A British View of the Israeli Social Justice Protests, October 2011

 

 

As a new immigrant, or “olah hadasha” fresh off the boat from London, I am constantly shocked at prices here.  £20,000 for a Ford Fiesta with no extras?  £5 for a Dove roll-on deodorant?  Another £5 for a box of cornflakes?  Thanks, but I prefer toast.  Any imported item appears to be double what it was in the old country.  To make matters worse, a teacher in the Promised Land earns a paltry sum of NIS 6,000 (about £1,000) a month, and a doctor about NIS 10,000.  A gross monthly salary of NIS 20,000 (about £3,300) is considered to be excellent, and attainable only in High Tech and Financial industries.

This is Scandinavian prices and Greek wages.  It’s hardly surprising the Israeli middle classes (“sushi eaters” to quote one government minister) have risen up in protest. Indeed, the protests should be viewed as normal and healthy for Israeli society.  I will return to this theme of normalcy.

To my surprise, I have met Western olim who find the protests distasteful and unpatriotic.  Many of these olim came to Israel, in part, for ideological reasons.  For them there is something un-Zionist about protesting the vicissitudes of everyday life.  In a country besieged by external threats, they take JFK’s advice and ask, “not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.  This queasiness about questioning the Israeli standard of living also reflects a fear that a ‘post-Zionist society’ is just around the corner, one characterised by globalisation, market supremacy, and consumer obsession, or to quote Tom Segev the arrival of “Elvis in Jerusalem”.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of Israelis having taken to the streets in 1965 because only 25% of them owned a car, compared to 41% of Americans.

However, in my view such objections are misguided.  They fail to recognise the distinctly Zionist, Israeli and collective nature of the protests.  The attainment of ‘normalcy’ is an important goal of classic Zionism. After all, David Ben Gurion expressly wanted Israel to be a “normal state” where Jewish policemen arrest Jewish prostitutes, and to quote AB Yehoshua, “Normalcy will be revealed as the best way of being one and different, unique and special (like every other nation) without always fearing the loss of identity”.

A desire for normalcy is precisely what these protests are about.  Israelis feel entitled not to be constantly struggling.  They feel entitled to a society where a family of a teacher, a doctor and two kids can “finish the month” and pay their basic monthly bills without taking fresh loans.  They feel entitled to affordable housing, good transport links, and decent education for their children.  They even feel entitled to a reality in which two hard working parents can finish the month and perhaps also save a little bit too.  While appreciating their Ministers face constant diplomatic and military crises, Israelis would like the government to acknowledge that there is also a country to run – just like everywhere else.  The protest movement is in its essence a cry for normalcy - a cry at the core of the Zionist dream.  It is a sign of the success and maturity of that dream that Israelis today feel sufficiently confident to take to the streets with this demand.

The feel of the protests has been wonderfully and distinctly old-school-Israeli and collective.  Streets such as Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel Aviv’s main arteries, have served as open house Beit Midrash, lined with strangers spontaneously engaged in debate over social policy, and dotted with public discussion circles each focused on a different societal woe or solution.  It is hard to think of a more Jewish form of protest.  Crowds of protestors have responded with glee to actors dressed as Ben Gurion and Herzl crying out from Bauhaus balconies overhanging the main streets: “If you will it, it is no dream”. The attendance at protests of so many families, complete with young children, has been striking.  We’ve seen young children waving placards demanding better education, and parents navigating pushchairs through the throngs of people.  Most astonishing of all, has been the kindness and consideration with which protestors have treated each other at these very large events.  On 3 September I was amongst 300,000 people on the streets of Tel Aviv.  There no outbreak of any form of trouble or violence: indeed there was considerably less pushing and shoving than at the Carmel Market on a Friday morning.

Scratch the surface, however, and here in Israel we remain far from “normal”.  A concerted effort has been made to unify protestors beneath a vague and uncontroversial banner of “the people demand social justice”.  The elephant in the room is the lack of unity and lack of normalcy which partly underlie our economic tribulations.  Government mismanagement of the economy – over-regulation, under-regulation, inappropriate taxation - is undoubtedly a massive problem.  But we cannot ignore the fact that 25% of the adult population have excluded themselves from the workforce for complex religious, political, and social reasons, and we certainly can’t call such a situation “normal”.  Nor is it “normal” for protestors in several cities such as Sderot, Beersheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon, to require evacuation from a barrage of Gazan rockets.  Having 25% of your population outside the work force, and a massive defence budget, is hardly conducive to economic bliss.

As new olim arriving with all the privileges of the best Western education, experience and comforts, we have come in part because we recognise Israel is not yet normal, and there is still a long way to go.  What better way to explore that path than to listen and learn at the open air Beit Midrash on Rothschild Avenue?

Hannah Blustin is an investment banker from London who has recently made Aliyah to Israel.