'Bibi, You're Fired!' (photo by H. Schenker)

Inspired by Tahrir Square (photo by H. Schenker)

Meretz USA (in the process of changing its name to “Partners for Progressive Israel”) has been benefiting from on-the-scene reports from our chaver (friend, comrade, colleague), Hillel Schenker, a veteran Israeli journalist and peacenik who is currently co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal:

The signs all over Tel Aviv leading up to the big demonstration read: “Where were you on September 3, 2011?” Well, I was together with 450,000 Israelis on the streets, over 300,000 in Tel Aviv alone, with another 50,000 in Jerusalem, and 100,000 in Haifa and the north.

There were clusters of organized demonstrators: from the Israeli student union wearing blue shirts, green flags and “Bring Back the Welfare State” placards among the Meretz people, red flags and placards from the Hadash (Communist) people, the City for All of Us faction and the Arab-Jewish proletarian Da’am party, and the National Left people with a placard of a smirking Netanyahu with the slogan, “You’re Fired!”- but mainly just plain people with their home-made signs.

…. The march headed out with drums, whistles and slogans, placards and flags held high, and turned left on Ibn Gvirol Street. The most popular slogans were “The People Demand Social Justice (Ha’am doresh/tzedek chevrati“), “Hoo, hah, look who’s coming/ the welfare state (Hoo ha, mi zeh bah/medinat harevacha)” and “The state is crumbling/get off your porches (Ha medina koreset/t’zu min hamirpeset)”, the latter two rhyming in Hebrew.

Truth is, even the porches were participating, with groups of people with pots and pans banging out their solidarity. … I see a protestor carrying a sign – “Walk like an Egyptian”.

…. The old order is over – we are the “New Israel” proclaims Yitzhak Shmuli (31), the articulate and charismatic head of the National Student Union. … Careful not to mention the words peace, or even social justice, he gives a powerful rabble-rousing speech, says that the protesters are in it for the long haul, and introduces the name of a potential new political party that may evolve out of the protest movement, Yisrael Chadasha/New Israel. Shmuli rushed back from overseas to participate in the protest….

Cinema student Dafni Leef (25) is Shmuli’s counterpart, and in many ways opposite. She began the whole process seven weeks ago when she announced an “Event” on Facebook and with a few friends set up the first tent on Rothschild Blvd. People knew that Saturday night’s demo would be a success because 350,000 people had already pressed the Facebook button ‘Yes’, not ‘No’ or ‘Maybe’, to the question of whether they were coming to the 9/3/11 “Event”. Leef gave a passionate, very personal speech. They tried to slander us, at first calling us spoiled brats, sushi and nargila (water pipe) lovers. Then they said we were left-wing extremists. … “I am in the center, and no one can push me into a corner!”…. She also dared to attack the current form of Israeli capitalism as the root of all evil. A hush came over the crowd when she recalled a poet friend who committed suicide two months before the protest began, because he felt that given the state of Israeli society, he couldn’t dream, couldn’t be a poet. We must create a society where young people can have the right to dream, to be poets, she exclaimed. ….

So what does it all mean? First of all, the 9/3/11 demonstration was a tremendous success, against all odds. But it is not an ad-hoc one time phenomenon. It is the climax of an extraordinary, unexpected Israeli summer of social protest, a link in the chain of grassroots social protests sweeping the Middle East, Europe and Latin America in the spring and summer of 2011.

There will be no overnight revolutionary transformation in Israeli life. But as Dafni Leef declared, the movement has initiated a fundamental change in the Israeli discourse. And as all of the young leaders and most of the commentators state that the events of this past summer will have a profound impact on the long term direction of Israeli society. There were placards which read “We’re Going into Politics – Register for a Party – Change from Within!” not calling for joining any particular party, but to simply get involved in the process. During the past decade, the percentage of Israelis voting in national elections dropped from 85% to 62%. That is going to change, particularly among the previously apathetic, sometimes hedonistic and fatalistic younger generation and middle class, and also among the 20% of the Palestinian Arab citizens. Old parties will have to change or step aside, and new forces may emerge….

You may read Hillel Schenker’s entire report online by clicking here. Here are links to his earlier commentaries on this burgeoning movement:


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