Israeli anti-privatisation movement stronger than ever

This video from Israel is called Tel Aviv Demonstration 3 September 2011.

By Ben Chacko:

500,000 protest for social justice in Israel

Sunday 04 September 2011

Nearly 500,000 marchers took to the streets across Israel on Saturday night in protest at the country’s housing crisis and the high cost of living.

The country’s media estimated that 300,000 had demonstrated in Tel Aviv alone. Taken together the protests were the largest in Israel’s history and represent the high point so far of a summer of grass-roots activism under the slogan “The people demand social justice.”

The movement has seen repeated demonstrations and mushrooming “tent cities” across the country.

Marchers carried banners denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s neoliberal economic policies which read: “Privatisation kills the state” and “The market is free, but not us.”

Others made references to the Arab Spring which has swept other countries in the region. A popular sign waved by marchers read: “Revolution in Egypt? Done. Revolution in Tunisia? Done. Revolution in Israel? Under way.”

Crowds in the capital chanted: “Get off your balconies, the country is collapsing” and “Bibi, Bibi, go home,” a reference to demands that Mr Netanyahu leave office.

Some protesters carried placards reading “Social justice – leave the settlements,” but the majority confined their concerns to domestic issues including the rising cost of housing, education and food and the failure of wages to keep pace with inflation.

Sharon Riwkes, a clinical psychologist on the protests, said: “I’ve had enough of always working and never advancing. You have to work several jobs just to survive.”

National Students Union leader Itzik Shmuli said: “Tonight society will divide into an old type of Israeli who just accepts things the way they are and a new type who will join us in pushing for change.”

This is a video of the Israeli protest movement.

Israel’s largest ever protests oppose inequality; here.