keehah
26th July 2011, 09:43 PM
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/120129/tel-aviv%E2%80%99s-tahrir-square.html
Meytal Cohen Akerman, 29, stands in a beautiful bridal gown by a cardboard box on which she and her husband, Daniel, 42, have written “Home Sweet Home”.
The newlywed couple, both graphic designers from the town of Ra'anana, are amongst thousands camping in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild avenue to protest Israel’s soaring property prices and rents.
Despite being educated professionals and distinctly middle class, Meytal and Daniel feel they are sliding into poverty.
“And it frightens us,” Meytal added. “Out of 45,000 Israeli couples who got married last year, 35,000 were unable to buy a flat.”
In what some commentators have called linked to the mass, social-media driven demonstrations elsewhere in the region, a new movement of mass protest has swept the country in recent weeks.
As many as 30,000 protesters gathered in a central Tel Aviv square on July 23 to demonstrate against unaffordable housing, with police reporting 43 arrests after protestors attempted to block traffic intersections.
The following day, the front page of the popular Israeli paper Ma’ariv - in a reference to the nickname of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu – described the rally as “Bibi's Tahrir”.
Two days later, another encampment in the south of Tel Aviv was evacuated by the municipality after it was deemed to be illegal. This was followed by protests in Jerusalem in which the entrance to the Israeli parliament was temporarily blocked. Five people were arrested and policeman was injured during their evacuation.
Activists also blocked major roads in Haifa, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva and there have been calls on Facebook for a general strike to be held on August 1 as part of the movement.
The mounting surge of protest began when a 25-year-old video editor, Daphne Leef, received an eviction notice for her rented flat in Tel Aviv.
Realising she would be unable to afford the rent for another apartment, Leef launched a Facebook page urging people to join her in a protest camp on Rothschild avenue, at the heart of Tel Aviv.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/bring-down-the-opposition-1.375475
What do Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv and Tahrir Square in Cairo have in common? Both are the seeing the creation of authentic mass protest movements, and in both countries there is a lack of formal political opposition. In Cairo the opposition is informal. Here there is a formal body called Kadima, which is not an opposition...
An opposition that is serving as a reserve cadre for Netanyahu in advance of September; that is serving as a reserve cadre in the discussion of the concept "the Jewish national state" in its racist sense; some of whose members are competing with Yisrael Beiteinu with racist proposals; that at the moment of truth will first of all woo Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman for its coalition - is nothing more than a caricature.
In truth, we can regretfully state that there is no opposition in Israel. And we have to start everything from the beginning. In order to bring down Netanyahu's government, which is selling the country's treasures to tycoons for a mess of pottage, we first of all have to get rid of the opposition, which is cut from the same cloth.
The young people on Rothschild aren't waiting. Last Shabbat they declared that they are relying only on themselves.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/doctors-step-up-protest-with-mass-march-hunger-strike-as-court-nixes-injunction-1.375303
Striking doctors intensified their protest yesterday in the wake of the Labor Court’s decision not to issue injunctions against them.
The chairman of the Israel Medical Association, Dr. Leonid Eidelman, announced that he was beginning a hunger strike “until the end of the struggle.” Also yesterday, doctors began a three-day protest march from the Ramat Gan headquarters of the IMA to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, where they plan to present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a petition calling on him to save public medicine. Tens of thousands of doctors and ordinary citizens have signed the petition over the last few months.
http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=231144
Housing plan will deteriorate the quality of life for all citizens, nature protection society says....
“This time the public will not buy the merchandise,” Henin said. “More and more people in Israel, from the north to the south, are arriving today to the only logical conclusion – that when the government is against the people, the people are against the government.”
Meytal Cohen Akerman, 29, stands in a beautiful bridal gown by a cardboard box on which she and her husband, Daniel, 42, have written “Home Sweet Home”.
The newlywed couple, both graphic designers from the town of Ra'anana, are amongst thousands camping in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild avenue to protest Israel’s soaring property prices and rents.
Despite being educated professionals and distinctly middle class, Meytal and Daniel feel they are sliding into poverty.
“And it frightens us,” Meytal added. “Out of 45,000 Israeli couples who got married last year, 35,000 were unable to buy a flat.”
In what some commentators have called linked to the mass, social-media driven demonstrations elsewhere in the region, a new movement of mass protest has swept the country in recent weeks.
As many as 30,000 protesters gathered in a central Tel Aviv square on July 23 to demonstrate against unaffordable housing, with police reporting 43 arrests after protestors attempted to block traffic intersections.
The following day, the front page of the popular Israeli paper Ma’ariv - in a reference to the nickname of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu – described the rally as “Bibi's Tahrir”.
Two days later, another encampment in the south of Tel Aviv was evacuated by the municipality after it was deemed to be illegal. This was followed by protests in Jerusalem in which the entrance to the Israeli parliament was temporarily blocked. Five people were arrested and policeman was injured during their evacuation.
Activists also blocked major roads in Haifa, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva and there have been calls on Facebook for a general strike to be held on August 1 as part of the movement.
The mounting surge of protest began when a 25-year-old video editor, Daphne Leef, received an eviction notice for her rented flat in Tel Aviv.
Realising she would be unable to afford the rent for another apartment, Leef launched a Facebook page urging people to join her in a protest camp on Rothschild avenue, at the heart of Tel Aviv.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/bring-down-the-opposition-1.375475
What do Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv and Tahrir Square in Cairo have in common? Both are the seeing the creation of authentic mass protest movements, and in both countries there is a lack of formal political opposition. In Cairo the opposition is informal. Here there is a formal body called Kadima, which is not an opposition...
An opposition that is serving as a reserve cadre for Netanyahu in advance of September; that is serving as a reserve cadre in the discussion of the concept "the Jewish national state" in its racist sense; some of whose members are competing with Yisrael Beiteinu with racist proposals; that at the moment of truth will first of all woo Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman for its coalition - is nothing more than a caricature.
In truth, we can regretfully state that there is no opposition in Israel. And we have to start everything from the beginning. In order to bring down Netanyahu's government, which is selling the country's treasures to tycoons for a mess of pottage, we first of all have to get rid of the opposition, which is cut from the same cloth.
The young people on Rothschild aren't waiting. Last Shabbat they declared that they are relying only on themselves.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/doctors-step-up-protest-with-mass-march-hunger-strike-as-court-nixes-injunction-1.375303
Striking doctors intensified their protest yesterday in the wake of the Labor Court’s decision not to issue injunctions against them.
The chairman of the Israel Medical Association, Dr. Leonid Eidelman, announced that he was beginning a hunger strike “until the end of the struggle.” Also yesterday, doctors began a three-day protest march from the Ramat Gan headquarters of the IMA to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, where they plan to present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a petition calling on him to save public medicine. Tens of thousands of doctors and ordinary citizens have signed the petition over the last few months.
http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=231144
Housing plan will deteriorate the quality of life for all citizens, nature protection society says....
“This time the public will not buy the merchandise,” Henin said. “More and more people in Israel, from the north to the south, are arriving today to the only logical conclusion – that when the government is against the people, the people are against the government.”