J14 calls for General Strike on November 1. Will anyone listen?

Posters and stickers—calling for a general strike (or, more literally, a people’s strike) and sponsored by J14—have popped up all over Tel Aviv in the past week or so. But with Gilad Schalit’s release capturing the country’s attention, will anyone heed the call?

J14 calls for General Strike on November 1. Will anyone listen?

The poster above includes a picture of the Knesset and reads, “They’re not working for you; people’s strike 1/11/11.” The small print at the bottom says “three months, nine rallies, thousands of tents, a million citizens, and they still don’t get it—the people demand social justice!”

Catchy. But, right now, Israelis are likely to feel that the government has been working for them by bringing Gilad Schalit home.

To give you an idea of how seriously people are taking the J14 movement nowadays, I’d like to share this sticker with you. I noticed it at Tel Aviv Museum’s street art exhibition. (It wasn’t exactly part of the exhibition—it was on the back of a door in the ladies’ loo).

J14 calls for General Strike on November 1. Will anyone listen?

It’s by Sened, one of the artists included in the exhibition. It is “social justice” tweaked to read “social trunk.” As in an elephant’s trunk, as in jibberish. As in: this whole J14 thing is nonsense.

November 1 could prove Sened correct.