'Anonymous Activists' Strike Again in Israel, Organizing Protests Over Rising Prices and Lower Living Standards and Demanding 'Social Justice'

In a 2007 survey, 95% of Israeli Jews described themselves as happy, and a third said they were "very happy." The rich are happier than the poor, and the religious are happiest of all. But the broad thrust, so incongruous to people who know Israel only from headlines, suits a country whose quality of life is high and getting better. Israel avoided the debt traps that dragged the U.S. and Europe into recession. Its renown as a start-up nation — second only to the U.S. in companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange — is deserved. A restless culture of innovation coupled with the number of brainiacs among the 1 million immigrants who arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s has made Israel a locus for high-tech research and development, its whiz kids leapfrogging the difficult geography to thrive in virtual community with Silicon Valley. All this has combined to make the Palestinian question distant from the minds of many Israelis. And the distance is not only figurative. The concrete wall Israel erected on its eastern side during the second intifadeh sealed out not only suicide bombers but almost all Palestinians. An Israeli Jew can easily pass an entire lifetime without meeting one. - Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace, TIME Magazine, September 2, 2010

A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: Almost $114 Billion

Direct U.S. Aid to Israel (millions of dollars)
Year	Total	Military Grant	Economic Grant	Immigrant	ASHA	All Other
1949-1996	68,030.9	29,014.9	23,122.4	868.9	121.4	14,903.3
1997	3,132.1	1,800.0	1,200.0	80.0	2.1	50.0
1998	3,080.0	1,800.0	1,200.0	80.0	?	?
1999	3,010.0	1,860.0	1,080.0	70.0	?	?
2000	4,131.85	3,120.0	949.1	60.0	2.75	?
2001	2,876.05	1,975.6	838.2	60.0	2.25	?
2002	2,850.65	2,040.0	720.0	60.0	2.65	28.0
2003	3,745.15	3,086.4	596.1	59.6	3.05	?
2004	2,687.25	2,147.3	477.2	49.7	3.15	9.9
2005	2,612.15	2,202.2	357.0	50.0	2.95	?
2006	2,534.53	2,257.0	237.0	40.0	?	.53
2007	2,500.24	2,340.0	120.0	40.0	?	.24
2008	2,423.8	2,380.6	0.0	39.7	3.0	.5
Total	103,614.67	56,024.0	30,897.0	1,557.9	143.3	14,992.47
Notes: FY 2000 military grants include $1.2 billion for the Wye agreement and $1.92 billion in annual military aid. FY 2003 military aid included $1 billion from the supplemental appropriations bill. The economic grant was earmarked for $960 million for FY 2000 but was reduced to meet the 0.38% rescission. Final amounts for FY 2003 are reduced by 0.65% mandated rescission, the amounts for FY 2004 are reduced by 0.59%, and the amounts for FY 2008 are reduced by .81%.

Source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Biggest Rally in Israel's History Presses PM

September 3, 2011

Reuters - Hundreds of thousands marched Saturday for lower living costs in the largest such rally in Israel's history, bolstering a social change movement and mounting pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take on economic reform.

Protest leaders called it "the moment of truth" for the grassroots movement that has swollen since July from a cluster of student tent-squatters into a countrywide mobilization of Israel's middle class.

"An entire generation wants a future," read one banner as demonstrators flooded the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and cities throughout Israel, shouting "the people demand social justice."

Netanyahu has warned he would not be able to satisfy all the protesters' demands, ranging from tax cuts, to expansion of free education and bigger government housing budgets.

Organizers said over 450,000 people took part in the demonstrations. Police put the number at least 300,000.

Protests on that scale in Israel, with a population of 7.7 million, are usually held over issues of war and peace.

"Tonight is the pinnacle moment of a historic protest," Amir Rochman, 30, an activist from Israel's Green Party said.

"Israel will no longer be the same," Itzik Shmuli, head of the National Student Union and one of the protest leaders said at the rally. "Our new Israel demands real change in the priorities of its government."

Though the turnout was lower than the ambitious one million some had hoped for, commentators said the movement had made its mark on Israel by catapulting the economy onto a political agenda long-dominated by security concerns and diplomacy.

Social media also played a role in the Israeli protests, inspired partly by the impact of Arab Spring demonstrations.

Since it began, the popular movement has upstaged a diplomatic face-off with the Palestinians for U.N. recognition of statehood and has posed the greatest challenge yet to Netanyahu, halfway into his term.

"HERE TO STAY"

Although Israel enjoys a low 5.5 unemployment rate and a growing economy, business cartels and wage disparities have kept many from feeling the benefit. Many protesters come from the middle class which bares a heavy tax burden and sustains the conscript military.

The weekly protests prompted Netanyahu to set up a committee to explore a broad revamp of economic policies. The government has also announced housing and consumer market reforms. Protest leaders have indicated they will pause demonstrations in the coming weeks until the committee submits its conclusions. But Shmuli said at the rally that the movement was "here to stay."

"Priorities must be set, one thing comes at the expense of another," Roni Sofer, a spokesman for Netanyahu, told Israel Radio Saturday, adding that the government would not break its budget.

Netanyahu's governing coalition faces no immediate threat, but the protests have underscored the potential electoral impact of a middle class rallying under a banner of "social justice."

Israeli Officials Vow to Cut Cost of Living as Prices Skyrocket

August 7, 2011

Huffington Post - Israel on Sunday formed a panel of government ministers and some of the country's leading economic experts to draw up a plan to reduce the soaring cost of living, marking a new effort to defuse demonstrations over prices that drew over a quarter-million people onto the streets the night before.

The announcement comes after three weeks of mushrooming protests sparked by complaints over housing costs. Since then, the protests have gained new momentum as Israelis grow increasingly frustrated with their struggle to make ends meet despite economic growth in the country that is outpacing that of other developed nations. Saturday's turnout of over 250,000 people in public squares presented Israel's most stable government in years with a chorus of discontent it could not afford to ignore.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to rein in expectations, and said Israel would need to proceed cautiously, especially after Standard & Poors downgraded the U.S.'s credit rating on Friday.

"We cannot take all the lists of problems, and all the list of demands, and pretend we will be able to satisfy everyone," Netanyahu said. "We need to be fiscally responsible, while making some socially sensitive amendments."

After weeks of vague calls for change, protest leaders published a list of specific demands late last week, including the construction of affordable housing and a reduction of the 16 percent sales tax. It is not clear how they would pay for the array of services they are demanding.

The government committee will present its recommendations within a month, Gidi Schmerling, a Netanyahu spokesman, told Army Radio.

Netanyahu "has defined a goal – to correct social wrongs – and he will work towards that goal in a genuine and intensive manner," Schmerling said.

The protest organizers – a loosely organized group of young Israelis stunned by the mass response to their complaints – have called for a million-person march in 50 cities across the country on Sept. 3. While they have sought to steer clear from appearing political in their calls for reform, the mass rallies have given voice to the growing wealth disparity in the country and what critics contend is an inequitable distribution of government resources.

"Netanyahu and his ministers won't be able to ignore this outcry," veteran commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Sunday. They would be obliged to listen, "not because they believe the outcry is justified, but because it reflects a force that threatens their continued hold on power."

With the size of the movement clearly indicating it would not fizzle any time soon, Israeli officials have sought to show they're taking the demands seriously.

"This is an impressive phenomenon and we must be attentive to it," Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said of the protests shaking this country of 7.7 million. Israel's cost of living, he added, is "unjustifiable and unreasonable."

He woved swift action to help working class Israelis struggling to cope with the cost of living.

Itzik Shmuli, chairman of the Israel Students' Union and a protest leader, welcomed the panel, telling Israeli Radio that they supported any "kind of attempt at dialogue with us, the protesters."

But Stav Shafir, another protest leader, said in a radio interview that protesters would not back down.

"We must continue to ask for solutions, not for ones that will come in September," Shafir said. "We must demand them now."