Tent City Rothschild!

So I am back in Tel Aviv, I arrived back at 5 this morning, which actually, at time of writing was yesterday morning but hey, who's counting?

So the first thing I did was go down to Rothschild to witness first hand the tent city that has erupted in this bastion of Tel Aviv life. This central artery has, in fact, been turned into a camp site.

I went down there with my camera to snap away at the life that is now being lived by the new inhabitants of this exclusive place.

Due to the fact that I can't place decent shots on my Blog directly I have created a new space just for my pix. To view all of them in a much higher quality format click through to Marc's Pix:

I didn't realise at the time but I had stumbled onto the nerve centre of the whole movement at the top of Sderot Chen before I had even arrived at Rothschild. I snapped a few pix of these guys and only later did I realise that Yigal Rambam was in my lens.

Tent Protest boss Yigal Rambam

This man was telling me how Gilad Shalit is never coming back

Israel's Dilemma

According to Ha'aretz:

"The forum of eight senior cabinet ministers convened to discuss the escalation in the south. A senior diplomatic official in Jerusalem said participants discussed the possibility of additional military strikes against terror organizations in the Gaza Strip. The anonymous source also stressed containment efforts. “No one wants an Operation Cast Lead 2,” he said."


Apparently for the leaders of the country this is really complicated, so I am going to simplify it for them, the options Israel has are as follows:

1. Launch continued air strikes against Gaza until Hamas run out of missiles or decide to stop firing.
2. Launch a ground incursion on Gaza and leave
3. Launch a ground invasion and stay
4. Attempt some kind of peace process

It really isn't that hard to understand that whichever way they go Israelis are probably going to die. It is impossible for Israel to force Hamas from firing rockets into Israel, it is only possible to do one of the above. It is perhaps a subtle thing to note but also incredibly poignant. Israel has the power to inflict massive damage but Israel cannot get inside the minds of Palestinians and flip a switch that will make them stop hating us.

All of the above have been done before and none have prevented attacks on Israelis.

Whichever of the above options is chosen the sad likelihood is that it isn't going to work.

The Reason No Changes Ever Happen

Well that was a nice little movement for change that was being built there once.

Then there was an attack by terrorists and suddenly demonstrating wasn't a patriotic enough act. The protests aren't exactly finished, but the wind has definitely left their sails.

Now it looks like we are going to have to sit back and watch the movement for social change disintegrate along with our relations with Egypt.

Analysis on the Terror attack near Eilat UPDATED 19/08/2011

By Marc Goldberg

Now that the dust has begun to settle more facts about this attack have come to light. So far there are 9 dead Israelis and 30 wounded.

A total of 7 of the perpetrators were killed by security services, 5 of them by Israelis and 2 by Egyptians.

What has also become clear is that Israel actually got off lightly considering the number of terrorists involved (claimed to be 15-20). Their objective may have been to kidnap a soldier or civilian and spirit him/her back to Gaza.

Israel had received intelligence that a major attack was about to be launched by the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a group affiliated to, but not a part of Hamas. Acting on this intelligence Special Forces units Yahsar Golani and the police's SWAT team YAMAM were already in the area, accounting for their speedy response. Fighters from the YAMAM actually crossed into Egypt briefly after being attacked from the Egyptian side of the border. They killed 2 terrorists and quickly returned.

There is a timeline of the attacks here.

The attacks began with a terrorist squad opening fire on a bus injuring 10 people. They then opened fire on a car killing four people, one of the squad opened fire on an empty bus and detonated his suicide belt killing both himself and the driver. Then a squad from the Golani infantry Brigade arrived on the scene killing one of the two remaining terrorists only to be hit by gunfire from the lone remaining terrorist who then fled the scene.

At 13:30 local time 2 more gunmen opened fire on Israeli forces in the same area as the first attack. They are reported to have been firing from the Egyptian side of the border and were killed by fire from the assembled Israeli security services. Egyptian security forces are reported to have killed another two terrorists in the area.

At 19:00 local time there is more shooting from the Egyptian border with one fighter from the YAMAM reportedly seriously wounded and transported to hospital.

Today's terror attacks in Israel show a worrying level of proficiency on the part of the perpetrators.

Not only did they carry out their initial attack successfully but, as this report of events shows, had correctly assessed Israeli counter measures and eliminated them also. Though in all probability the quicker than usual response of beefed up Israeli combat units thwarted the attackers in achieving their goal of a more prolonged operation and a kidnapping.

According to Y-net "Later a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt, and another terrorsit opened fire at IDF forces that arrived on the scene. According to [GOC Southern Command Major-General] Russo, two operatives were shot and killed over the border fence, and it appears that Egyptian forces killed two others on their territory."


So first the attack and then an ambush of responding IDF forces. There are a number of details the terrorists would need to have in order to plan such an operation. First the bus times and route, the IDF response to an attack, including where the nearest military base was and the likely size of the force that would be sent to investigate. They also would have needed to know the border patrol operations on both sides of the fence in order to overcome them to get the force consisting of a suicide bomber(s) as well as at least one other person to set up the explosives that were later found and defused by the IDF.


The second attack, which rescue services said was on a passenger car, happened close to the site of the earlier ambush." 

This kind of attack hasn't been seen in Israel for a long time, it serves as a reminder to the 1950's before UN peacekeepers were sitting on the border. It can't help but be viewed in context of the changed reality along the Egyptian Gaza border now that the new regime has made it easier for Palestinians to cross over into Sinai from Gaza.

There are ways that this could go from bad to worse and really it depends on the Egyptian response. Should the Sinai descend into a terrorist playground there will be more attacks and a high likelihood that at some point the IDF will cross into sovereign Egyptian territory to intervene. In a more substantial way than happened during the attack yesterday.

The Israeli response was swift and effective, a base used by the PRC was bombed killing (according to Ha'aretz) "several high ranking members including: Kamel Nirab, the head of the PRC; Imad Hamed, the person responsible for its military activity in Gaza; Khaled Shaath, a leading member of the PRC’s military wing who was involved in rocket attacks on Israel; and Khaled Masri, who was involved in kidnapping soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. The Shin Bet security service suspects that Hamed is the one who planned yesterday’s attack near Eilat."

The Egyptians have poured large numbers of forces into the Sinai in an effort to wrest control of the area away from various militant groups. The number of forces is unclear at the moment though it is thought to be over 1,000 soldiers and includes armoured vehicles.

The additional forces were sent in there before the attack yet clearly have not, as yet, been able to pacify the area completely. The number of Egyptian military units currently in the area is actually higher than that agreed upon in the Camp David peace talks of 1978 though Israel has consented to the higher numbers of Egyptian security personnel in the area.

Emergency crews treating the injured

Rob Woolfson speaks out Part 2

Part 1 can be found here

I cannot help but comment on the six demands of the protesters. Before I do I would like to make it clear that I feel that this protest may lack the direction, leadership and staying power necessary to see it through.

WHY?

It shies away from politics, not wanting to alienate people or get involved in the wider issues. But it cannot do this for ever. The protest is against the current states of affairs, and the only one who can do anything about that is the government. Therefore politics are going to get involved and when they do its going to mean compromises, and some people being worse off. Think about it like this. If all the people who wish to buy a house get what they want and house prices are suddenly 30% cheaper, that means anyone who owns a house has lost 30% of their asset.

There are people out there that have stretched themselves over the past couple of years to buy a place to live. A serious house price decrease could even put them with negative equity. You cannot please everyone here, and the blind statements of the protesters with no recognition of consequences is quite problematic. Additionally you may hear people saying we must leave the west bank, which could affect 300k people, or reduce benefits to the Charedim, another 300k - 500k people. These people might be less deserving of sympathy, but they are still citizens and they cannot be left completely out in the cold. “You can please some of the people...”

So on to the demands, and my criticism:

1. Minimizing social inequalities (economic, gender-based and national ) and creating social cohesion;

This is too general, how can this happen? This sounds like the kind of thing that would take tens of years to implement.

2. Altering the main principles of the economic system;

The economic system in this country is what drives innovation, we create companies and start ups and invent technologies in order to make money. Capitalism drives us, it's what has pushed us to the forefront of technology over the past 20 years. Removing the possibility will remove the impetus for doing so. I hadn’t understood that the organization of the protest was so socialist. I was under the impression it was middle class people realizing that enough is enough and we cannot afford to live they way we should on what we earn, especially when we compare ourselves to our equivalents in the western world.

3. Lowering the cost of living, achieving full employment and state-imposed price controls on basic items;

There are 3 separate points here, the first and the third are tied together. The first is what I thought we all wanted. This should be the number 1 demand by itself. The problem is that you cannot say to the government “make everything cheaper” without consequences. If it is achieved by forcing companies to charge less, do not be surprised when they lay off chunks of their workforce (probably lower class and not the people who are protesting - so who cares right?). Or alternatively by charging less tax and therefore having less money available for schools, doctors and transport. The third point has a similar problem, the only realistic way to have state imposed prices on things is to provide subsidies and that money must come from somewhere. The second point here is not connected to the other two as far as I can tell and is utterly ridiculous. It is impossible to have full employment, this country has a very low unemployment rate, compared to other countries in Europe and the US who have been hit badly by recession, we are in pretty good shape. This point just makes the organizers of the protest look clueless.

4. Giving a clear priority to the areas on the outskirts of cities, both in the social and the geographic sense;

5. Treating the essential needs of the weaker population in the country, with an emphasis on the handicapped, the elderly and the sick;

6. Investment by the state in its citizenry in the fields of education, health and personal safety, and providing genuine solutions to the housing shortage, from transportation to public infrastructure.

These last three points are more on the mark, though I am not sure why the handicapped and elderly need more focus than making sure class sizes in schools are down, and there is free and good education up to the end of a first degree for all. Its all part and parcel of a welfare state. point 6 is exactly what we want, better transportation and infrastructure, better education, these are things we should be entitled to across the board. But none of these things are possible without money. You cannot expect the government to suddenly say that they found some more money for all the stuff that you want. It must come from somewhere. If it doesn’t come from the settlers and the charedim it means we have to pay more tax. I am all for paying more tax as long as it goes to something worthwhile. I am not a socialist but I do believe in a strongly focused welfare state. It is they way the UK used to be, though sadly no longer.

My demand would be to look at the books. I want to see the country's accounts and statistics. I want to see how much tax we are paying on what, and more specifically where that money is going. I talked before about how it is difficult to force companies to put cheaper prices on products. While this may be true, there are many oligopolies here, particularly the banks. In the UK they stopped charging for withdrawing money at one bank and after that they all stopped charging. The banks here won’t do such a thing because they have agreements that they are all going to rip us off equally. We have no choice. This is what the government should be doing. We need an active and effective Office of Fair Trading, to enforce the breaking down of monopolies and more specifically oligopolies. I believe that these two demands would be far easier to implement and far more effective than the 6 vague demands currently being made.

Guardian Middle East editor downplays systematic persecution of minorities in Arab world | Just Journalism

Guardian Middle East editor downplays systematic persecution of minorities in Arab world | Just Journalism

This article is a great example of how excellent journalists can't even mention Israel without being slated.

Black is an excellent journalist who has been following Israel for over 30 years writing excellent pieces about her.

Let's not go mental every time we see Israel mentioned in the press people.

Test

This test should only appear on Facebook once rather than a gazillion times

Rob Wolfson tries to figure the protests out:

Part 1 of 2

We are told it's about social justice. What does this mean? Do we even have any right to ask for this without asking for what would easily be seen across the world as true social justice, which is giving the Palestinians their own land, and allowing the Arabs that live here in Israel to live as equal citizens with everyone else?

Reading through the #j14 tweets on Twitter and related articles, it seems that this protest is being criticized across the left wing of western world and the Arab world, for being hypocritical in asking for our own social justice while not requiring the social justice for the local Arabs as well.

So are we not allowed to have our own separate problems that have nothing to do with the Arab Israeli conflict?  And if we are allowed such problems are we allowed to do anything about them before solving the problem of the occupation?

I have no answers to these questions. But it raises the issue, is anyone allowed to complain about anything if there is someone else in the world worse off than them?

A reply could be that there is a difference here. In the J14 example, the Palestinians are on the doorstep, these protesters could do something about it. Staving children in Africa are far away, what can I do about them?

A fair point. But such an answer falls in to the a very stereotypical category that somehow all Israelis hate Arabs and as such wish to keep building the settlements and never allowing a Palestinian state. I would hazard a guess that a large majority of the Tel Aviv protesters are left wing and hence pro two state solution, they probably even voted for it. So they have done what they can, now they are trying to make a difference about something else.

My second retort is that we don’t know where this might lead. Social justice could cascade, it could start with young professionals being able to afford to buy somewhere to live, and end in middle east peace. Do not write off a movement for requesting something that is true and fair, just because you believe people should be protesting something else. Next time you see someone from PETA make sure you tell them that their cause is wrong and they should be dealing with the homeless on the streets. You fight the battles you can fight, and hope that by winning them other justices get done in its stead.

My own personal views on this is that a solution to peace in the Middle East will be mutually beneficial in many ways, we will stop funding settlers. Settlers will contribute more to society and pay more tax. It will cost us less in defense. Eventually economic cooperation will lead to stronger local economies and hopefully lower gas prices. We will all benefit and life will become affordable. For me the Palestinian problem is intrinsically linked, no one from the protests will push for such an agenda because they want to be all inclusive. But this is part of the solution as least long term.

Blisteringly sexy, she killed Nazis with her bare hands and had a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. As she dies at 98, the extraordinary story of the real Charlotte Gray | Mail Online

Blisteringly sexy, she killed Nazis with her bare hands and had a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. As she dies at 98, the extraordinary story of the real Charlotte Gray | Mail Online

London Olympics 2012

Strenger than Fiction-Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News source.

Strenger than Fiction-Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News source.

Six Changes the Protesters Want to See:

The following are what the major news outlets are reporting that the demonstrators wish to see:


Minimizing social inequalities (economic, gender-based and national ) and creating social cohesion;

Altering the main principles of the economic system;

Lowering the cost of living, achieving full employment and state-imposed price controls on basic items;

Giving a clear priority to the areas on the outskirts of cities, both in the social and the geographic sense;

Treating the essential needs of the weaker population in the country, with an emphasis on the handicapped, the elderly and the sick;

Investment by the state in its citizenry in the fields of education, health and personal safety, and providing genuine solutions to the housing shortage, from transportation to public infrastructure.

Pretty damn socialist stuff!

I’m really angry about it actually, it’s like there’s no way out. The one time we had an opportunity to put some pressure on the government, get them to raise the % of the vote necessary to get elected into the Knesset, to have them enact anti monopolisation legislation and it all got fucked cos a bunch of idiot 20 somethings are living in la la land!

The Problems with a Facebook Revolution as Opposed to your Regular Garden Variety One

The problems with a Facebook revolution are becoming evident, it's all well and good for thousands of people to turn up to demonstrations but someone is going to have to provide them with a real voice. It's not going to be enough for large numbers of people to merely march.

At some point a concrete manifesto of changes will need to be presented to the government. Where is the leadership that can write one?

I suspect that the reason none of this has happened is twofold, number one because a Facebook revolution is a pretty wishy washy affair, a bunch of people hearing something is happening and rushing in. Someone who started a Facebook group is hardly a toughened revolutionary in the mould of Che and secondly because there is simply no faith in the government amongst the people, so why issue any demands when you are already sure they won't be met?

It's easy to understand why people feel so disconnected from their government, lets look at someone who voted Labour in the last election. They would have done so in support of the Labour manifesto of Ehud Barak who ran on a platform of returning to the peace process and a largely social democratic economic agenda. What did this voter then get from the party in return for his vote? He saw this supposedly left wing party become part of the most right wing government Israel has seen for a long time, no participation in the peace process and no social economic gain and why? So that the leader of this party could be the Minister of Defence.

This works exactly the same for the right wing, tens of thousands of people voted Likud, genuinely believing that they were voting for a party that was utterly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and was looking to entrench Israeli control over the "disputed territories" of Judea and Samaria only to see your party win and hear the new Prime minister instantly retract his campaign pledges and start making positive noises about a Palestinian state. In fact the only people who seem to have gotten anything out of the elections are those voting for Kadima and they aren't even in the government!

This is why the demonstrators are bending over backwards to make it clear that their protest is not political. Clearly that isn't true, it would be a contradiction in terms for a demonstration to be apolitical. What they are really doing is keeping away from the hypocrisy and poor management associated with government. The very fact that politicians have chosen to attack demonstrators as 'leftists' rather than attempt to engage with them is (for me) evidence of just how far removed they are from the people that they are supposed to be representing.

Bibi is currently attempting to challenge Palestinian attempts to declare their state in the UN while 5% of the country are out marching about something else entirely. This kind of disconnect simply cannot continue. To pull together yet another ministerial committee isn't going to be enough this time.

So this leaves the Facebook revolution with a problem, in order to see any genuine change they may well have to either go to one of two extremes, either give up in the face of a government that is content to point the finger at the demonstrators and label them as 'leftists' rather than actually consider any real change or go the whole way and insist on a massive overhaul of the entire political system which will ensure that any future government will have to align itself more closely with the clear will of the people.

The likelihood is that neither will happen and these protests will peter out after a while with some vague legislation passed that changes nothing more than the aesthetic. Lets hope that is not the case, more than that, lets all work together to make sure that that is not the case!!

The Protesters Don't Have a Clue!!

Guest Post by ROB


Three nights ago I got dragged, under protest, to join the thousands of people on the streets demonstrating against the high cost of living in Israel. I have to admit that despite not wanting to go I did find the experience quite amazing. So many people were coming together from all sides of the political spectrum to express their unhappiness created a real feeling of unity amongst the protesters. 


But quite frankly it ended up looking a lot like a bunch of white middle class people complaining that they can't afford what they think they are entitled to. 



My reaction to this?  SPEND LESS!  I looked around at the demonstration the other day and I saw people protesting that they don't have enough money at the same time as they were calling their friends on their iphones and taking pictures with their SLR cameras.  I saw this and wondered how many of these people have cable and flat screen TVs?  How many people shop in AM/PM for double the price of going to the shuk?


My argument to these people is that if you cannot afford it then don't buy it! 


The person with whom I was discussing this said to me, "You can't expect everyone to dial back their lifestyle." Actually that is exactly what I expect! To demand lower prices rather than to stop spending unnecessarily is ridiculous.  In fact if everyone stopped buying things, that would force the companies charging exorbitantly high prices to rethink their strategy. To continue spending is just to head for recessions like those in the US and UK. 


I know, it's controversial to disagree with a socially conscious protest on this scale.  But we have to ask ourselves why we are in this situation and whose fault it really is? I am not immune to the arguments of the demonstrators and I get where they are coming from. The attitude for many years on the part of the government has been to spend on defense, spend on security for the occupied territories, and give lots of money to charedim, even though most of them barely contribute to society. Additionally import tax is so high that we are left to the local oligopolies that supply us with our basic needs like dairy products. 


I have no problem with paying high taxes, in theory, but when it does not get manifested in better roads and transport, better infrastructure and better welfare for the poor and needy, as well as good and free education and health care for all, I get pretty annoyed. In fact my taxes are going to pay for free education and health care for someone else that has no intention of doing the same for me.  


But the answer to this isn't to sit around in the middle of Rothschild and moan about it!


I figure that this movement will probably collapse in on itself. True that there are many people coming together to complain, but it's the root causes that need to be solved, not even building more houses.  And herein lies the problem with the movement, it does not have any clear goals. What exactly do they want? How will it be achieved? More to the point how will it be achieved without harming someone else? 


I believe the issues raised here are real issues, I simply do not believe that this movement has the answers.

Just Listen to the Israeli People!!

People's frustration at the fact that they will never be able to afford their own home or be able to buy a brand new car is the reason that they are demonstrating.

Every Israeli knows that "the state will fuck you". As a new immigrant I was surprised by the passion of Israelis when they told me that if they had a British passport they would leave Israel immediately. I have spent years ignoring this discontent or writing it off as being a "grass is always greener phenomenon", but now that the discontent has boiled over and become a tangible thing I am forced to confront what has been staring me in the face since I moved to Israel in 2001. People are not happy in Israel and they are sick and tired of paying over the odds for everything from toothpaste to cars.

This is the long and short of the argument, anything else, particularly Bibi's comments that this is some kind of left wing conspiracy, organised with the sole intention of removing him from office is a nonsense.

What is interesting is that Bibi immediately attempted to legislate his way out of the problem with fast track housing laws, exactly what the protestors didn't want him to do. His attempt to simply pull the rug out from underneath the demonstrators rather than actually deal with them and listen to their concerns doesn't seem to have worked.

This isn't about quick fixes or papering over the cracks

Pesach Hausfater, the coordinator of the Dror Yisrael movement, called passage of the law "a stinging, painful slap in the face by the Israeli government" according to Ha'aretz (full article here). Carlo Strenger, the Ha'aretz columnist wrote in the Guardian's Comment is Free the other day that:

"But it could also be that Israel's secular middle class will feel this is its last chance to assert its rights against the coalition of national-religious, extreme right and ultra-Orthodox parties, and that this is the moment to stop Israel's move to the right that is pushing the country towards an apartheid regime, moral, economic and political bankruptcy".

I hate to break it to him...it isn't and it has nothing to with any of this stuff. He is just as guilty as Bibi for not listening to what the protesters are actually saying.

No one in Tel Aviv is interested in Ha Matzav people have absolutely given up caring about it or expecting a change. The government doesn't reflect Tel Aviv any more, the people who fund the country are utterly ignored by the people who are spending their money, the least that could happen is that these same people could be allowed to enjoy a decent standard of living while the country is utterly failing them in every other way.

Someone else is going to have to fight against the Haredim and the right wing loons this is about the sushi eaters not anyone else!

‘The Israeli summer’ protests: The winds of change or a storm in a teacup?

Our very own Dan Kosky joins the protesters in Tel Aviv:

In a country where even most twelve year olds appear to have a political opinion, popular protest wouldn’t usually dominate the news.  However, the mass demonstrations which began in Tel Aviv two weeks ago have now spread far and wide.  Not only is the discontent hogging the headlines, but there is a feeling that it might just bring about fundamental political change in Israel.

Social-economic protest in Israel has previously been thought of as the exclusive preserve of the left-wing, but the sheer scale of these protests has well and truly laid that myth to rest.  It is estimated that 150,000 Israelis took to the streets on Saturday evening – hardly the work of a few radical socialists.  Anyone who has attended the demonstrations knows that they are characterized by avowedly middle-class protestors, who are typically well educated, hold good jobs, pay their taxes and serve in the army’s reserves.  All in all, the ‘rabble’ is essentially the type of ‘salt of the earth’ Israelis which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu identifies with.  In truth, this is part of the problem for Netanyahu – While he is well practiced in satisfying the economic demands of narrow interest groups such as the ultra-orthodox, he is unsure how to deal with this type of mainstream discontent.  

Netanyahu’s dilemma is also caught up in his failure to immediately grasp the nature of the unrest.  At first, he mistook the protests as a simple housing issue and promptly outlined plans to make changes to the Israel Lands Administration.  However, the continued unrest has demonstrated that the issues go far beyond just housing and cannot be solved with simple bureaucratic cosmetic change.  In reality, the turmoil is not just about housing and nor is it only about petrol prices, healthcare, VAT or any other single issue which has been mentioned of late.  The protests are an impulsive expression of frustration from a large swathe of middle-class Israel which feels that it is being exploited – While being constantly fed tales of how well the Israeli economy is performing, middle Israel sees a spiralling cost of living and has come to the conclusion that someone else is prospering while they, the backbone of society, are not.  Amusingly, Likud minister Ayoub Kara yesterday branded the protesters “sushi eaters”- Presumably for Kara, authentic demonstrations are marked only by downtrodden proletarian revolutionaries manning the barricades.  Not only is Kara’s supposedly derogatory comment a good indication as to why politicians have been wisely kept away from the demonstrations so far, but it merely confirms that we are witnessing the empowerment of a previously silent middle-class who yes, may well have a penchant for Japanese food.

Meanwhile, the protests have been criticized for lacking direction or agreed concrete demands.  There is plenty of truth in this and it is still unclear what the end game will be.  However, to dwell on this is to miss the point.  Something has changed in the last two weeks or so.  The government is listening – As the first mass protests took place, Netanyahu cancelled a trip to Poland in order to outline his housing reforms and now he has refined his approach by announcing panels to “propose a responsible and practical plan to alleviate Israelis’ economic burden.”  Yesterday President Shimon Peres gave the protest ‘leaders’ an audience, giving further credence to their complaints. 

Whether the protestors are middle-class ‘sushi eaters’, ‘lefties’, students or in fact all of those things and more, they have put social justice back on the Israeli political map and in a country so singularly focused on issues of war and peace, that is nothing short of revolutionary.  The current government may well weather this storm.  The Knesset will soon break until September for its summer recess and by the time parliament returns to action, all attention will likely be focused on the UN vote on Palestinian independence.  That leaves a short window of opportunity for the protestors to institute concrete change.  However, should they fail to do so the impact that they have made could still be profound.  Elections are likely less than two years away.  The protestors have ensured that social issues could well be a vote winner in Israel as never before, significantly shifting the parameters of the country’s political discourse.            

    

Anyone heading for New York?

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