Forum Post: WSWS: Fresh protests in Israel
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 31, 2011, 10:54 a.m. EST by SandyEnglish
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Fresh protests in Israel
More than 40,000 people took part in a mass rally in central Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Saturday night to demand an end to the government’s free market policies that have resulted in soaring prices and increasing poverty and social inequality.
Demonstrators carried banners saying, “The people demand public housing” and “The people demand a bigger budget”. The influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement was to be seen everywhere with placards saying “We are the 99 percent”. Another said, “Occupy Oakland”, the Californian city.
Speakers called on Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu “one last time to answer the demands of the people”—i.e. for a “social budget” with greater spending on social and public services.
Protest leaders called for a “people’s strike” on November 1. Their statement described it as “an additional stage in the historic struggle for social justice…. [W]e will all go on strike because of our individual distress, but also in order to show solidarity with the hardships of others.”
THANK YOU for posting this, SandyEnglish! Last summer, 300,000 Israelis marched in Tel-Aviv - quite a sight to see!!!
And this all started with ONE gutsy young woman named Dafni Leef, who began a sit-in with a couple of friends... They have much the same kinds of demands as we do and call their movement "New Israel", just as some people have begun to call ours "New America".