Unlike last summer, the “Occupy Israel” social protest Saturday night included explicit anti-government messages and universal human rights language. Could this be the start of a civil rebellion?
Anger, energy, rhythm and momentum flowed from the crowd of perhaps 5,000 people who packed into Rabin Square Saturday evening, as the kick-off for the next round of social protests. There was an unruly, cacophonous spirit – the stage was moved from its traditional, stately position in front of the municipality to an offbeat corner of the open square, putting the demo on a sort of rakish angle. Several people were beating drums, chanters had to be silenced to hear the speakers, speakers shouted unpolished texts into the low-quality sound system. It looked like the rough-edged poor cousins of the huge and heavy summer protests, with their singular chant “the people demand social justice.”
Crowd at Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
As a result, it felt a lot more genuine.
Although summer, the unofficial protest season, hasn’t quite begun, and the reason for the protest was the international occupy day rather than any fresh public injury – still people turned out in far greater numbers than they had for any other recent protests. Last week’s demonstration against the new coalition deal, the one a few weeks earlier (a sort of message-free general protest march) and the demo against an attack on Iran before that – all seemed to draw more cops and bloggers than demonstrators, who numbered barely a few hundred each. Last night it felt like a storm cloud had exploded without waiting for the thunderbolt at the starting line.
Over last summer, I wrote of my frustration with what I observed to be a shallow, catch-all message – “social justice,” which meant something different to everyone and was too easily diluted. The maddening insistence on being non-political felt absurd, and the refusal to address the connection of social issues with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was deeply alienating to me personally.
Mostly, I was annoyed by the public tone of begging the government in a sort of self-infantilizing cry for help, rather than demanding its head.
Last night, for the first time, many people replaced “the people demand social justice,” with “the people demand a civil rebellion!” Just as I entered the throng, a wave of “Bibi go home!” was rippling through the square. Signs taunted the leaders.
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
To be sure, there were no sudden calls for an end to the occupation. But the fact that signs talked of human rights and diversity is something I do not recall from the first wave of demonstrations. The very term “human rights” in this country has been so tainted as a left-wing conspiracy that this is the first indication of a shifting role for the concept – which could ultimately be understood for its universal meaning.
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
The fact that the speakers were unknown, and looked nothing like the slick Tel Aviv hipsters of last summer, was moving – I find Gideon Levy’s critique of this to be, frankly, elitist. I too saw Daphni Leef milling around in the crowd, while a different crop of citizens beamed at the audience and told their stories. I took that as a good sign.
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
These folks got great audience support when they boasted of having no party backing or affiliation, and no financial support from anyone. They asked for contributions in bottles being passed around, to cover the evening’s costs. That’s a reminder that beyond all the righteous commentary about the masterful-or-machiavellian coalition deal, the public mainly feels left out. Only now instead of begging for attention, the citizens are just leaving the politicians behind. Again, this is a good thing: I’m waiting to see the politicians fall over each other trying to catch up, instead of dreaming up ways to shut them up.
One party did make its presence known: Meretz, the party that might actually be the source of true opposition to the new government. It’s hard to trust Labor, given the stated willingness of its leader to play along with Netanyahu, before she was cut out of the coalition deal. An excellent (curiously not yet translated) interview with under-appreciated Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On in Haaretz this weekend shows some courageous thinking on current issues, such as the Tal Law. With no coalition pressures and little to lose, Meretz could be the party that sets the bar – or pushes the boundaries – for the opposition discourse.
Meretz signs at Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
In sum, whether it was due to the raw feeling among a diverse crowd of protesters, more explicit anti-government messages that were hard to contain, the incipient presence of a universal human rights language or just the numbers themselves – the protest last night felt different. The giddy bubble of last summer seems to be giving way to something tougher, less controlled and less forgiving.
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
Occupy Israel social protest, Tel Aviv, 12 May, 2012 (Photo: Dahlia Scheindlin)
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Alon
Thanks for the interesting article. It seems as though the protests movements of the past year-from Occupy globally to the Indignados in Spain, are going through a process of internal reform. The demonstrations of last year showed us that disgust at corporate pay, and bread and butter issues- or bread and cottage issues in the case of Israel, can bring numbers out on the streets. But ultimately, the political breadth of these movements diluted the viability and substance of any potential radical political demands. Occupy Israel was treated by many of its participants as well as by those watching from the Knesset, as a summer camp. Hopefully the Knesset’s obvious disregard for popular discontent and police brutality will serve to radicalise people on the streets. Solidarity.
Rowan Berkeley
It’s unfortunate that the phrase ‘class justice,’ which would from a marxist point of view been far more precise, has come to mean the opposite to ‘social justice’: over the last century, ‘class justice’ has become a sarcastic term for the injustice of the ruling class. Be this as it may, I agree with Dahlia about Gideon Levy’s piece, in which he comes across as embittered generally, and nostalgic for ‘social justice’ as a slogan specifically. This is on the new pay per view english-language Haaretz online. There is also a scaremongering article about Iran by Anshel Pfeffer, which cites an incredibly long article at CSIS by Anthony Cordesman, an article entirely composed of bogus claims about Iran’s nuclear program which are years old and have been repeatedly debunked by Gareth Porter on IPS News, among others. So as usual Haaretz is a mess.
sh
“As a result, it felt a lot more genuine.”
.
Not to me. Last year in TA, Arabs and Jews from different sectors of society marched together – it certainly wasn’t only TA yuppies. Even guest workers marched. None of that last night. It was tame and unfocused by comparison, to my eyes much more the way Levy described it. Meretz which, as you say, was the only political party that sold itself as such present, was certainly not welcomed by the public. Quite the contrary, they were exposed to scuffles and reproaches.
.
Certainly reform is to be welcomed, but if this year’s protesters cannot regain the confidence of people such as those from South Tel Aviv and Jaffa – some of its most inspiring and creative participants who were disappointed by how easily the protests folded just as some of them were facing the rigors of another winter – they probably aren’t going to go in the direction you’re hoping for.
Jenny
who paid for this protest? who paid for the ones last year?
MosheD
United forces of existence! Kings and Generals have usurped our mind and musculatures. We are imprisoned by inhuman Urban Aggravation. We must energize and restore all the natural cycles. Electricity Free for all, with a parabolic mirror disk, and solar receiver that costs $1000. Buildings revamped and harvest procured from urban agriculture; to keep our bones, blood, and minds healthy. Credits to acquire necessities and pursue of cultural development – no advertising; no middlemen. People breathing life into productive creativity. The “In- depth analysis:englishquickly.”
XYZ
Yet another hope and wish that the “people”, who of course agree with the Left/Progressives are going to rise up and overthrow the current “system”. This is a modern version of the dream of a century ago that there would be a mythical “general strike” that would oust the old capitalist system. Well, in England, they finally had one in the 1920′s and it failed to overthrow the system. In fact, the Conservatives won subsequent elections.
Same in France in 1968…the country was paralyzed by a workers-and-students strike. De Gaulle had to run to Germany to get the French generals stationed there with NATO to promise to run back to Paris if necessary with troops to prop up his regime (It didn’t come to that). Well, guess what happened, the strike sputtered out and far from getting a “workers-student state”, the Gaullist Right won a landslide victory a few weeks later in parliamentary elections. It seems the REAL people, not the imaginary Leftist-progressives “masses” wished for here oppose anarchy and are basically conservative.
Same with Israel. The PEOPLE are showing in their polls that they want a continuation of the current conservative goverment if there are elections, so there is no real demand for
“civil rebellion” as Dahlia is talking about that the “Left/Progressive people” are supposed to lead.
Dahlia Scheindlin
XYZ, if you noticed, I never implied that the people there were left wing or not. Further, I didn’t invent the call for “civil rebellion,” rather – I heard it. And as I pointed out, it happened in the largest demonstration here in many months (I think it’s probably the largest since last October). I certainly agree that at present the polls tell a consistent conservative story, and I have written/reported on that too. The question I am trying to raise is where this will go in the future – specifically, in 18 months’ time, or in the longer term, and what kind of change there might be (even if it’s not in the electoral arena).
Lelaina
Dahlia, we call it Zeitgeist..
Lelaina
http://blog.thezeitgeistmovement.com/
People looking for new ways to move forward, globally. You should really check it out.
XYZ
Dahlia-
It must be made clear to those who protest that there MUST be a separation between legitimate complaints about the economic and social problems of the country, which we all agree exist and must be addressed, and political attacks on a specific government. The first can succeed, the second is doomed to fail. Although I agree there is an urgent need for reform in many areas, I, for one, will NOT participate in any protest movement that has red flags flying and attacks on any segment of society. When I look at the pictures you posted above, I see that this does unfortunately seem to be the case this time as well.
Dahlia Scheindlin
XYZ – really? so complaints about social/econ problems are legitimate, but political attacks on a government are not? Sounds like you live in a dictatorship, but israel aspires to be democracy, although in truth we currently deny it to millions of people who are de facto under our control. still, democracy involves the right of citizens to hold their government, yes, their current government, accountable when it fails to provide their needs. It involves political choice and competition, so that when one government fails, there is an option to elect a different one. it involves full freedom for anyone to criticize the government and call for political change. it sounds like you find that subversive, which is pretty hard for me to understand.
sh
Ah, XYZ, you saw red flags? There are none on the photos Dahlia has posted. If you’d been there last night you wouldn’t have seen any either.
XYZ
I saw 2 red flags in a photo…it must have been on one of the newspaper sites. In the photos above we see MERETZ posters and people wearing pig masks which I think are in poor taste, presumably against “capitalist pigs”. I repeat, a proper protest is not against anyone in particular, it is for reform.
XYZ
Of course it is legitimate to protest against a government in power. However, I was under the impression that the big summer protests were in favor of economic and social reform and the leaders kept saying (apparently falsely) that they were “non-political”. If you want to attract a broad range of the public it must be made non-political.
Rowan Berkeley
XYZ, I’m sure a nicely defanged, liberal protest movement would suit you perfectly. It would, as you put it, “address the economic and social problems of the country, which we all agree exist,” and having “addressed” them, it would tail off into a bunch of TV talking heads like Yair Lapid making trivial demands that would kick serious politics back into the long grass, where no one would be able to find them for another decade or so. By the way, the 1968 French ‘rebellion,’ which one can see in retrospect now was a prototype of today’s ‘colour revolutions,’ far from shoring up de Gaulle, brought an end to his epoch. He was replaced within a year by the loathsome Georges Pompidou, and France’s various anti-US stances were quietly terminated.
Philos
Dahlia, were you at the same protest as me??? I recall being told to put down my placard about the two-state solution because “this is not a political protest.”
.
In fact the speakers at the event said the same thing. So, maybe, grittier and what have you isn’t the right way to view it. It’s just bourgeois brats who don’t care about the poor and the non-Jew. This is a social justice for Jews only duck.
Vicky
I’ve heard mixed reports from friends who were at the demo. Some described it as ‘like a summer camp’. Others said that it was sharper and more hard-hitting than last year’s. It does sound as though they were at two different events.
.
And Philos, what were you doing with a two-state placard and why are you admitting to carting a thing like that about in public?
Jack
Prepared to hear more about Gaza, Iran while the protests gets more intense. Israel always want to speak about others when in trouble. Its like “wag the dog” everyday in Israel.
Philos
Vicky, some of us are still plagued by sisyphean naivety
TV
Also the green movement- HATNUA HAYERUKA participated. Althogh they are not in the knesset yet, they surely are going to get in to the next one. I believe that they have a lot to offer.
XYZ
Rowan-
People were sick of De Gaulle, that’s why he lost the referendum in 1969, but the Gaullist-Right maintained power, as you yourself point out, through the election of Pompidou and later Giscard d’Estaing, up until 1981.