place) are the wrong ones.
Companies are now becoming more responsive.
ToysRUs for instance has decided to bypass the Lego importer and bring in their Legos direct. They said there’s no reason the importers are price gouging so much, and Lego prices will soon be the same as they are in the rest of the world (a half to a third of what they are now in Israel). I personally look forward to that.
Food prices are dropping too.
Perhaps another result will be that Bibi Netanyahu will be able to pass more of his reform bills and introduce more privatization, break up some monopolies, and release more land, shaking us from the remaining shackles of our socialist history that is holding us down. It would be nice to see some relevant tax reform.
But still, it is worrisome what is going on quietly behind the scenes. The radical left organizations that are quietly laying down infrastructures to undemocratically shake and tumble the government and the country.
Still, they're making one mistake.
Bibi isn’t Mubarak, and Israel isn’t Tunisia.
We live in a healthy, vibrant, free Jewish democracy – and as such, protests, even radical left wing organized protests, are not a existential threat to our society, instead they are a measure of how healthy and strong our country really is.
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19 comments:
Very good article...
Well said! Thank you
Lea
"We live in a healthy, vibrant, free Jewish democracy"...
Yes, but with one of the largest disparities between Rich and Poor in the Western world. And, it's getting larger with every passing day. 20 or so families continue to own and run the bulk of Israel's assets. Cheaper Lego or Dairy Queen CEO, Ofra Strauss promising to drop the price of cottage cheese won't change a thing. Israel's real and potentially dangerous poor were not to be found anywhere near last night's 'Block Party', but believe me, when they get really hungry, the music will stop and this year's London riots will look like a camp fire compared with what will happen here.
The government needs to re- institute subsidized housing for young couples, 'chayalim meshuchrarim' and the working poor. It needs to set price controls on basic food items - something that once existed. When I made Aliya more than 30 years ago, I never thought that the price of milk and almost every other food item would cost more than in the US (often, several times more). The real price of government and corporate greed has been Yerida. Approximately one of every 5 Israelis, mostly hard working, skilled middle class, has left the country (so embarrassing for the State, the actual statistics are a closely guarded secret).
Hey, don't forget the role of our crappy Leftist media in promoting this BS. Look at the coverage at JPost or YNET (it must be worse in the Hebrew-language media) & on TV.
There's almost zero analysis on the issues or background on the leaders. Nothing but BS slogans.
Dupes & useful idiots, this country is full of them - nothing illustrates the failure of our educational system better than these protests.
#3 Anon.
And what do you think caused the great disparities in income? How did the economy fall into the hands of crony-capitalists & oligarchs? Everything you recommend is exactly what caused the problems. Your antidote for poison is more poison.
Statism, big government, bloated bureaucracies, corrupt politicians that sneak ''favours'' into legislation to limit competition for their cronies. Israel was a failed socialist experiment, poverty-stricken & inefficient.
Everything you suggest FAILED here & everywhere else in the world.
Anonymous 10:32: You've defined the symptoms, but not the problem or solution.
The solution is NOT more government involvement, intervention, tinkering, and control.
The solution is increasing competition among food manufacturers and importers.
Do you know how much cheese is allowed to be imported into Israel?
It's not a lot, and that's the reason cheese products cost so much.
As a result of our socialist/communist legacy most of the land in this control is owned by the State!
Freeing up land (what Netanyahu tried to do but was blocked) and removing the socialist bureaucracy that causes it to take years to build a simple apartment or home is what will reduce housing prices and make renting and buying more affordable.
Taking away construction of the railroad system from the mismanaged train monopoly would result in actually having tracks for fast trains from Jerusalem (and the periphery) to Tel Aviv actually being built and reduce the pressure on the center.
God forbid we should have more government intervention and control in our lives.
You're right, it's more than a block party: Anarchy in Sheep Skins.
Joe, are you suggesting that it was subsidized, milk, eggs, bread and Eshel that got us into the mess we're in today ? I'm not suggesting we go back to 'T'kufat hatzena', but even the US has food stamp subsidies. And as much as I hate entitlement programs, without them, millions of people would starve to death. I would love to see real competition in Israel but as long as the cartels exist, along with politicians they own, it ain't going to happen.
BTW, are you against government intervention enough to return your monthly 'kitzvat yeladim' stipend to Butuach Leumi ? Didn't think so.
I'm stating that the whole situation where the government controls or regulates so much (including the price of gas, or how much cheese can be imported) is part of what got us into this mess in the first place.
I'd certainly like to see reform in Bituach Leumi (not to mention VAT). Bituach Leumi offers certain advantages, but also has serious disadvantages.
And if they return my Bituach Leumi payments, I'll be happy to return their "kitzvat yeladim' any day of the week.
BTW: Don't get me wrong, as a society we have an obligation to support our weakest members. And Bituch Leumi is one way to do that. But I know from what I've seen that it is far from the best method.
But becoming a socialist/socialized state is not a solution.
Guaranteeing government housing to students and 20 years old's who haven't worked for it, is not the solution.
If the (frugal living) middle class can't make the end of the month, then the solution is not handing out food stamps to the middle class, or subsidizing their basics.
It means there is something broken that is raising prices beyond the means of those who should be able to afford those basics.
Open markets and competition fixes that.
ALL subsidies distort the economy & this includes child payments. They create enormous budget deficits that can only be covered by higher taxes & they create a constituancy for more hand-outs.
Price controls create shortages & eventually lead to black markets with high prices.
High taxes promote tax evasion.
Import duties & restrictions result in ineffiency, low productivity, & low salaries (except for bureaucrats & crony-capitalists).
A parting thought - the more government bureaucrats who are fired, the better the economy will function.
By the way, pay increases without productivity increases only create inflation as does printing money to cover deficits.
Cartels & semi-monopolies lead to high prices, low productivity, & low salaries.
Kitzbat Yeladim is just silly. I'm happy to return the 400 shekel a month I get if it's used and invested more wisely.
Fact Check. Israel's largest protest was in the 1970s with 700,000 people protesting for the demands of an investigation into the massacre in Lebanon.
Do a little checking and you'll find out how questionable that "fact" really is.
First of all, the Christian Lebanese Phalangists massacred the Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. That's a lot of foresight on someone's part to hold the protest in the 70's.
Second, at best there were 200,000 to 300,000 people at that protest.
Joe, you didn't mention the cherry -the ultimate goal of the organizers which has little to do with social justice - toppling the right and signing an agreement with the PLO Arabs.
Libeskind revealed how the National Left with Eldad Yaniv and Boaz Gaon are trying to figure out when to break out and form a new party. Kadima is certainly doomed and Tzippush knows this.
Dafni is just a pretty girl next door face reading other people's speeches. Eyal Golan was one of the only non-white on the stage.
Oh, you couldn't make this crap up. Out come the usual suspects/experts: Joe and his Economics PhD and his time machine, with watertight, intellectual answers to all questions. In the Red Corner, Commenter Abbi who doesn't actually understand that many working Israelis can't feed their kids without the help of the child allowance. And lording above them all, Jameel the completely objective Political Analyst par excellence.
What's that smell? Sour grapes?
Nice sidetracking into banal, tired social(ist) commentary, anonymii...
The point of this article was who's behind the demonstrations. It was an informative and focused article.
If the Jewish Dept. of the GSS/ISA or whatever they call themselves tomorrow wants to justify their existance, they really ought to get on this case; there's not only a pile of medals in it, it's actually the right thing to do.
Don't forget now what happened with the Stasi in E. Germany and in Roumania when these kind of things got out of hand, you 'Sons of Carmi G.'...
Truth.
One reason that prices in Israel have been going up, is that the Bank of Israel has been deliberately favoring a policy of devaluing Israeli currency in favor of exporters, but which significantly hurts the buying power of the Israeli consumer, the bank deliberately sets a target for annual inflation of 1-3 % per year, and recently has purchased american securities to weaken the shekel, Israel needs monetary reform
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