Comments on: Amidst hostile media and police violence, J14 finds new voice

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:47:16 +0000

There is no new voice. Anarchy by both the police and demonstrators produces nothing but bloodshed. We need the support of the people not a few hotheads with radical political objectives.
see: http://israelseen.com/2012/06/27/israel-social-justice-protest-needs-real-leaders/

By: Bertie

Bertie — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:22:03 +0000

Protest movements everywhere are failing because they don’t really have a goal outside of street theater, and they don’t have a goal outside of street theater because there is no known serious alternative to neoliberalism.

(OK, for the pedants, there are two alternatives to neoliberalism: 1. Have a lot of oil, or 2. The East Asian model, where 50% national savings rates are culturally possible and acceptable. Neither applies to Israel.)

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:28:06 +0000

If Noam’s reporting is accurate, that the tenor of the J14 movement’s participants and the tenor of the reaction to the participants, is more emotional, less organized, less consensual; then the movement will be short-lived or should be.

Other factors than the willingness to confront, or to shift to “light” violence, are the litmus tests of determination to successfully make meaningful change.

The factors that matter are the commitment to people, not to tactical victory. The commitment to people can shift to real grassroots organizing (in neighborhoods for universal mutual aid), to real media, to real art (including artful demonstration).

“Which side are you on?” ends up usuallly as the wrong side.

By: sh

sh — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:26:19 +0000

I left out the word western … the only Middle Eastern western country with a monument to the (Soviet) Russian victory over the Nazis.

By: sh

sh — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:23:36 +0000

I think that despite TA Municipality’s efforts to link the name of the event to TA’s nickname The White City (because if its Bauhaus buildings recognized as a world heritage site or similar by UNESCO), White Nights was borrowed from the French expression nuits blanches, which basically means sleepless nights. The French probably did take their name for sleepless nights from their estival overdose of daylight, but they stage their annual all-night cultural crawl in the fall. The Germans and the British call their equivalent the Long Night of Museums. The French, par contre, have a summer solstice fest called la fête de la musique. Doesn’t seem to have caught on here. Long answer to say neither the name nor the event are Israeli originals but they’re not Finnish either. On the other hand we are, since yesterday, surely the only Middle Eastern country with a monument to the Russian victory over the Nazis in the shape of, to quote Putin, the white wings of the dove of peace.

By: Piotr Berman

Piotr Berman — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:57:46 +0000

I am not sure about choking, the cunning protester keeps hands in front of her neck. The tention in policeman muscles suggest that he is pushing her down.

What is this idea of “White Nights”? Is it because Finland is a liberal Ashkenazi version of paradise, as in “we are not in Finland”? Is the idea to emulate “Venice on Baltic” on Mediterranean?

By: Larry Derfner

Larry Derfner — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:14:15 +0000

I like Maariv’s caption: “Protester gets into confrontation with police.” Looks to me like “Policeman chokes protester.”