Comments on: WATCH: Thousands block highway, attack banks in J14 protest

By: Phyllis Berlant Abrams

Phyllis Berlant Abrams — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:35:57 +0000

Protests let off steam of the protestors. If there is no organization,it becomes a violent mob. That is what the leaders, if there are any,must guard against because that’s what the government of Netanyahu and Lieberman(and the Mayor) want. They want mob psychology to run amuk so that they can arrest and say it’s justifiable.
Smart leadership, which Israelis, of all people, should know, is the esential ingrediant for any change. Especially economic change.

By: Kolumn9

Kolumn9 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:00:49 +0000

Paul, The UK is a prime example of a welfare state that hasn’t failed yet. You can’t claim a sustainable welfare state pointing to a country with an 8%+ of GDP budget deficit. Clearly Maggie didn’t go far enough. In any case, public health and communications work ok in Israel as well, so the protesters are expecting a bit more than just that in their definition of a welfare state. That is of course, if they have any practical demands in the first place..

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:21:05 +0000

@Kolumn9.
Britain is a prime example of a sustainable welfare state in the sense of Public Health,communications and simple primal care, if it had not been Privatised by M. Thatcher and her robber barons and sold off to the middle class it would not have suffered half the problems it does today , she self-avowedly tried to turn it into a Little America with all of it’s concommittent problems of greed and societal dislocation.I point you to the Poll tax disobedience of the nineties there to see what the public can do when refusing to stand unfair Laws and regulations.

By: Piotr Berman

Piotr Berman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:00:29 +0000

Caro: violence is regrettable, particularly that in Israel it is a trademark of right wing or religious-nutty demonstrations, so the left should preserve the high ground.

However, you may be rather hasty in declaring that (a) there are no reasonable issues (b) patient waiting for elections is the best way to go.

Concerning (a), Israel is by no means a free economy, which is not necessarily bad, but the government has a huge impact by commission and omission. First, there state and quasi state government control uniquely large proportion of available land, not to mention zoning etc., so it has a big role in the real estate market. And it can choose to have more middle-mixed income religiously mixed housing, or not. If rents are squeezing the middle class, that means that the government regulates to benefit the landlords, sheltering them from competition.

The trick that Steinitz pulled out recently about taxation of profits that were sheltered to promote internal investments, from the description it was done in the style that befits more Egypt than a democratic state.

I do not live in Israel, nor I know Hebrew, but there are definitely many issues, including the cost of food which seems quite a bit higher than in EU.

By: Caro

Caro — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:36:29 +0000

Violence is ludicrous – you can change your government next year! Israel is not undergoing strict austerity measures or a failing economy. Yes internal reforms are needed to spread wealth more fairly but it is actually Bibi who is enacting the economic concentration legislation. The cost of living is high across the western world and inefficient Israeli public sector and big unions are also to blame in unequal public sector salaries

By: Haggai Matar

Haggai Matar — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:07:40 +0000

@Maor – it’s the local verof the occupy movement, just before there was an occupy mement. J14 signals 14th of July, when activists staed the demos.

By: Maor

Maor — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:58:06 +0000

What the hell is J14? it appears 18 times in this article

By: Yonatan

Yonatan — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:07:21 +0000

The violence will kill the protest.
Last year I went to every demonstration,this year? I don’t know.
I feel like the protest is being highjacked by violante professional people how demonstrate about everything

By: Kolumn9

Kolumn9 — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:04:58 +0000

@Greg, what is the cause precisely? It is like the whole Occupy movement in the US. It is a ‘struggle’ of slogans devoid of practical political demands. There is nothing to take seriously because there is nothing here. These people are protesting each for his own reason and none for a common cause except to demonstrate their own activism. Look at me, I am an activist. I made a biting slogan that makes me feel like I am struggling for a vague grande goal which I can’t really formulate in practical terms, but the important thing is that I am here together with this mob protesting for something. I mean we must be protesting for something because we are all here and we are united in our protest. If we weren’t protesting for something we would be wasting our time, but we are not because look how many of us are here. Can’t you feel the energy? This is people bonding in the struggle. Watch us all repeat the same phrase at the same time. Wow, that is loud. It must mean something because we all said it….

By: Piotr Berman

Piotr Berman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:01:04 +0000

If it takes 2000 protesters to break one window, this is not really violent. I understand that typically such windows have special glass and are not easy to break, I would guess there was no intention to break them.

What is somewhat puzzling are three photos of arrests. A middle age policeman arrests (or restraints) a middle age guy, then a policeman past his prime years is acting upon a citizen of similar age, and finally several young policemen arrest a 20-something protester. It could be a sophisticated tactic of police.