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Police violence against Tel Aviv protesters should raise the alarm with Israel’s authorities
TEL AVIV (Haaretz) – Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch should not be allowed to forget these pictures, nor should Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino or Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai (a retired brigadier general): Five police special unit officers – maybe six – drag protest leader Daphni Leef out of a group of demonstrators on Rothschild Blvd. in Tel Aviv and onto the opposite sidewalk.
Leef, in a blue shirt, is thrown to the ground. A few meters away, municipal inspectors and Huldai’s “Green Patrol” help the police push back the protesters. Every few minutes Leef tries to raise her hands and protect herself from the shoves and kicks, to no avail.
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Police force against Leef - one woman vs. five-six officers (Haaretz)In the background, the crowd repeatedly shouts one word: Democracy. This horrific sight lasted for many minutes, until Leef was forcefully taken to a nearby police vehicle. No one should ever ignore or repress these pictures.
If the prospect of a renewed summer social protest needed a little spark to get angry, raging Israelis back on the street, the police’s special unit officers and Huldai’s municipal inspectors generously provided just that; the disproportional use of force against Leef – one woman vs. five-six officers, and later against other protesters – tainted the events on Rotchild. The brutality from above was not only direct, it was public and unabashed.
Some 450,000 Israelis march at massive ‘March of the Million’ rallies across country
In July 2011, Leef led a group of young people who set up several tents on Rothschild Boulevard, in protest against the high cost of living in Israel. That act sparked a massive protest movement which swept Israel for several months, with tent encampments sprouting up in cities and towns throughout the country and weekly demonstrations that grew to include hundreds of thousands of people.
Backlash from Israel’s capitalists …
As social protests threaten a return, Israel’s capitalists are stirring
(Haaretz) April 5, 2012 – We’re all familiar with the social protest. It started with the media fiercely criticizing the rule of the tycoons, continued with a public campaign against economic concentration and the high cost of living, and exploded with tent cities and campaigns on social networks. It culminated with the mass protests of the summer of 2011.
The social protest turned the tables in Israel politically as well as conceptually. It propelled Shelly Yacimovich and Shaul Mofaz to the helm of Labor and Kadima, respectively, and brought TV personality Yair Lapid to center stage. Committees were set up and myriad bills submitted in an attempt to strengthen Israel’s welfare system. The mass protest movement ended the neoliberal hegemony in Israel, significantly reduced the influence of the rich on government policies and redefined the country’s socioeconomic life.
CAPITALIST PROTEST
But the capitalist protest is less familiar. It started with a property developer transferring his investments from Israel to the United States. Later, a tourism entrepreneur decided not to build new hotels in Israel and moved his business to Europe. Businessmen who were committed to their employees were forced to lay people off, and patriotic industrialists vowed never to invest in Israel again. It culminated when the owners of many major Israeli companies toyed with the idea of selling them because they were no longer attractive.
- Shaul Mofaz to Haaretz: I will lead Israel’s social protest this summer
- Mofaz minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet visits Washington
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
