How Israel's democracy might be revitalized from the Arab Spring
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Just a month ago, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed close to realizing the overall objective of his government: securing Israel's hold over the settlements and quashing any internal opposition.
In the United States, by brilliantly misrepresenting President Barack Obama's Middle East Speech, Mr. Netanyahu was able to create a false image that American Jews prefer the West Bank to peace. In Europe, he successfully maneuvered to take the wind out of the Gaza flotilla's sails, and in Israel itself, members of his extreme right-wing coalition were flooding the Knesset (Israel's Parliament) with anti-democratic legislative proposals.
For a week in July it looked as if the Putinization of Israel's proud democracy was inevitable. But now, three months after a gloating Mr. Netanyahu proclaimed, "The world is shaking, but there are no tremors or protests in Israel," an unprecedented wave of protests is sweeping the country.
It all started when a group of Israelis created a Facebook page protesting the high price of cottage cheese. Within days, the page had more than 30,000 members and a "cottage boycott" had rapidly spread. A few weeks later, on July 14, young residents of Tel Aviv established a tent city in one of Tel Aviv's nicest neighborhoods to protest the high costs of housing. The tent city phenomenon snowballed from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands and spread to many other cities in Israel with participation significantly increasing with every week that passed.
Two weeks ago, over 100,000 people joined protests, and on a recent Saturday, in weekend demonstrations, the number was 300,000 (equivalent to 15 million here), all chanting the movement's slogan, "The people demand social justice." Initial efforts by members of Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition to dismiss the leaders of the J14 (so named for its J14 Twitter hashtag) as "spoiled," "leftist" and "anarchist" have failed, and public opinion polls reveal broad support for the protests in almost every major economic, religious or ethnic group in Israel, except for the extreme Jewish right wing.
First Published August 15, 2011 12:00 am
